Early Friday evening. Sitting on the couch in the den. Tired after a day of cooking as well as working outside on eBay items that needed just a bit of cleaning and fix-up before they are photographed and put on our site. It’s a good tired. The kind you have after doing physical work. The kind that makes you feel just fine about wrapping up the day and heading upstairs for an evening of television watching. Ray has a new HBO Sci-Fi series that he thought I might like to watch. I’ll be going up shortly after I finish this 20 minutes of writing.

Where to go from here with my writing? I could describe the tinnitus that is an ongoing part of my life. High pitched ringing in my ears on a daily basis. Most of the time I don’t notice it too much, but this evening, maybe because I’m tired, I can hear the ringing loud and clear. However, hearing about one of my maladies isn’t very interesting. What is interesting is that the other day I learned of “Musician’s Ear Syndrome,” which is a condition in which a person who has hearing loss actually hears music playing.

This syndrome is the brain’s effort to fill in sound for a growing-deaf person, and the music can be a symphony or popular set of songs or whatever kind of music the person might like. It is an auditory hallucination, which may sound so real that the growing-deaf person might not even realize it’s not actual music until he or she mentions the song playing to someone nearby. When they respond, “What music?” then a light bulb goes on.

Of course, this is only diagnosed if a psycho-social evaluation and physical examination show the person has no mental or physical problems. Apparently, it is more common than one might think but often goes unreported. Often people are afraid they have moved into dementia. But usually, it’s a signal the person’s hearing has diminished and the brain is trying to compensate for that lack of sound.

Now, to me, that’s interesting! I certainly wouldn’t mind trading this high-pitched ringing for a tune or two. Of course, I hope there would be a good rotation of songs. Hearing the same one over and over might be a bit maddening. (Here is a link if you’re interested: https://www.healthline.com/health/musical-ear-syndrome).

Okay, on that note (no pun intended), I am off for a bath and some television watching. I hope you have a lovely Friday evening and I’ll check back in with you soon.