Miscellany

Hi!

Man, I have been slacking with posting here (or anywhere, really) lately. I actually thought about taking a little hiatus while I try to focus on some other aspects of my life, but that just seems too severe. Plus I want to be able to write when I feel like it, and the moment I say “I’m taking a hiatus” I will probably be struck with an uncontrollable urge to write.

Let me just give you a little update on things here. First of all, today I FINALLY called the Cheyenne Mountain Resort to book the extra nights we’ll be staying for this summer’s NFED Family Conference. I called the reservation line and it automatically puts you on hold while you wait in the queue.

I’d like to just mention that the hold music was so fantastic that I wanted to sit there on hold for as long as I could. I’m serious! As I listened to it (and did a robot-like dance in my chair), I wondered if it was the hold music that they talked about on an episode of This American Life, which I used to listen to religiously. After I got off the phone I googled “awesome hold music” and found out that yes, it was the same tune.

Now that I’ve piqued your interest, check it out for yourself here. I’m actually listening to it as I’m writing this post.

Also, if you’ve never listened to This American Life on NPR, you might want to take a gander. An auditory gander.

Speaking of auditory. Yesterday I had a routine visit to my ENT. Good news! My ear is stable. Not that I really expected anything different, but it’s always nice to get confirmation that you don’t have a diseased inner ear. I also had a hearing test. Blah.

I’m not terribly fond of the audiologist my doctor uses. This is the same woman who got the silicone stuck in my ear last year, but even before that I found her annoying. First of all, she speaks really softly, which is a bad quality in a person who is working with hearing impaired people, right?

One of the other things that makes me not take her seriously is that when she does the test where she says a word and I have to repeat it, she doesn’t do a very job of covering her mouth, so I can see her forming the words on the other side of the booth.

Also, it’s the SAME WORDS over and over! They are going to think I had a miraculous regeneration of my hearing because I know it’s:

Ice cream. Toothbrush. Sidewalk. Hot dog. Backpack. Lollipop.

Add a wind sound in my good ear.

Hot dog. Ice cream. Toothbrush. Backpack. Lollipop. Sidewalk

I’ll admit it gets hard when it is just one syllable words. Sometimes I have literally no idea what she said, and I can’t even think of a word to repeat back so I just shake my head in defeat.

At a couple of moments during the test, she turned up the wind sound SO loud in my good ear that I actually had to pull the headphone away from my ear. What the hell. Maybe this is what I don’t like about her the most. She does not seem to notice how sensitive my ears are.

It seems like a paradox that I could be so hard of hearing, yet so sensitive at the same time. I have been thinking about it a lot in the last 24 hours. I am not sure if it’s because I have to struggle to hear sometimes that I am so sensitive, or if I would be this sensitive even if I could hear perfectly. In fact, maybe it’s a blessing that I can’t hear perfectly, because maybe all the loudness in the world would drive me insane.

I really don’t like loud noises. I never have. When I was growing up, my dad had a dirt bike. I don’t think I ever got within 50 feet of it when it was turned on because it was so loud. In fact, when I knew he was going to start it up, I would run into the house and cover my ears. Even now, I practically have a heart attack when a motorcycle drives by me and revs the engine.

Come to think of it, maybe I am just a huge wimp…

Well, that’s enough of an update for now. I need to hit the hay! Goodnight and good luck!