This is my brain on music

If anyone was to see me in any public location, they would probably have noted that I tend to wear my iPod all the time. This need to listen to music stemmed from those early days when I moved to the city and had to stand outside in the snow for 35 minutes waiting for a bus to pick me up 20 minutes late and drive me to physical anthropology or whatever. As tends to happen, people try to communicate with you and being a 17 yr old girl with absolutely no ability to converse with others, I did my best to build walls to prevent awkward encounters with others of my species. 

When I started spending 12+ hours per day at school, eventually I had to use a public bathroom... but my bladder just really didn't want any part in that activity when it knew other people could hear it expending fluids. 

So, to appease that inexplicable discomfort, I listened to my iPod whenever I went to the bathroom... and like the whole *I cant see you you cant see me* mentality of four year olds, my bladder was totally cool with vacating itself if I couldn't hear others existing in my vicinity. 

An unfortunate side effect to all this ipod-ing was the idea that my brain developed:

Brain: HOLY SHIT you are unabashedly cool when music is playing!!!

 This led me to do totally stupid things while my brain backed me up like a groupie

Brain:  OH MY GOD KEEP DOING THIS OTHERS RESPECT YOU AS A PERSON FOR HAVING SUCH TALENT.

 Its usually not until minutes/days/years later that I realize I probably was not so much painfully awesome as just painful to be around. 

My brain, then deciding to turn on me, opts to remind me arbitrarily throughout the years of my complete social ineptitude and haunt me on any day that I almost convince myself I'm a normal functioning person in society.

Last week I was studying for a final at school and nature called. So I grabbed my music player and cranked up some sick ole tunes (Fall Out Boy - Young Volcanos.... just saying) to accompany me to the public bathroom.  I was completely overcome with the beatz (with a Z) in my ears and so to show just how cool I am, I started snapping my fingers while walking in a jazzy way with this SUPER COOL look on my face. I was pretty sure that if there was ever a dictionary to be made with the word "ballin'" in it, it would be me at that exact point in time.

Unfortunately, if there was anyone in the hallway that morning, it probably went something more like this:

My mind's intense need to reaffirm an inflated self esteem has been telling me these lies for a long, long time. 

In high school, I drove around this broken down beater truck that smelled like fish plant, and I'd blast the BEST tunes that early 2000s had to offer, roll my window down (regardless of season) and move my arm like some kind of demented turbine windmill to the beat of said awesome song. 

I can only assume whoever was lucky enough to be in my shitty-truck-with-no-muffler was wholeheartedly spellbound by just how awesome I was to be able to move my arm in a swivelly pattern to the tune of female pop singers.

But In reality, I never had that many passengers and, in hindsight, its probably because I drove around town hopped up on red bull and flailing my arms like a savage .

My brain's tyrannical desire to make me queen of the music player world didn't stop there - it became inter-continental. 

Just before I arrived in Cuba for vacation with my mom, I downloaded the BEST cd dial up had to offer that I just happened to know approximately 32.3% of the lyrics for.

Simply because it would have been basically treason for me not to share my impeccable singing with others from another country, I made a point to go out on my balcony not once, not twice, but EVERY night I was there, blast my headphones and wail out 32.3% accurate lyrics. 

Brain: "You are THE cool"

Even now when I think back, my brain pictures some random people stopping below the balcony and smiling and cheering and clapping like I was Celine Dion or some other equally respectable and popular singer that you people listen to these days. 

My brain, clearly, is a dirty lying ho-bag.

So if you ever see me wandering around the hallways or speed walking to/from my car with my headphones in, and some kind of inane facial expression on my face... please stop and remind yourself that the only difference between me and Hodor is my ability to say any word other than Hodor.