Random Fact

I just thought I'd share a random fact that I've been meaning to work in for a while. I'm completely deaf in my left ear. You probably wouldn't even know from talking to me, unless you were directly on my left side and I kept turning my head around to hear you. It's not normally a problem, except in situations with a lot of background noise.

It is, however, a little difficult from a cycling perspective. It seems like fairly often I will have a stranger come up on my left while I'm riding and want to start a conversation. I can't hear them without turning my head almost completely around because of the wind. Then I'm crazy sketchy girl who can't hold her line. Awesome.

I also can't use and Ipod when I'm riding outside. You know how people usually just put the right ear bud in and leave the left out so they can hear traffic? Well, if I put in just the right ear bud, I can't hear anything except the music. I'm pretty sure that's a good way to get run over. It doesn't really bother me that much, but I always think of it when other people mention listening to music while riding. I suppose it would be nice if I could...

Like I said, none of this really affects my life in any major way. It's weird because I feel like it's a big enough part of me that it's strange to me when people don't know it, but it's obviously not a big enough part of me that I've been compelled to mention it before now. Of course, I guess I just don't think about it that much; I just see people talking with their cell phone on their left ear and I think, "That's silly. You have your phone on the wrong ear."