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my scream got lost in a paper cup, you think there's a heaven where some screams have gone
by mg at 07:55 AM on January 05, 2005
There is no sound I hate more than silence and there is nothing so silent as a room where a child should be playing.
I was away last week with the in-laws, and now I’m back because I gots to bring home the bacon. The wife and the kid are still out in the great wide stretch of land commonly referred to as “the red states,” and man is it lonely here without them.
It is too quiet here. I hate quiet. If I’m on my own, I’ll usually leave the TV or radio running in every room because I can’t stand silence for even as long as it takes me to walk into the kitchen to get a glass of water. But I’ve gotten used to having people in my life (and in my house) and their noise is usually enough to make me happy. I need those human sounds. And in particular, I need those human’s sounds.
No one is here to ask me about my day. Or laugh at my jokes. Or tell me to stop making crude jokes (usually the same joke). Or even just to turn the pages of her book while she sits quietly reading. The radio can’t do that. The TV can’t do that. Not even the inter-nets can do that. It has actually gotten to the point that I’m hoping my alcoholic neighbors start yelling at each other so at least I can feel involved in someone else’s home-life conversations.
The quiet also makes it hard to sleep. Babies take a while to understand the difference between night and day, so they don’t really appreciate the unwritten rule that people who live together have of not screaming their heads off at 4:30 in the morning. As previously mentioned, I hadn’t been getting particularly good sleep before the holidays. I didn’t get particularly good sleep during the holidays. I don’t like silence, and I also don’t really like being away from home all that much, and I always find sleeping on the road to be a particularly difficult task. That was the only reason I didn’t go on tour with Van Halen when they asked me back in ’84.
Now that I’m home, you’d think I’d be able to sleep again, but no. I can’t sleep if it is quiet. (Looking back on this post, I have a lot of problems) Without the impending threat of someone waking up crying in the middle of the night to encourage me to fall asleep early so at least I can get some sleep, I have trouble falling asleep in the first place.
What is worse than the quiet, at least in terms of sleeping, is that the bed is too big. Without someone to push me way over onto the edge of the mattress so I’m almost falling off, I can actually stretch out and sleep in a comfortable position. Who wants that? And, how can I sleep with all those covers to myself? It just gets too hot. And how does anyone possibly manage to fall asleep without someone’s head resting heavily on their shoulder?
My wife and daughter will be back in town on Sunday. My ears can’t wait. The rest of me either.
comments (21)
How about we just play PaddleBall in Central Park, MG?
There's also this great Ping Pong Club on W100th and Broadway...
Porcelain Doll(my daughter), wants to meet your daughter. When?
by LOCKHEED at January 5, 2005 9:03 AM
I hate silence too. In fact, I have to fall asleep with the TV on. I tend to think too much when it's quiet and have a hard time falling asleep because of that. The TV lets me concentrate on some background noise until I fall out. Well, Xanax doesn't hurt either.
I also hear you on the lack of having someone around once you get used to it. When Amy visited her family in Missouri, without me, I had the hardest time getting used to it. The bed seemed too big and the apartment too quiet. She's always doing something I find funny so it was quite a change. ESPN and some good bud got me through it though.
by Ezy at January 5, 2005 1:40 PM
I love silence. In fact one of my favorite trinkets of experience is hearing the world fade away after putting in foam ear plugs and having them expand in my ears. Without sound I find my ability to focus is enhanced. So if I really want to read or study something, in go the ear plugs. The same is true for splitting lanes in dense SF Bay Area traffic on a motorcycle (it took me a long time to figure out that ear plugs are actually safe on a motorcycle), where intense concentration is required.
Then again I also like sound. I love the sound of the world coming back after taking earplugs out. I love the sound of a single instrument against a background of pure silence. If I'm working around the house I usually have the radio or the stereo on - unless I'm studying.
by chris at January 5, 2005 2:05 PM
MG — you have some problems.
by snaggle at January 5, 2005 2:45 PM
Damn Snags, does that mean I have problems too? Christ, more shit to tell my therapist.
by Ezy at January 5, 2005 2:51 PM
Aw ain't love gur-and. You know its gotta be love when the stuff that irritates you ain't there, and you miss it more than anything. I however, am not in love, so I am content to cook all on my lonesome in the covers, with a comfortable and content grin on my features. I don't have people asking me to turn a page, and if they did I'd tell them to it themselves.
