Apr. 25, 2008 Friday

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A while ago I was typing an e-mail at around midnight. It was a warm night, and we had our windows open to allow the night breezes to flow through. So did the neighbors across the street. They both work evenings and don't get home 'til around midnight. They have a dog. When the dog senses they are due home, he begins barking. Loudly. And incessantly. And sometimes his internal clock is off a bit. On this occasion, the barking went on for what seemed like forever and a half.

I wasn't about to give up my evening breeze, so I crawled into my iPod and put it on random play with sufficient volume to stifle the barking. It worked, and I continued my one-fingered excuse for typing.

At some point a song came on with a rather heavy beat. I think it was Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads. I found that I could only type a keystroke on the downbeat. No matter how I tried, I couldn't break out of the rhythm. So I stopped, concentrated very hard and resumed. For about three seconds, then it was back to 4/4 typing. I know, I could have just waited 'til the song ended, or skipped to the next song, but that would have meant failure. I would not be controlled.

I concentrated again on my typing, and pushed the music into the background of my thoughts. And I succeeded - just as the song ended. I was able to ignore whatever the song was that came up next. I went back to typing.

And somewhere through all that, the dog stopped barking.