A Pod's Pod

Yes, I am a pod. You know this already, because I tell you of the fact from time to time. I was diagnosed by Mr M many years ago, and though I'm not quite sure what the scientific definition is (as he says, "It's more of a 'you know one when you see it'"), I do accept this fact. I embrace it. I didn't used to, but the inevitable happened that fateful day when I was eating potato chips with a fork. *Hug!* "I'm a pod!" I ate Tostitos with a fork this past weekend.

I grew from podlet into full-fledged pod. And so, as a pod, I live at the Poderosa. I drive the podmobile2 (after the original podmobile went toe-up in a very podlike way, having the steering wheel come off while I was driving on the interstate). I (along with Stennie the Maven) do a podcast.

And since Christmas, thanks to that same Mr M, I've been the proud owner of an iPod.

I love my iPod. No, I don't think you understand. I love my iPod. In a perfect world, a world where women are free to marry computer gadgets, I would be Mrs I. Pod, and I'd come home from work every night, make my iPod dinner, and we'd snuggle together in front of the TV set in wedded bliss. Our Poderosa would be filled with music, and several little tiny iPod Shuffles. With curly hair.

Back during the whole "painting the dennette" period some months back, I did a blog about my first time using the "shuffle" feature of iTunes. And how some of the back-to-back playings of songs made me laugh, or freaked me out to the point where I was starting to question my existence. And from that blog, my friend Kellie (with an ie) left a comment. In it, she told me how she'd written an article, all about statistics, called, "Does Your iPod Have a Soul, Or Does it Just Like Soul?" I think about that title a lot these days.

Because I rarely play my iPod in any way other than "shuffle."

It's a blast. Whether I'm zipping along in the car or walking around the track, I have hundreds of tunes at my disposal, and the excitement of what may be coming up next keeps me driving that extra mile or slogging that extra lap. However, sometimes I wonder about my future husband.

Is he tired? Trying to please me? Trying to make me mad, start an argument?

When he's trying to please me, well, no problem there, he's an absolute doll, and I know just exactly why I agreed to be his wife and have his little iPod Shuffles. There's nothing like the long drive where we're completely in sync, and he's throwing me stuff from the 40s followed by 70s punk, Hackensaw Boys followed by Ray Charles followed by Elvis Costello followed by Spike Jones. And how could I not be in love with the little fellow who gives me poppy and peppy numbers while I'm walking only to slow it down a bit just when my legs are starting to get tired? Then, after a 3-minute rest of slow song, he'll rev it back up.

Sometimes, though, we're just not in perfect harmony. And I begin to wonder about this guy I've fallen for.

Like, why does he occasionally like to give me two artists in a row? Does he have a crush on Gillian Welch? Is he needling me, jealous because he thinks I have an unnatural attraction to Marshall Crenshaw? Does he think I'm depressed? Well, he must have a few weeks ago, because he gave me so many songs by Morrissey and the Smiths, I finally had to start deleting them from his person. And even then, with only two songs in the cue, he played them both!

And it's easy to tell that sometimes he's trying not so much to please me, but himself. IPod's favorite album is obviously REM's "Reckoning," because not a session goes by that at least one song from the album doesn't play. He seems to like Nirvana's cover of "In The Pines" (theirs is differently titled) so much, I finally had to delete it as well. His favorite band must be the Pogues. His favorite Hackensaw Boys song is "Traveling Kind," and his favorite Southern Culture on the Skids song is "Banana Puddin'," which is OK, because it's one of mine, too.

But why? Why oh why does he want to play for me, always late in the dark of night, Allan Sherman's "Ratt Fink?" The file of that song is so loud, and the song has such frantic music at the beginning, that it nearly makes me wreck my car every time it starts. Surely he's not trying to do me in.

And then there are those times when we're just not on the same plane. I guess it happens with all couples. I want fast and hard music to drive by, he gives me band music. I'm looking for funny, quirky lyrics, he gives me sad ballads. I'm hoping for sing-alongs, he gives me instrumentals.

And just this week, he's been showing me another side of himself. I guess it was bound to happen. After I spent all that time, and had all that fun, recording albums and singles and turning them into MP3s, then loading them into Mr iPod, he's promptly turned his nose up at them, and of about 60 songs of that ilk loaded into his sleek, metallic body.... I think I recall three of them playing in two trips back and forth to B'burg. Yes, Mr 21st Century Downloadable Music doesn't like my 20th century vinyl.

You know, when he gets like that I have no choice. I just reach out to him, caress his slim frame, take my index finger - and push his forward button. Sometimes it gets him back in line, sometimes not. But that's part of the great thing about iPod love. One never knows. And hope springs eternal. Hope of the next song.

As far as Kellie's (with an ie) article, I didn't get to read it. I know the answer to the question though. I, the future Mrs I. Pod, know that my intended has a soul. And a brain. And feelings.

I also know that he doesn't really like soul. Four months, one Marvin Gaye song, and a cloud of dust.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Speaking of iPods. On a trip back from seeing the Hackensaws a while back, Mr M and I listened to the latest by Kurt Vonnegut, "Man Without A Country." It was (believe it or not) my first experience with Mr V, and it made me laugh. It also made me think twice about ever using a semicolon again. Kurt died today. RIP.