Sweet, sweet mercy!

I live in a wooded area, and recently my neighbors have been leaf-blowing, lawn-mowing and chainsawing like crazy, and it hurts my ears so much that I have to flee my house. Except for Sundays when it's closed, I go to the public library, which is thankfully located just two minutes away. (It's funny how driving inside a car doesn't bother my ears too much, while a neighbor mowing his lawn four houses away does.)

To someone with Hyperacusis such as myself, the library is a surprisingly noisy place. The flourescent lights buzzing, the fans blowing air on the books hushing. Worst of all, the computers all throughout the place making that awful mechanical humming sound.

Actually, I prefer to sit in my car in the library parking lot, but A) in certain weather, the car either becomes really cold or really hot (and I can't turn on the heater or AC or open the windows, as any of those options are too noisy) and B) this particular public library of mine is right across from an elementary school, and I worry about making people nervous, sitting there in my car, a few hundred yards from the kiddies. It's sad while the presence of child predators has done to our default level of suspicion towards each other, but what can you do?

Anyway, the other day I fled to the library while a neighbor ran one of those yellow digger things. I forget what you call them, not a forklift. Its noise penetrated my entire house at any rate, it was awful.

When I fled to the library that day, mercifully, the computer closest to the area I usually sit at was turned off! I enjoyed two hours of non-injurious noise (the fans aren't that bad, and the lights weren't buzzing too loudly, either)!

Living with Hyperacusis, I'm used to living in constant fear of pain and noise. It's taken quite a physical toll on my body (I'm six feet and down to 135 pounds), to say nothing of the psychological toll. So whenever I get a little reprieve like this, it makes me blissfully happy. As I sat there reading, I kept bursting out in laughter, just from the sheer joy of not being in pain.

By the way, I was finishing up book two of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight. Not his best offering, definitely not something you want to read if you've never read Gene Wolfe. Definitely start with The Book of the New Sun. Still, it was a pretty enjoyable read, and I took some things away from it, so I'm pleased with it.

Here's hoping my next unexpected reprieve comes sooner, rather than later.

And here's hoping my fellow sufferers get lots of reprieves, as well.