in torment

I'm increasingly unable to function normally as someone's always chewing loudly and I just can't be around it. So I mean to be social, and play with kids, and chat nicely about things, but end up fleeing. If you think of my ears as sort of a raw sunburn and other people as unpredictable porcupine-like missiles... It's not nausea.. it's just a nasty phobia like the one i get sometimes in a crowd ...

I can't bear to talk about it!

Oh, the endless cereal, wetly revolving and visible! the grinding jaws! the clank of the spoons against bowls! The vile gulping! The dog, drinking. Worst, I think, the random, unexpected pistachio nuts! Like a cattle prod to the bottom of my soul!

I'm so unsettled and I have a feeling that the crowd-thing is going to get me today in the Br00kklyn Childrens' Mus3um. The sounds of thousands of voices will combine to a babbling hallucination. It's so disturbing. The lack of sleep is not helping. And I will flee to wherever seems likely. Maybe if I bring my computer and headphones? at times like these I crave an iPod. I've had my coffee and I'm still waiting to feel less jumpy.

Something M4rcus Aureliusy about the comfort of being able to retreat in an instant into the scholarly soul of a book....

You realize I'm typing this with earplugs in. Why am I so neurotic?

When I'm old I'll be able to turn off my hearing aid at moments like this. What happiness!

Comments

[Jo]

Dude, mastication is life.