ODE TO EARPHONES

“You spent half of your life trying to fall behind
You’re using your headphones to drown out your mind
It was so easy, and the words so sweet
You can’t remember
You try to move your feet”
-from “Eet” by Regina Spektor

Somewhere among my stuff is a blue Philips Bubble-Series earphones, with one bud missing its covers, and one of the buds is not working (I’m not sure which one). It started to malfunction last August, two months after I bought it. I still grieve the loss; it was my favorite and it looks ultra-hip. And it was expensive for an earphone. It cost about a thousand bucks and there is no way I will permit myself to another set. I had bought it after I acquired a second hand 8-G third generation i-pod from Greenhills.




I listen to music as I commute; earphones offers me a pseudo-sanctuary against the mob that is the commuting crowd, and affords me to get lost in thought amidst the noise of urban living. As I am not one who vies for a seat in the public train i.e. LRT and MRT, when I commute I often stand beside the poles near the entrance or lean on the entrance (depending if a guard is in the same car). It gives me an acceptable excuse not to engage in pointless conversations, and it drowns out pedestrian babble.

When my Phillips Bubble-Series earphone died, and when I was done with my grieving, I had searched for a replacement. I bought a six-hundred worth of earphones, a couple of hundreds downgrade. It has long wires, and I kept thinking that it could not afford to lose it. That afternoon, the electric fan snapped it in two when the long wires got caught with its blades.

So I was re-introduced to my CD-R King phase.

After two earphones from CD-R King, I found an adequate substitute to my Philips earphones: JVC Gummy series earphones. (P396, SM)I chose a grape violet colored-pair. I was satisfied and happily parted with almost four-hundred bucks. I remember I brought after I came back from my home province, after I quit my job and took half-month vacation to relieve myself of the a year-worth stress.



And now, after three months and a week into the New Year, my JVC earphone had started to malfunction. The gold-plated plug had loosened and the music jump from bud to bud. I have an expanded play list but now, once again I am about to be orphaned, denied of my sanctuary to the bustle and noise of urban living.