MG:- "And how does anyone possibly manage to fall asleep without someone’s head resting heavily on their shoulder?"
I was on the bus home from when I liven Chiswick once, and this old man fell asleep beside me, and his head rested on my shoulder... I was tired, but for the life of me having that head there didn’t help in the slightest.
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at January 5, 2005 3:25 PM
Sleep. I need it it more than ever.
MG you are indeed, ill.
Hello darkness my old friend...
by LOCKHEED at January 5, 2005 3:38 PM
Well you know there are certain things you might do when the missus and kid are away that you might not do otherwise. But myself I never do, it just seems so... I dunno... wrong? Plus there's the browser cache issue.
by Anna at January 5, 2005 6:07 PM
Silence with no people around is kinda bad I suppose, but it's not as bad silence when there are a lot of people around. Designated 'uncomfortable'. There are either rules that state this silence shouldn't be broken, like at funeral, or when it's really difficult to break, like the pent up atmosphere of tension when a horde of people fitting one criteria have turned up for the same job interview. You can look and see lil bit sof yourself in each person there. :)
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at January 5, 2005 6:12 PM
I agree ECGN. But as people grow more comfortable in their own skins they become less uneasy with those awkward interludes. Then again, I've known people who seem to feel some weird compulsion to fill any silent void with inane commentary. Kind of like this comment.
by Anna at January 5, 2005 8:02 PM
I meant to add that when I posted said comment there were 47 users on the site. Now I'll shut up. } :
by Anna at January 5, 2005 8:07 PM
Yes, Anna, all 47 people on this God damn site are users! Users! The lot of you. All you do is take and take. I hate you all!!!!
by Eviltom at January 5, 2005 9:29 PM
Just today I was reading someone discuss the whole use of the word "user." They brought up and example of a software called something like "personal career profile" and that in the marketing and help materials they referred to their customers as "PCP users." The end.
And yes, the visits have gone way up recently, and I can't figure out why. Daily visits have jumped to about 2,500 over the past couple weeks (from about 1,600). Its probably all just random Googlers. Though, that occasionally works out, as the recent appearance of the Ex Crimson Guardsmen on the scene can attest.
by mg at January 5, 2005 11:59 PM
Indeed, I googled for: "Pearls of wisdom imparted by the unknowing" and then, "Huh? Ah, ser gut!" And I also spammed the addresses of every contact I've mustered since I became a child of t'internet, and every addy of colleagues old and new saying that they should check it out. :)
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at January 6, 2005 1:10 AM
Who are U calling the unknowing? We, like, know stuff. I prefer to think of us as the willfully ignorant.
by Anna at January 6, 2005 7:36 AM
Impossible to be willfully ignorant. I tried. Oh how I"VE TRIED. CHEMICAL ABLATION of FRONTAL LOBE.... depletiong of 5ht axon... nothing, boxing my brains out, nothing.... can't shake it....
by LOCKHEED at January 6, 2005 3:14 PM
Well I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
by Anna at January 6, 2005 5:56 PM
I live alone, so I'm used to silence. However, I often turn the tv on so that I have something to fill the void, especially if I'm doing something that requires both hands and moderate amounts of concentration (like knitting or cross-stitching, you perverts). I can't quite bring myself to sit and do crafts without the other noise. I also leave a radio on during the day when I'm not home for the cats.
Oh yeah, silence is rarely complete in my apartment -- often one of the girls will go and push something over or make something fall down or make the other girl crazy, just so that they have some way to distract themselves, too. But I love 'em, when I'm not trying to sell them for spare parts.
I agree with ECGN, too -- having the entire bed to yourself to sprawl as you like and move the covers around however you want and pile the pillows just the way you want 'em is rather nice. Mind you, when the feet are cold or the body's lonely, sometimes it'd be nice to have someone else there, too.
But overall, I likes my space and my quiet or noise. Except for the upstairs neighbours, stompy bastards that they are... one more, I got to wake up to a fucking teenage hissy fit taking place, complete with stompy, swearing and screaming, at 3:30 a.m. I had to be up at 5:30. I was not impressed.
by Jen X at January 7, 2005 1:57 PM
What girls?
by Anna at January 8, 2005 9:55 AM
I think she is referring to her pussy. Cats.
by mg at January 10, 2005 10:19 PM
http://www.medicinetrail.org/david/ climb belongimaginationlent
by current at June 12, 2005 4:44 AM