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beandelphikiMom and I went to pay my school fees today, and after that we went to a quilting store in the northwest before lunch. It's a quiet little store, a bit cramped, and colorful ceiling to floor.
We spent about forty minutes there, while Mom looked around and talked to an employee about a sewing machine she sort of wants to buy, if she ever gets the money. (It's an embroidery machine, and costs around eight grand.) I spent my time just amusing myself by poking at stuff, as I've learned to do over many years of being dragged along on excursions to fabric and quilting stores. (At least Mom no longer drags my hands off the crushed velvet, chanting, "Look with your eyes, not with your hands!" Apparently it's okay to look with your hands if you're an adult.)
In one corner, I spotted a painting, and headed over to look at it. It was a landscape, a mountaintop scene: very pretty. I spent some time looking at the brush-strokes up close, and I was especially interested in the way the artist had done the clouds. The edges had been feathered so that they had that perfect wispy look. Then:
Click.
I winced.
Click.
I winced again. What the hell was that noise? I kept looking at the painting, trying to ignore it. In recent years, I've become a little more Zen about noises I can't escape; I try to experience each noise as new, rather than let it build up to the point of overload. I focused on breathing slowly and deeply. Each sound is new; each sound exists onto itself...
Click. Click. Click.
Well, fuck. I felt like I might be sick, as something lurched from the pit of my stomach into my throat with each repetition of the sound.
I turned around to see a man, rather grizzled-looking, who was tapping the keys on his key ring together and looking extremely agitated.
"Are you done? Can we go now?" he asked someone around the corner that I couldn't see.
A more feminine response came back, one that I couldn't make out, but which clearly was not what he wanted to hear: he growled inarticulately, and shuffled from foot to foot.
I turned back to face the painting. I was determined to ignore the noise this time, especially now that I knew what it was.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
That was it. I bolted from the corner, nearly knocking some crafts in the process, and hurried over to where my mother was chatting with a sales clerk. Once I was past the man, and had my back to him, I tucked my CD player under my arm and plugged my ears. I should have had it on; I usually do in public, and it would have saved me some aggravation.
"Someone really ought to cancel your subscriptions," she commented.
Since it wasn't in too nasty a tone, I let it pass, stating that I was going to wait outside.
"You know when you do that-" she was referring to my plugging my ears, "-people think you're weird." That was her parting shot, and then I was out the door.
(Lord only knows what she was telling the store employees while I was out there, but I've overheard enough of her, "I can't take him anywhere, my son is such a weirdo," spiels that I can guess.)
I leaned up against the wall outside and turned my music back on. There was nowhere nearby to sit, and I was awkwardly aware that I looked odd, standing outside a strip-mall store alone. So when the man and his wife came out a few minutes later, I went shooting back in.
Mom and I spent some time looking at the display quilts on the wall, especially one that was a reproduction of a Monet. (No kidding - it was incredible.) Then Mom went to get bolts of fabric cut, and I wandered over to an entirely different corner where there were rolls of sparkly thread to look at. Then:
BEEEEEP!
I jumped around, landing with my heart pounding in full-fledged fight-or-flight.
BEEEEEP!
Like being hit upside the head over and over.
I didn't wait the second time around; I got the hell out of there, scooting to the cutting table with my hands protecting my ears. I didn't know what was beeping, but I sure as hell wasn't sticking around where I could hear it. Maybe it stopped, or maybe the fabric absorbed the sound; whatever, I couldn't hear it at all by the cutting table.
But I was annoyed. I know that this beeping was something that would even drive me to madness over Cyndi Lauper. Little noises like this drive me from space after space, and various small enjoyments, trying to avoid them.
Sometimes I come home from school after a day on the train and just cry because the world is so damn NOISY. I'm a little sick of staying at the school until darkness falls so that the ride home won't frazzle me beyond repair for the evening.
I need noise-cancellation headphones or something.
