An earbud has fallen...

3/4/2013

Today's going to be an interesting (or shall I say, challenging) day... Yesterday, when I went to a coffee shop at the crack of dawn to make some major progress on my memoir, tragedy struck. My favorite coping tool, a set of noise cancelling earbuds (the ones from my January 19th post), failed on me. Actually, only one earbud died, and it was about time after a year and a half of HEAVY usage and being crammed into the side compartment of my purse, but it was VERY noticeable.

My cockatiel during one of his quiet moments.

I tried to fix it with a little wiggling of the wire but all I got was a brief sputter that didn't last. I knew I wanted to get a lot of writing done and wasn't willing to chance it by going home (too many distractions, especially my affectionate cockatiel who's always needy for my attention). So, I hunkered down at a table by the window (after switching locations twice because of triggers nearby), then played music in the one working earbud and put an earplug in the other ear. It was so obvious how amazingly effective those earbuds are. The ear that had the working earbud was completely isolated from outside sounds but the one with the earplug, as good as it is, still let in the dull sound of surrounding conversations. There was no comparison. Those earbuds are awesome! Extremely effective for blocking my misophonia triggers.

What's interesting is that I found myself noticing the visual triggers around me moreso than the times I've hung out at a coffee shop before. I don't know if it had anything to do with my unusual hearing situation but I found myself switching sided of my little table for two whenever I caught a glimpse of visual triggers in my peripheral vision, (typically, bouncing legs of people sitting at adjacent tables.) I found myself most comfortable at the side of the table that faced the window, but that also put me in the aisle as a potential bumping hazard. So, whenever the triggerer left, I switched back to my original seat only to switch back when a new triggerer emerged. I must've looked silly moving around my table like that, especially when I had to constantly rotate my laptop too, but what could I do?

So, after seven hours and over twelve pages of writing completed, I left the coffeeshop and began my quest to find replacement earbuds. I went to three nearby Verizon stores, since I got them at a store by my office. The first one I walked out as soon as I went in. (Too busy...) The second and third were diagonally across from each other at the mall (still don't understand why they did that). The second one said they didn't offer corded headphones. The third one had corded headphones, but not an exact replacement for what I had. I was only interested in my exact model because in over a decade of wearing corded headphones, they were perfect. Comfortable. Noise-cancelling. Wonderful sound...

[Sigh] I'm just counting down the hours when I can go back to the store where I originally bought them. I've got my fingers crossed that they'll have them again (or at least the newer version of them)...

7 Comments

Catherine Barber

3/14/2013 07:30:00 pm

I couldn't bear to do what you do which is to not only go to coffee bars but to actually do your writing in them! (Ouch!!!)

For the last few years I've avoided modern cafes and coffee places because they have some of my worst trigger-sounds in them: those expresso coffee making machines which the (human) operators most mindlessly do bang around on (is this what they call 'ambience' (!) ). These machines seem to have been (humanly) designed for heavy-handed slam-happy human operatives.

How you manage to relax and do anything creative in these places is beyond me !

Emlyn Altman link

3/17/2013 02:23:04 am

You know what's funny, if it weren't for those earbuds, I probably wouldn't be able to work in those coffee shops either. Then again, Tooki (my cockatiel) is so vocal with his whining sometimes that I don't care where I go. I just have to get out of the house.

It still requires quite a bit of extra effort for me to work in a coffee shop though. I have to get there right when it opens, otherwise I can't choose an optimum table with the least amount of nearby triggers. Luckily, several of the coffee shops are pretty big, so I'm able to sit very far away from the barrista area with their noisy machines but I'm sure if I wasn't wearing the noise cancelling earbuds, I wouldn't be able to sit comfortably anywhere in the cafe.

I try not to overstay my welcome though. After several hours of writing (e.g. around noon or 1 p.m. after having arrived there at 6:30 a.m.) and buying food so I don't abuse the privilege of taking over a table like that, I give up the table to other customers. Knowing there aren't many other quiet options available at that time of the day, it usually means that I have to go to the public library, or work at home with Tooki on my shoulder. (As long as he's on my shoulder, he's pretty quiet.)

