Monday, July 21, 2003

who would’ve known silence could be so loud

So I’m sitting here chillin’ when I’m supposed to be working on two papers that are due Thursday (all together now, Booooo! Thumbs down forever). I am instead, oh-so-conveniently, responding to emails, typing away on AIM, and debating the merits of pasting in the html code for this Haloscan commenting system I’ve had for months and yet never used. The weirdest part about all this is that I can’t hear anything. This crazy heat, and the fact that I keep my hearing aids on nearly 24/7, is wreaking havoc on my ears this summer. Impatient child that I am, I've just flung the hearing aids onto my desk, given my ears a good scrubbing with cold cold water, and curtly informed my family that I am unavailable for conversations for at least the next hour. None of which, of course, stopped my father from asking me, from all the way across the room, after numerous exaggerated waves and other gestures to get my attention, what the name of UC Berkeley’s School of Law is. I squinted at his face. I read his lips. I said, King. Then I said, No, Boalt. God knows which it is. [Actually, it is Boalt School of Law.] Daddy-o just sat there and laughed. I think he’s both amused at and impressed by my lip-reading skills. Either that, or he’s still secretly plotting to convince me to become a corporate lawyer. I'm assuming his MBA dreams for me are out of the picture, at least for now. As if I'm not a confused enough child as it is.

I keep thinking something’s up with my keyboard, because I can’t hear my fingers banging away as usual. Then I keep reminding myself it’s me, not the keyboard. Wack-o to the max, that’s me. What can I say.

But there’s still something extremely strange about chatting on instant messenger and not hearing the steady typing I usually associate with the computer. It’s like having a real, live conversation without hearing your own voice. Which I’ve also just done with my father. It would actually be pretty nice and peaceful, if only I didn’t keep having paranoid thoughts that someone’s trying to conduct a conversation with me without my realizing.