Look, I'm a pretty lucky guy. As I often like to remind myself, there are people with real problems in this world, and I'm not one of them. I'm pretty healthy. I'm married to an exquisite woman. We have two lovely, healthy children. I have a hearty gaggle of good, loyal friends, a fast-paced, engaging job and I live in the greatest goddamn city in the world. I have absolutely zero right to complain.
That all said, a man who does not vent every now and again risks imploding from within. So in the interest of clearing the air and getting things off my chest in a true primal scream style (Tears for Fears would be oh so in favor), herewith a this month's BATCH OF BITCHING!
* The Fellowship of The Riiiiiiinnng I've complained about it here before, but in the last two weeks, that little, demonic gremlin named Tinnitus who lives in my right ear has been working overtime. You know the sound you hear when you wet your fingers and rub around the perimeter of a wine glass filled with water? Well, imagine that -- ALL THE DAMN TIME. My ear has been ringing non-stop since October 1999, but it's recently kicked up a notch, and I'm not exactly sure why. Oh sure, it could be the heat, the time of year, the humidity, stress, my diet or -- more likely -- the fact that I've been somewhat irresponsible with my iPod in recent weeks, but who can say? I have been somewhat overzealous in the volume department recently, which is never a good idea. Moreover, I have it on reasonably sound authority (pardon the pun) that the persistent ringing in my ear can be worsened by caffeine, salt, cheese, chocolate, and -- very depressingly -- beer. Hell, why not throw sex and oxygen in there too and erase all reason to carry on while you're at it? I don't smoke, but evidently nicotine and -- wait for it -- marijuana are also purported to heighten the intensity of the ring.
Suffice to say, it's been very discouraging. When the noise in my head first revealed itself back in `99, I swore off listening to headphones for a two year span, but caved in when my daughter was born (succumbing to the sleek allure of the then-still-newfangled iPod). The ring had levelled off, and I'd learned to live with it, so I figured I was more or less in the clear. These last two weeks, however, have proven me wrong. I've taken to doubling my otherwise half-assed regimen of imbibing the somewhat dubious homeopathic supplement, RingStop and woefully put my iPod into (hopefully temporary) cold storage. If only this problem were as easily resolved as that nasty little ear-infesting alien that crawled inside of Chekov's head in Star Trek, but it's sadly not that accessible. Tinnitus is (arguably) caused by the bending of tiny little hairs deep within the aural labywrinth (otherwise known as the cochclea). In any case, that's how one sniffily dismissive ear doctor once described it to me. All I know is that no amount of foraging around with a q-tip has made so much as a didley squat difference in my case, and believe you me -- I've certainly tried. Put simply, it's scary, it's maddening, it's heart-breaking and it fuckin' sucks, especially for a music fan such as myself. I can't help thinking that it's some form of karmic retribution for telling people who listen to music that I don't approve of that they're treating their ears like urinals (I have been known to say stuff like this).
At the very least, I'm in very good company. Fellow Tinnitus sufferers include the late Tony Randall, Pete Townshend of the Who, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Bono of U2, Bob Mould of Husker Du/Sugar, William Shatner, James Hetfield of Metallica, Neil Young, David Letterman, Blixa Bargeld of Einsturzende Neubauten, Cher, Lemmy of Motorhead (not entirely surprising) and many, many more.
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* The Heat is On: It's the very rare individual that enjoys a cold shower. It's a jarring, unpleasant way to start the day. But lemme tell ya -- for the last two weeks, I've been positively pining for a brutally cold shower. For some reason, the one and only shower in our apartment has been incapable of delivering anything but piping hot, skin-seering jets of lava-like H20. It starts off as deceptively warm and then swiftly heats up to temperatures normally reserved for brewing coffee, boiling hot dogs and permanently scarring flesh. One has just enough time to quickly shampoo one's hair before one risks wholesale scalp immolation (and you can pretty much forget about conditioning). The problems are two-fold. For a start, the genius who occupied the apartment before us ripped out all the old fixtures and installed a thermostatic shower knob (basically, a volume knob for temperature) which is constantly going out of allignment, the numbers on the temperature gaugue rendered meaningless. Secondly, our building has evidently been having water- heater problems (this fact gleaned after I interogated our deputy superintendent, who said he couldn't do a thing about it until our Super came back from a dubiously earned vacation). So, in the interim, we have to fill our tub a full forty minutes before bathing our children in it, lest the roiling water burn their delicate hides to a crisp. But, in the mornings, when I'm pressed for time, I have no recourse but to bite the bullet and take the hottest showers imaginable -- and this during the hottest July on record. HEY, THANKS A LOT!
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