Catherine Barber

3/14/2013 07:34:40 pm

Also meant to say, I love your cockatiel. Can he actually speak? Or even imitate sounds......?

Emlyn Altman link

3/17/2013 02:32:46 am

Funny you should ask. Cockatiels have been known to speak, and I always leave the Disney Channel on for him when I leave for work (figuring if he's going to pick up any phrases, at least anything he'd pick up from TV would be rated "G"), yet he's better at imitating sounds than anything else. He imitates the microwave beeps (I swear I'm a good cook that doesn't solely rely on the microwave in the kitchen...), he imitates my laugh (including my gasps for breath when I'm laughing unusually hard), he even imitates the sound of me brushing my teeth.

But one sound he makes, which I'm convinced is as a result of my coping with misophonia, is that he imitates the sound of plastic scraping against plastic. I've never really thought about it before but I've noticed at work that the sound of silverware clinking on chinaware is one of my triggers too. I'm pretty sure I mentioned in my posts how I've pondered my Mayo Clinic visit many times afterwards and I'm convinced that the reason why, for nearly two decades, I gravitate towards my plasticware and Tupperware plates over using my chinaware is because subconsciously my body protected me from the clinking triggers. Tooki must've heard the plastic-against-plastic scraping sound so often, he just naturally picked it up.

It's amazing how sometimes we instinctively protect ourselves from triggers and not even know it!

Kathy

3/16/2013 07:37:22 am

I was wondering if you could tell me whether one can switch off the sound using a control on the mic on those earbuds when you're using them to listen to music or podcasts. I looked at the info about them on Amazon but they did not say anything about this that I could find.

BTW - you have a line on the bottom of the main page which refers to a "Contact Us" webpage, but it's just a link to the main page.

Emlyn Altman link

3/17/2013 02:12:58 am

Hi, Kathy.

I'm traveling right now (see today's latest blog post) but seem to remember something in the instruction sheet that there's a button on the microphone device that does various things when you click it once, twice or three times. (You can tell how often I use that function %-) LOL!) I tried testing it out by clicking the button while listening to music and nothing happened.

I went back to look at the specs on the Jabra website and the closest reference I see about muting capabilities is in the microphone section where it says it can't mute/unmute a conversation directly from the device. To me, that means it wouldn't be able to mute any sounds on the user's end of the conversation. I'm sure there've got to be some noise cancelling earbuds out there that have that kind of sound muting capability on the speakers. I sent an inquiry to Jabra's customer support to see if they have that feature. I'll let you know if I hear anything back from them.

Thanks for letting me know about the bad link on the main page. I was having trouble with the "Contact Us" webpage and I think when I was trying to fix it, I must've severed the link on the main page. It should be working now.

Catherine Barber

3/17/2013 05:17:15 am

I sent an enquiry to Jabra a few days ago, on their online form, and haven't had any reply yet - so hope you're luckier than I am. Sorry, I've got a terrible memory and can't now remember exactly what I asked....(!) I think it might've been about those Jabra Sports neckband 'phones, as for me, the neckband style is the best because I wear earplugs all the time so can't wear just earbuds on their own.
I'd like to now ask about what you mentioned about making sure there was noise-cancelling abilities in the actual speakers, but now get this sort of feeling Jabra won't bother to reply to that either.

Tooki sounds amusing. I can see you don't want him to pick up swear words from the TV though!

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About the Author

Emlyn Altman has been suffering with misophonia for over 40 years, even though she only found out about the actual medical condition much more recently. As frustrating as the condition has been over the years, her heightened sensitivities across all the senses considerably influenced her talents within the visual fine arts (particularly sculpture), music (singing, piano, and many other instruments), writing, and culinary backgrounds, as well as professional achievements as an architectural lighting designer. Her goal in developing this website is to promote more awareness about misophonia and help other sufferers as well.

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An earbud has fallen...

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