Goldfish syndrome

I was sitting here doing a little computer work and listening to Mozart, with my headphones so I don't disturb my wife...it is her office; after an hour or so I realized that the music was sounding very familiar, more so than just listening to a favorite CD, this was more like "I just heard this."

My cat walks over my portable CD player to get to my partially open desk drawer, which eventually leads her to a basket with a blanket in it on top of my bookcase. In the process today, she changed the mode on the player to repeat, not repeat the whole CD, just the one track. I'm not sure how many times I listened to symphony no. 40 in G minor, but eventually I caught on. In my defense, with no words it's easier to just get lost in the music, although I do have a history of getting lost, literally and figuratively. I once had to stop riding my bicycle about 15 miles from my house and wait until I remembered where I was; that one bothered me a little.

I heard somewhere that by the time a goldfish swims full circle around it's bowl, it has forgotten everything it once knew, and everything is new again. (if I could have worked a Gnu into the story it would have made for a nice homonym progression) Anyway, the goldfish theory would be difficult to prove. I suppose you could wait for them to go by the same spot each time, give them a little jolt of electricity and see if they kept coming around. That's where it gets sticky though, we would assume they had forgotten the previous shock if they kept returning for more, but we would be ruling out defiance, stupidity and nerves that don't actually feel pain the way we understand it.

I guess the point is that sometimes it's nice to be so relaxed and lost in thought that the world goes on without you and everything is still ok. The same beautiful music comforts completely, as it winds back into itself and the beginning and end are lost.

I think we'll be ok, but we'll know more tomorrow.