Or was it? It’s odd how confusing it can be when you think something is so and so, but it’s not, because it’s harder to sense. Or in this case hear. When I was in the military I had a minor mishap with ear-protection falling out of my ear just moments before an assault rifle went off less than half a metre away from it. Good going, I could hear the intense whine for three days afterwards, and that’s not counting the whole lying on the ground feeling messed up and dizzy.
Enough about that, I learned later that I had lessened hearing in my right ear (I think, it’s still a bit confusing…), after a test after the sound in my ears had stopped being in the way of it. Oddly enough I forgot which ear it was that had reduced hearing, and it’s not really crossed my mind a whole lot (though there has been moments of “Eh, wut u SAY?!” and I’ve tilted my head (the right side) towards the person). That’s not really the point either, because those moments are fleeting, passed in the blink of an eye, and then it’s past. Which this moment was too, but this moment really struck me.
Somehow I had managed to fuck up the sound settings on my computer. When talking on Skype the speaker on the other end could hear themselves from me through some magical means in the settings. That left me to mute a whole buttload of channels by the elimination method while yelling into the Sound Recorder (while it’s probably a whole lot more fun to shout at other people, I doubt they’d subscribe to it).
During my fuckup moment I had managed to flip the balance to the left ear without thinking/noticing. Shit, that’s not a problem, right? So I go through the settings trying to find the right one that I messed up (for some reason I was in dumbass-mode this evening, so it took me some time). Eventually I find it, grinning at me. Damned slider.
Moving it with grace and precision towards the middle I quickly found myself pushing it beyond the middle, just messing around. For some reason my left was hearing worse than the right, so I pushed it back in the direction from whence it came. It was awesome. The sound was balanced. I think. This is where confusion comes into the picture - after an hour or so it felt like I had lessened hearing on the other side again! So I turned it towards the right, but was that right? Nope, that felt decidedly weird. Really weird, so back it goes, and then the whole unbalanced feeling comes back again. Which is it that’s right? Left? Neither? I’m still not sure. I feel a bit lessened on the left now that I have it in the middle, but I’m not sure.
This shit’s messed up, and I’ll figure it out eventually. Might it be some balancing thing in my ear that went the way of the Dodo? Meh, confused. It was right, right?
