I'm usually not very sensitive to noise, but there is this one motorcycle, yes a motorcycle, that roars past my building several times a day and wakes me out of my sleep, or if I'm already awake, makes my teeth grind and my skin crawl.
Ever since I've spent a few weeks at my parents' very quiet house, and probably more importantly, ever since my stress level has risen enough to permanently make my back sensitive to touch, I have become pathologically hypersensitive to this sound. I can hear the bike approaching from several (5 or 6!) blocks away, and my palms begin to sweat, my stomach begins to churn and I am taken over by feelings of dread. The dude revs his engine over and over and it roars and burps and thunders as if to proclaim to the entire world that this big mean man never got a hug from his mom. And I am stuck here, in physical pain, as if a giant was scraping his finger nails on his super-sized chalkboard.
The guy has passed my building now three times in the last two hours, and in response, I have used my recent experiences in the ER and my growing familiarity with death and injury to try to imagine all the ways he could be mangled, smashed and silenced. Being practical, my first thoughts did not even spare his life. This is a startling example of how I have changed in the last two years. I've never wished permanent physical injury on anyone before in my life (other than the occasional castration, of course), but I suddenly find myself completely untouched by the fact that I wish a complete stranger with a fucking bullhorn for a tailpipe to be crushed between a speeding big rig and a very solid cement wall.
(hm...maybe I should be posting this on an anonymous blog...)
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