I can breathe again! The GM1 came through (I never doubted he would) and found us what sounds like a lovely apartment in the San Diego area. I found the apartment complex's website, and though the pictures were just clear and detailed enough only to tease, it looks like a nice place. It's very handy to public transportation and his job, and best of all, it has a very strict noise policy.
I have a thing about noise. It could probably classify as a phobia if all it did was give me an anxiety attack. But sometimes, instead of fleeing into a quiet spot and wishing I would just die, the right type of noise makes me furiously angry. Classic flight or fight, I guess. I grab my baseball bat and stomp around, trying to work up the nerve to go out there and club into jelly whatever fool it is who equates bass decibels with manliness. That huge, booming, thumping bass, pulsating through the walls, rattling the windows, making sonic assualt in my internals... it drives me truly insane.
I know exactly where this came from. A long long time ago (doesn't this just sound so Story Lady?) we lived in a.... hmm, how to put it nicely? slum colorful neighborhood down San Diego way. Still, it was close to the beach, so I managed to dismiss the complete degeneration sketchy quality of our neighbors. So what if the girl upstairs turned tricks outside the local bar in her van and had an evil son named Benny, whose main joy in life was banging on the windows until they broke or dropping ten pound bags of potting soils on the heads of passers-by? So what if at least once a day I could step outside, breathe deeply of the salty tangy breeze, and watch a live episode of "Cops" on my block? So what if the carpet was brown but had started cream and no amount of scrubbing ever removed the suspicious red-brown stains that the landlord refused to talk about? At the time, we were between the bankruptcy rock and a financial hard place and didn't have a choice.
I survived the summer the upstairs Hussylady (that was our name for her) began to bring clients back to her place. We survived the waterpipe breaks that flooded out our apartment and ruined several pieces of scavenged from Goodwill antique furniture. We even survived the month we were overrun by iguanas, apparently set loose by pet owners and nesting in a shrubs outside our garbage bin, turning cranky if you woke them up to toss in a bag.
Then The Straw moved in next door. He had a tone-deaf girlfriend, a huge church organ he said he'd "found" in an "abandoned" church, and the stereo system of Thor. Within three minutes of his arrival, my wall began to shake so hard all my pictures fell off. I tucked up my courage and went next door to ask him to turn it down. He responded by informing me how "sweet" it was going to be when he got the other four speakers hooked up, called me a bitch, and slammed the door in my face.
It was like being a hamster in a coffee can, with malicious brats pounding on it with big sticks and unceasing energy. To make it even more lovely, Hussylady got a live-in pimp boyfriend who brought his Playstation set-up, complete with huge (you guessed it) speakers he sat directly on the floor. I guess one of the side-effects of meth is staying up all night playing video games.
I was rapidly going mad. (let me add that the GM1 was out at sea and thus is was all my baby).
I called the landlord, who apparently called The Straw and tried to lay down some law. The Straw calmly and rationally responded by beating on my door screaming about what a fucking bitch I was and I could just move my ass out if I didn't like it. I called the cops. They said they couldn't hear it over the phone so it must not be that bad. I called the landlord again. They said they'd informed him of my complaint and therefore their involvement was at an end. I went upstairs to Hussylady's and was told by pimpdaddy her boyfriend that he was great at video games because he practiced ALL the time, and by the way, he has a lot of "friends" who are always on the lookout for "employees" and maybe he should send them to my place.
It went on like this for three weeks, at the end of which I was nothing more than an exposed nerve waiting to be trod upon for the final time.
The GM1 returned from his time at sea, and immediately took matters in hand and found us a place farther north, in a nice complex, that actually had civilized people and rules. Why, you might ask, didn't I do this myself? Because we'd neglected to get a little thing called Power Of Attorney, without which no apartment manager would even discuss the subject of moving in with me.
The fear of being trapped, invaded by noise stayed with me. It's still wormed in, deep under my bones and quivering in the base of my skull. I resent it deeply.
I can go to concerts. I can enjoy music. I love going to clubs. None of those sounds bother me.
But if it becomes invasive, if I'm forced to listen to the vibration thump thump THUMP inside my own safe space, my home, forced by trash with no respect for anyone's rights, I lose it.
I know, I know, I'd never cut it in a big city, where the sounds are in your home 7/24 and you have to yell to have a conversation. I was raised with the debilitatingly naive belief that if you're decent to people, people will return the favor. And I'll never live in an urban center for that very reason. I've found ways to deal with my aversion. I go to the most quiet place in the house. I breathe deep. I turn on a fan and focus on the white-noise quality. I remind myself it will pass.
And I still have my good friend, Mr. Baseball Bat. He speaks for me in trying times like those.
I don't cork, either.