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Archive | noise complaints

This house is a very sunny tar pit

I’ve likened my parent’s house to a tar pit before in that when I’m here I find it hard to get out and also I smell vaguely like gasoline and feathers stick to me, but usually that only applies to my relationship with the outside world. I get stuck in the house. As if there’s an electric fence surrounding it. An electric fence surrounding a tar pit. Today though I’m noticing an inability to go into the other room to get my portable hard drive which would allow me to edit a couple videos. Without it? Videos will not be happening, at least not at this computer. So then what’s stopping me from lifting my ass off this chair and using my legs to go into the other room and then sitting down and opening my laptop and ejecting the hard drive and then using those same legs to walk back into this room and diving behind this computer (over the pen jar and wastebasket and careful not to knock off the post it notes stuck to this computer) and plugging it in and then sitting back down in this chair? I fell asleep just thinking about it. Plus the other room is really sunny. Like too sunny to have to endure this early, which incidentally isn’t very early. It’s as if I’m hungover though I haven’t had a drink since August 8 or August 1. I can’t remember but it was after a show and it was one beer. Before that I hadn’t had a drink since months before. I make a beeline for fun and then I take a left turn right as I get there. So what I’m saying is I’m not hungover, I’m just lazy. But it’s not true laziness, it’s paralysis. This house paralyzes me and whereas previously it only kept me inside but free to move about, overnight it’s acting like insecticide, or maybe it’s nerve gas, in that I take a movement and then get stuck. Dammit, that would have been a somewhat decent metaphor if I remembered the science behind insecticide and nerve gas.

See, part if it is that I’m currently at my mom’s computer which is big and nice and orthopedically correct and has a nice big chair and though she’s left handed and I’m right handed which means I have to move the mouse when I sit here, I’m ok with that. This is juxtaposed to me sitting on the couch in the family room with my feet up on the coffee table and my laptop in my lap, squinting because the sun is beating the left side of my face through the picture windows and then trying to concentrate even though the TV is on, loud, and people are in the room talking or possibly arguing. Usually I get about as far as checking twitter and then I decide I’m done with whatever I’m doing, or maybe I sit like that for awhile and then I stand up and everything hurts. And then I realize I’m far too young for everything to hurt but I’m pretty sure the coffee table is at the exact wrong height to not create some kind of lumbar chaos. And while we’re on the topic, pretty much everyone in my family has orthopedic problems but I don’t. I have some kind of disc problem which I’ve had forever, ever since getting thrown from a horse when I was 9 or possibly I was born with it, we don’t know, but it very rarely if ever gives me problems. And I like to pride myself on being someone who isn’t complaining about physical ailments all the time, with the exception of that left eye twitch a year ago which I just had to talk about. It’s not that I don’t complain, I just like to only complain about superficial things or feelings/thoughts.

What was I saying? Oh yes, I’m squatting at this computer. Not literally. I’m in a chair. But I’m a squatter. I’ve done a land grab. I’ve annexed it. I’ve absconded with it except I’m pretty sure I’m using that word incorrectly. Let’s check. Yes, that’s not at all what I mean.

And if I get up to get my hard drive? I will quite possible lose this computer. So my plan is to sit here until plate techtonics cause the family room to move closer to the computer room. It’s unfortunate that I already need to pee.

And now I’m overhearing some bickering over which parent I’ll be driving where later. I’m like a yo-yo, only my parents aren’t divorced. They’re just irritable.

You guys, remember when I used to be fun and funny? I miss that!

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I'm not sure if I can hear you

My parents have begun speaking in a volume that I’d put somewhere between a prairie dog burp and a mouse fart. Which is to say, I can’t hear them. The exception to this is in the morning when my mom is having an argument with Tobey. “Tobey, NO!” she’ll scream, the windows rattling. “Tobey, I said NO!” she’ll thunder. Then Tobey will bark a tiny bit and then I’ll stumble into the room groggy and confused and she’ll apologize if Tobey woke me up. Other than this one time of day it’s all hushed tones. At first I thought it was me and that somehow my hearing had been compromised on the flight. “Something wrong with your ears?” my mom would say as I cupped the sides of my head. “No thanks, I don’t like beer,” I’d answer. I was upset about going deaf but getting drunk wasn’t going to solve anything.

