Noise

I generally do not have an instant attraction to noise. I don't know if this is genetically predisposed, or, as I love to trumpet, "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome," but other than music, noise does not agree with me.

I startle easily, but a random, thudding noise, or, say, the roar of buses down below (like I like to say, two 747s taking off together) really begin a low-grade irritation. Not at all like the extreme noise quotient of a very busy, loud restaurant where you have to shout to your companions. For some reason that does not bother me.

But someone hammering something at 8:43 a.m. on Presidents' Day really gets me pissed off. (Sorry, Ironman).

That day I actually got so tired of it that I went down, disheveled and in my bathrobe, not particularly caring, and said to some guy in the hallway, who actually looked like he'd suddenly acquired a new acquaintance with fear, "What are you doing?" The poor guy positively quailed. I'm not a big guy, not an imposing presence by any means. But I have a laser stare and a very, very cold voice . . . the voice of the grave, if I wish it.

"Uhh . . . uhh, well . . . :

"So why are you deciding to hammer one floor below my bedroom in this paper and cardboard assemblage that decides to call itself a building at 8:43 a.m. on this very fine Presidents' Day morning?"

"Uhh, the schedule . . . they were scheduled to come this mor . . . ning . . ." His voice trailed off.

I think he saw the claw hammer I'd been holding behind my back, because when I turned and stalked off back upstairs and he realised I'd been thinking about doing some hammering of my own, all the noise stopped. Instantaneously. The terror was palpable throughout the building . . .

Okay, I exaggerate, but at least they stopped the hammering.

But to me, the sweetest sound in the world is the absence of sound, like loving the absence of light -- not merely silent, or black, but wave upon wave of velvet silence, the steely blackness of the stars in some remote outpost . . . then some asshole motorcycle roaring up the mountain to make it all complete.

As far as genetically preprogrammed goes, I remember when Taishi was a tiny infant, maybe three weeks old, and I suddenly wondered out of the blue if he was deaf because he slept all the time.

So one afternoon while he was in his peaceful baby-world I decided to clap my hands, like, really loud, to indeed confirm if he was deaf.

Have you ever seen a small infant literally leap a foot in the air? All thoughts of Moro Reflex aside, I swear I've never seen a small object move so fast.

So *sigh* I guess it IS a genetic predisposition . . .