We spent about forty minutes there, while Mom looked around and talked to an employee about a sewing machine she sort of wants to buy, if she ever gets the money. (It's an embroidery machine, and costs around eight grand.) I spent my time just amusing myself by poking at stuff, as I've learned to do over many years of being dragged along on excursions to fabric and quilting stores. (At least Mom no longer drags my hands off the crushed velvet, chanting, "Look with your eyes, not with your hands!" Apparently it's okay to look with your hands if you're an adult.)
In one corner, I spotted a painting, and headed over to look at it. It was a landscape, a mountaintop scene: very pretty. I spent some time looking at the brush-strokes up close, and I was especially interested in the way the artist had done the clouds. The edges had been feathered so that they had that perfect wispy look. Then:
Click.
I winced.
Click.
I winced again. What the hell was that noise? I kept looking at the painting, trying to ignore it. In recent years, I've become a little more Zen about noises I can't escape; I try to experience each noise as new, rather than let it build up to the point of overload. I focused on breathing slowly and deeply. Each sound is new; each sound exists onto itself...
Click. Click. Click.
Well, fuck. I felt like I might be sick, as something lurched from the pit of my stomach into my throat with each repetition of the sound.
I turned around to see a man, rather grizzled-looking, who was tapping the keys on his key ring together and looking extremely agitated.
"Are you done? Can we go now?" he asked someone around the corner that I couldn't see.
A more feminine response came back, one that I couldn't make out, but which clearly was not what he wanted to hear: he growled inarticulately, and shuffled from foot to foot.
I turned back to face the painting. I was determined to ignore the noise this time, especially now that I knew what it was.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
That was it. I bolted from the corner, nearly knocking some crafts in the process, and hurried over to where my mother was chatting with a sales clerk. Once I was past the man, and had my back to him, I tucked my CD player under my arm and plugged my ears. I should have had it on; I usually do in public, and it would have saved me some aggravation.
"Someone really ought to cancel your subscriptions," she commented.
Since it wasn't in too nasty a tone, I let it pass, stating that I was going to wait outside.
"You know when you do that-" she was referring to my plugging my ears, "-people think you're weird." That was her parting shot, and then I was out the door.
(Lord only knows what she was telling the store employees while I was out there, but I've overheard enough of her, "I can't take him anywhere, my son is such a weirdo," spiels that I can guess.)
I leaned up against the wall outside and turned my music back on. There was nowhere nearby to sit, and I was awkwardly aware that I looked odd, standing outside a strip-mall store alone. So when the man and his wife came out a few minutes later, I went shooting back in.
Mom and I spent some time looking at the display quilts on the wall, especially one that was a reproduction of a Monet. (No kidding - it was incredible.) Then Mom went to get bolts of fabric cut, and I wandered over to an entirely different corner where there were rolls of sparkly thread to look at. Then:
BEEEEEP!
I jumped around, landing with my heart pounding in full-fledged fight-or-flight.
BEEEEEP!
Like being hit upside the head over and over.
I didn't wait the second time around; I got the hell out of there, scooting to the cutting table with my hands protecting my ears. I didn't know what was beeping, but I sure as hell wasn't sticking around where I could hear it. Maybe it stopped, or maybe the fabric absorbed the sound; whatever, I couldn't hear it at all by the cutting table.
But I was annoyed. I know that this beeping was something that would even drive me to madness over Cyndi Lauper. Little noises like this drive me from space after space, and various small enjoyments, trying to avoid them.
Sometimes I come home from school after a day on the train and just cry because the world is so damn NOISY. I'm a little sick of staying at the school until darkness falls so that the ride home won't frazzle me beyond repair for the evening.
I need noise-cancellation headphones or something.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 05:37 am (UTC)Luckily, where I live, there's basically no traffic, and my room is too far from the fridge or anything for me to hear it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-20 08:39 am (UTC)Noises don't affect me in quite the same way, though I imagine that if I was around someone clicking a key ring like that I'd be tempted to split him from stem to stern with a Hattori Hanzo sword.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-22 05:35 am (UTC)Nobody but me would have been bothered by that. *rolls eyes*