During the summer, I sometimes play videos of rain sounds. Partly because of my tinnitus, partly for a need to relax. Videos titled “Heavy Rain and Thunder Sounds for Sleeping” would sometimes trick me, and I’d wake up from a nap a bit confused during the first 5 seconds, as if it really were raining outside.

When last autumn arrived, I worried a bit after the first two mornings of rain because, for the first time, I felt desensitised to it. Better said, I was so focused in other matters that I couldn’t stop my monkey mind enough to focus on the rain and enjoy the sound.

It’s been raining since March started, and this is the weekend where that mental block seems to have disappeared. Thanks to conversations with besties, sudden realisations with my therapist, and healthier habits, I feel lighter and with a less cluttered brain. Just a while ago, I realised how cosy I’ve felt the past two nights with the sound of the rain. I’m in bed and it’s expected to rain all night, and the anticipation is making me smile already.

Ironically, when I seem less active on the internet, it’s usually when I’m spending more time on it. These past few weeks, I’ve kept on learning CSS and HTML, practicing with Visual Studio Code and learning about hosting. Small things, like how to make a link look pretty so that it points to /now instead of /now.html. Turning this blog into a site completely coded by me would be an overwhelming task, given I’m not a web developer (probably even if I was), but what I can do is combine both things and make some slash pages that are completely coded by me, and not by WordPress.

I’ve also been thinking about how to write my future blog entries. It’s tricky because I want to find a common ground between “being real”, journaling about my thoughts and some experiences, and keeping everyone’s business private, including my own. I haven’t shared names or personal details about anyone except for my own name, face, and the country I live in. But I have temporarily set some previous entries as private, until I figure out the best way to edit them, just to be 100% sure I’m respecting everyone’s privacy.

An album for your listening consideration, if you like the late ’90s and early 2000s, when the future was about to start. Eusexua by FKA Twigs reminds me to Ray of Light by Madonna, The Matrix and the commercials for PlayStation 2. It’s electronic, glitchy and raw.

Last.fm user moisesmoran24 wrote about it “ray of light and post just gave birth a non-binary baby.” The second track on Eusexua, Girl Feels Good, sounds so much like Madonna’s Swim, and the title track reminds me of the trance ending of Hyperballad by Björk, from the album Post, and of Madonna’s Sky Fits Heaven.

The album was released on 24 January this year, and it’s taken me a while to press play for the first time, but now I’m hooked.

If I listen to Angel by Massive Attack in any of these three mediums, it will not count on my Last.fm profile, and that’s okay. But in the past, many times I’ve given priority to other ways that tracked my plays over those that didn’t.

The years with the most additions to my CD collection were around 2003-2011, and after that, I might have kept getting around 5 CDs and 1 vinyl per year, but they were mostly to stay pretty on my shelves, and then listen to them on streaming. The latest album I’ve bought, Hurry Up Tomorrow by angelic voice owner The Weeknd, has changed that habit. It’s the first one in a long time that I’ve listened to more times on a CD player than on my phone or laptop. No website will know how many times. Or person, because I have no clue. I just know that I’ve listened to it a lot (oh, that’s a clue).

The ways I listen to music nowadays are:

Last.fm compatible:
Clementine, on my laptop.
Poweramp, on my smartphone.
Occasionally, Spotify Free on web player.

Not compatible with Last.fm:
MP3 Player. I also use it for podcasts and audio books.
Hi-Fi system, at home.
FM radio.
CD Walkman.
Everywhere, played by other people. Bars, supermarkets, music chosen by friends and played on their phones.
Live.

My Spotify Wrapped this year might be a representation of 5% of what I listen to. If I keep using my new Last.fm account, its yearly report will have more accurate data, but it won’t be complete either. At the end of the day, all you can do is laugh the best way of getting to know which music I like is by just asking me.

Microsoft shutting down Skype in May means we don’t have a lot of time to experience our own Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023) if we still haven’t. In the film, childhood sweethearts Nora and Hae Sung get in contact through Facebook —that we can still do— when they’re adults and start video calling each other through Skype, one in South Korea, the other in the US.

There was something special in the anticipation of turning on the computer and getting to see if the person you wanted to talk to was online, or seeing the popup window when they went from offline to online. I have not used Microsoft Teams yet, and with that name, I struggle to imagine it being the substitute for Skype in these matters.

It’s curious that more traditional and not so common ways of meeting a partner are still possible, like at church, or how Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar did in Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005) working as shepherds. I’m sure there are a few couples of shepherds sleeping in a tent yet to happen. Of course, meeting a partner or developing the relationship through the internet, in general, is one of the main ways nowadays. But meeting through specific services like Vodafone Live SMS chat —the way Las Tukus did in real life— or bonding through Skype or Google Talk, will not be experienced again.

Links:
Stanford University: How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST)
https://vjayar6.people.uic.edu/ViewersChoice.html
Las Tukus https://www.youtube.com/@lastukus
Past Lives https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/666277-past-lives
Brokeback Mountain https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/142-brokeback-mountain