Archive for the ‘noise complaints’ Category
The Daily Alison’s 100th episode!
Yay! 100 episodes! Yay! Woo!!
Oh and that line I butchered is this one:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
It’s from Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn which, incidentally, is where I get all my odes.
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?
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.
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.
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.