And so it went for a few days: my parents carrying on in a way audible only to dolphins, me wondering if I should get a manicure before learning sign language, until I stepped out of the house and was commended on my incredible hearing.

Huh?

You see, all of my Costa Mesa friends used to play in bands and so their hearing is fairly terrible. “That alarm is going to drive me crazy,” I announced a couple days ago. “What alarm?” asked a friend in all seriousness. “Are you serious?” I asked, because I hadn’t read the previous sentence. He nodded and I shook my head in response. Then I clicked four times to indicate a boat on horizon. “There’s an alarm going off in the other room,” I explained. “It’s quiet but it’s been going off for about an hour.” He left to investigate. “Wow, that’s a frequency I no longer have,” he said upon returning. “That’s a shame… but you didn’t turn the alarm off,” I responded. Then I punched him. He never heard it coming.

And then I was at a party with two friends. “Wow, how can you hear that?” they asked when I said that one of the friend’s girlfriends was in the kitchen asking a question about guacamole. “I don’t know, I was convinced I was going deaf,” I said. Then they tried to claim that the reason I could hear and they couldn’t was because of angles and where I was sitting in proximity to the guacamole question versus where they were sitting. I’m not sure if they were right or not.

And… and now I can’t hear myself think because the paternal mouse farter is talking loudly on the phone. Do they just save up their volume for phone calls and yelling at Tobey? Or are they trying to gaslight me? I feel gaslit. Gaslighted? Gaslain?

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I'm December!


I’m December in the (un)Official 2009 Red Eye calendar! Hooray for me! And thanks to Joe for putting this together even if I’m now going to have to hibernate for 11 months or so.

Did I mention my sister made Tobey calendars? Yes, I think I did.

Also, last night I was choosing between two shirts. One which showed off the not-all-that-ample cleavage and a turtleneck. The turtleneck was more comfortable but the other one was more “hey, look at me!” I decided to just wear the hey look at me shirt but then found out we were going to be watching a band outside for much of the evening so I should dress as warmly as possible. “Oh goody” I said with as much sarcasm dripping from my voice as possible. I considered explaining that this plan sounded about as much fun as sitting on my hand for three hours till I lost all feeling and then slapping myself in the face with it but instead I just decided to change sweaters. In the course of doing so I wrenched in some way that made it so my neck and shoulders are totally stiff and now I’m that person who has to turn my whole upper body to look to the left or the right. “I wish I was seeing you guys on a night when I was more limber,” I announced through gritted teeth. Other things I said: “I’m so cold and stiff I can’t hear,” (it makes no sense and yet it was happening) and also, “Sorry I’m so cranky and whiny.” I wasn’t really sorry though. Due the limited mobility I wasn’t able to be as smarmy as I wished when someone I haven’t seen in forever told me he’d seen me on an Adam Sandler special. I couldn’t even nod arrogantly. I love nodding arrogantly!

Also, I was introduced to a guy who patted down and then blew on my coat sleeves. The explanation? “He’s really drunk.” It was strange though because it was almost like he was demonstrating some kind of tailoring prowess. I don’t care if he’s a lush, if I need something hemmed I’m tracking him down.

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Ideal working environments

You might think the jackhammering wouldn’t be conducive to creative thought—or any kind of thought at all really—but see that’s where you’re wrong my small-thinking pals. Because see it’s not relentless jackhammering. It’s jackhammering interspersed with long interludes rip-tearing fart noises. Then more jackhammering.

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Soothing

is not the word I’d use to describe the roof alarm which has been alarming since I got home a little while ago. When I first walked into my apartment I thought “hey, it’s not so loud in here,” but it’s slowly become louder and louder over the sound of me not wanting to hear it.

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