The work deciders have discouraged my use of over-the-ear headphones. My beloved Parrot Zik 2.0's now sit quietly in their case while I use earbuds. Allegedly my earbuds are more approachable, or something. As if I wanted to be approached. I listen to music because I don't want to know everyone's life. No more than I usually pick up on, anyway. People talk about dinner and pick-ups and drop-offs and weekend plans and I don't want it taking up space in my brain; this thing is pretty much full.

Also I could keep the earphones on without listening to music and it would serve at least to dull the office thrumming and hawing.

These earbuds I'm using now lack the sonic quality of the Parrots. The parrots sounds like I'm sitting in the middle of the band and they're all playing directly to me. More than once I've turned suddenly because I thought someone was speaking behind me, when it was only some surround sound magic.

Bose makes earbuds too. Might be justified. I'm fortunate to work in an environment where I can listen to music, after all, and I spend my money where I spend my time. Also on toys, although not much lately. Not since we got the house. Now I have to buy house-things.

There's also my money-saving scheme, which is the opposite of buying toys. I only have one credit card now, and it was at 15% interest. Screw that, I sez, and I take a loan out against my 401k for like 4% interest, and pay off the entire balance of the credit card. Now the credit card is still there for emergencies (and movie tickets because the app hates my debit card for some reason) and the loan payment comes out of my paycheck as a contribution to the 401k, so it's pre-tax. It should end up saving me something like 1,000 a year.

So now I'm broke, but not poor. Clawing my way towards not owing nuffing to nobody.

Except for the all the soul-debts. I haven't checked on those in a while.