I don’t get lonely.
Some of you may call it denial, some a character flaw, but the truth of it is: I’m an introvert. I’m never sad when I don’t have plans or when plans get cancelled. If they’re cancelled because someone is sick, then I feel badly for the sick person but at the same time feel glad to spend the night with a book in my hand and a dog in my lap. The two feelings are not mutually exclusive.
Which brings me to being left behind whilst Julie visited the Emerald Isle.
I was not invited, nor should I have been. It was an opportunity for Julie to spend some time with kith and kin. We’ve been doing Down the Tubes for less than a year, Hearing Things with Julie and Brad for less than two years, and have only known each other for a little longer than both. Naturally, there are plenty of things we’re not going to do together. And that’s fine, that’s how being DHH BFFs and business partners should work.
But it made me yearn for the days when I do get to travel with her because we’re speaking overseas somewhere.
If I may be so bold, I feel the DTT is going to change the world. Which means we need to travel all over said world. With our infotainment style we present serious topics with a dash of humor. Humor is the keystone to our approach to both our hearing health advocacy and our lives. We both were bullied as children and we both struggle every hour of every day to live in a world not made with our hearing needs in mind. If we didn’t laugh we’d cry. And the work we’re doing helps us, those in our lives, and those strangers we come across.
But it’s a lot of work.
At first I thought the week would be a slow week. Julie and I have at least one worknight a week and frequently more than one with a full workday on Saturday to boot. Not to mention constant texting as we pound the virtual pavement making connections both with people and with our own behaviors and how they’re related to our hearing loss. But when Julie was in Eire that all slowed to a trickle.
As well it should.
But it didn’t stop.
As you saw last week, leaving The States doesn’t mean leaving hearing loss behind. My own hearing is one of the reasons I’ve always been hesitant to travel. Though her many photos of fresh pints of Guinness, of emerald landscapes, chipped away at that hesitancy. The regular photos highlighted how weird it was to not have a worknight that week.
If you stop and look around this website, you’ll see how much content we have. That doesn’t spring magically out of the ether. It takes planning, organization, and a damned lot hard work. But what’s more, it’s fun!
Before she left we recorded all the Hearing Things episodes for May. Once an episode is recorded, I add the title cards, the theme, and credits. I use ClipChamp’s auto-captions to make open captions but have to keep an eye out for any egregious errors. I don’t have the time to make them perfect – what with having a full time job and all – but the tech allows me to make them at least mostly accessible.
When it works.
I got the first 3 episodes edited and added descriptions with relevant links (including the plugs for our Patreon and merch store…hint, hint) Then I scheduled them on Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Podbean. That’s when the tech was all like, nah, I’m done.
It took me four days of troubleshooting to get the captions to load on the fourth video. Then I noticed a typo in the description of a previous video. Then I struggled with adding the accessibility widget to our website.
I’ve been working with technology for twenty-six years but that doesn’t mean I know everything. Technology changes so quickly that I’m constantly learning. But one thing I’ll never learn is how long something will take. A quick tech task is as rare as a super blood blue moon.
All work and no play made Brad miss Julie.
But I wasn’t lonely. The introvert duality of loving alone time and loving spending time with friends is a confusing one for extroverts to understand. But there it is.
All the work for DTT is usually balanced out with playing with Happy and Rocky or gorging on Peeps or watching the Bruins or just generally having a fun time. But there was none of that this week. Sure the occasional “Are you kidding me?!” text from Julie kept the entertainment factor from bottoming out. But it’s not the same.
There’s a reason we introduce ourselves as DHH BFFs first and business partners second. They’re both true. Yet this week I had more business and less BFF. The next time she goes to the land of my people, you bet your sweet bippy I’m going to tag along.
Just because it’s work,
Doesn’t mean it’s not fun too.
Down the tubes we go!
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