I don't think we're in DC anymore, Tooki...

Auntie Em, Auntie Em! . . . Wait a second. . . *I'm* Auntie Em! (Sigh.)

Here I am. . . Sitting on the floor in my master bedroom closet, Tooki's talons gripping my shoulder tightly, because it's the only place in my apartment that's far from windows. Yes, it's tornado season and our area has major tornado watch alerts happening now. This is definitely not something an east-coast girl is used to doing. It's eerily quiet, but the alerts say to take action now because it's hard to see tornados in the nighttime darkness. The airport that's two hours west from here evidently clocked winds going over 80 mph. Wow!

On a lighter note though... This afternoon I went to the symphony with my downstairs neighbor. She purchased the tickets before her husband passed away and asked me to join her. It was such a lovely experience and brought back so many memories! You see, I used to play the violin LONG ago but even more recent than that, I sang in choirs throughout undergrad/grad school and even one summer years later for the National Choral Society. Music has played a big role in my life over the years and listening to a live classical concert again, over a decade after my last time, was heavenly. Granted, I still had my usual misophonic experiences in such a public place...

She had wonderful tickets in the middle of the auditorium, just a little to the right of center. Most all the seats were filled in the rows in front of us but for some reason, our row and a few of the rows behind us were empty only to start filling up again a few more rows further back. That was my only saving grace to this experience. That, and the fact that the rows were spread out much further apart than I'm used to experiencing (see first image), so there was less risk of people in the rows behind kicking our row... Although it did create another situation that I'll address in a little bit.

The fact that very few people were in our row (no one in the 20 seats on either side of us) came in very handy early on when a family sat in front of us and the father sitting directly in front of me put his arm around his wife and started drumming the

back of her chair - even without any music playing! I had a feeling that fidgeting would be a big distraction to me so as soon as the lights went down and we knew no one else was sitting in our row, we moved several seats over to where we were perfectly centered in the row and even better, no one was sitting in the seats directly in front of us! We had a beautiful view of the orchestra and the featured pianist. At one point towards the end of the first piece, I heard and felt someone tapping his feet behind me. That's when I saw something that, on top of the tapping, caused me to switch my seat again...

As I mentioned before, the row behind us was also very empty - save for a few couples at the far ends of the row. The 40 or so seats in the center had been completely unoccupied, at least sometime before I turned my head and saw a young man in his 20's, sitting by himself, in the seat directly behind me. Now, it's bad enough with my misophonia to have the distraction trigger of someone tapping their feet on the concrete but this also had a bit of "ew" factor to it... Instead of sitting in the seat normally, this guy was beyond slouching. I can't imagine his butt was even on the seat anymore because he was slouched so far down, he looked like he should've been on a couch with a beer in one hand watching the game. What's worse is that even with the rows as far apart as they were, his knees were practically touching my head and his legs were sprawled WIDE open... It gave me the creeps! I mean, out of all the seats he could have been sitting in that row, he sat directly behind me with his crotch at my head. It was so inappropriate, it was revolting. So, when the movement was over and the president of the organization made some announcements before the next piece, I switched to the other side of my neighbor.

On top of the beautiful music, I will say that there's another benefit to going to a symphony for me. As much as I love watching the musicians perform, at least the few times I experienced visual triggers in the rows ahead of me, like one woman who would scratch her man's back over and over, I could close my eyes and just immerse myself in the music. It really brought me back to all those times I performed in orchestral and choral concerts, which actually brings me to an interesting piece of information I recently read that may prove some insight to my lesser severe years with misophonia...

As a Harvard alum, I often receive articles about various research news by the university. One symposium really caught my eye. It talked about the neurological and therapeutic benefits of community singing (like in a choir). I wish I had been able to attend the symposium and although I reached out to the moderator of that session, I never heard back from her. I figure I'll try contacting someone else.  If their research is sound, it might provide some insight into why my misophonia symptoms were much less severe in the decade where I was not only singing in a choir, but also doing "techie" work for one of the men's glee clubs during my higher education years.... Something I hope to investigate further and possibly test my theory by trying to join a choral group again...