After several days of poor rest, I knocked out last night and had some of the best sleep in weeks. It was so good, I can't even describe it properly. And this morning, when I jumped out of bed to hit the snooze five times, it was more of a sprightly hop than the usual half-dead stomp. Getting ready, I even flirted with the idea of humming. In the MORNING!
I knew it was going to be a bad day. Because when I wake up in a good mood, something always goes wrong.
The thing about this bad-mood crap is that calling it out doesn't seem to keep it from showing up. I got on the train, hoping to hold on to my peaceful state as long as I could. What a joke. My train nemesis came and sat down behind me, in all her throat-clearing glory. I've learned to recognize her woven-out-of-seatbelts bag (which I normally would think was cool, but I can't bring myself to compliment it), and avoid sitting near her if I can. I don't know what it is, but those noises she makes just freaking blacken my chicken. And my cold, cold heart.
I was sitting there, fuming, trying to read about this psychedelic-plant researcher, but all I could think was When is she going to do it? Is she going to do it now? How about now? It's been a couple of minutes. AH, there it is. Is she going to do it again? It was driving me crazy.
But then the guy in front of me recognized someone on the train and started having a spirited discussion about the mortgage crisis. They drowned out most of the throat clearing. I realize that normal people are more annoyed about loud conversations than can't-be-helped bodily functions, but I felt a sense of relief. Perhaps my day can be salvaged, after all.
9 comments:
I hate how I get fixated on those things and then nothing else even enters my itty bitty brain. Not even the world's loudest headphones can drown out that type of obnoxiousness - it's like you can still FEEL it happening even if you can't hear it.
My train goes to downtown Los Angeles where the court buildings are and so there are a lot of attorneys who ride during a case. So just as I am starting to nap, some loudmouth starts up with cell phone call to his office and talks in a really, really loud voice so everyone in the whole car knows he is a big-shot attorney on a big, big case.
The first thing he says is "yeah, I'm on the train..." so right away you know he isn't such a big shot because he is a train newbie and this is probably his first case downtown in, like, years. So he starts dictating all sorts of commands like "file this", "get a deposition", "brief the client on that.." and just about in the middle of this we start to go through the first of three tunnels. And the cell phone dies. You know this because the guy starts hollering "Hello? Hello?" as loudly as he can.
So we get out of the first tunnel and the guy by now has redialed and he is saying something like " yeah, we just went through a tunnel..." and he starts up again with his high-powered conversation, when we get to tunnel number two.
His phone goes dead again and by the time he reconnects, we are in tunnel number 3.
The smart ones give up after tunnel number 1 but the really dumb ones will have three separate conversations about the same thing because they are not smart enough to wait for the train to get through all the tunnels before reconnecting.
So my nap is completely ruined and I have to spend the rest of the day wondering if so and so is going to get the beach house and the car or if the other divorce lawyer will accept the counter offer.
There oughta be a law...
i am soooo with you on being fixated, tremendously unnerved and annoyed by noises. sucking noises or people chewing gum makes me feel like i might, one day, be capable of murder. i absolutely lose it.
good to see i'm not alone. also, the subprime mortgage mess has me employed for a while. woohoo!
Hi! You left a comment on my blog eons ago and I'm just now getting back online after dropping off the planet.
LOVE your blog. I can so relate to your train experience. I'm also in Chicago. Gotta love the EL!
I've bloglined you, so I plan to keep up.
Take care.
Your fixation on the throat-clearing person made me realize I have a similar issue. It's with my brother's (otherwise very nice) dog. Several times a day, she sits in the room where I work and begins licking her nether regions for about ten minutes at a time. This wouldn't bother me except that she makes an exceptionally loud suck-and-slurp noise when she does it. Ayeeeee! She's old and has cancer, and the vet says she won't make it until Spring. I know her death is just going to KILL my brother, but I swear some days I'm looking forward to it!
I read your post on IB, great post and now I've been reading as much of your blog as I can!
Bah!! Throat lady! I thought about her just a couple of days ago when a coworker was doing this post-nasal drip phlegm dislodge-thing that made me throw up in my mouth a little... Good times.
Anticipating the horribleness of throat lady is kinda worse then experiencing it, I think. Because you know what to expect so you're just braced for it, the whole time. If it was your first time, you'd be all "Just one cough, it's not going to bother me again" and keep thinking that for the rest of the train ride.
I'm getting cagey just thinking about her throat clearing. GAH.
I've decided that days are neither good nor bad. You're expectations are either too high, or two low. That's all.
Also, throat clearing people on trains should be punched in the face.
That is all.
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