entry nº 14 // 20171113

it’s typhoon country out here, you know. typhoons? we got ’em. sometimes, at least. a big-ish one rolled through here the other day (well, really it was, like, two months ago, because i seem to have written “typhoon” at the bottom of one my previous .rtf entries, as a note to myself to remember that i had wanted to write about it, but now that was quite a while ago so the initial impulse + impression is pretty much gone, but i mean once we start ignoring text notes to our future selves, what’s next to go?) and it was totally impressive. sea level way up, waves coming all the way up over the big steps that lead down from the walkway that goes along the beach. look out the balcony window and all you could see was dark skies and dark ocean, waves undulating like mad, deep wells opening + closing, looking ready to swallow someone up w/o a trace. of course it’s only a bay, here, and not that deep really, so maybe you’d be fine? depending on your swimming ability, of course. down the beach to the left, we saw that this small greenish-blue rowboat that’s usually (and, now, unfortunately) left tied up by the seawall had been sucked out the waves, flipped upside down, and was being indiscriminately tossed this way and that. the next day, we saw it had come to rest quite far away from where it usually lives, and the back quarter of its hull had been smashed to bits. i know what you’re thinking: “glad that wasn’t my rowboat!” 

i had a very unsettling headphone experience a little while back. i have the klipsch ones, the in-ear kind w/ the rubber part that sticks into your ear canal and blocks out noise to a certain extent. (actually it’s my second pair of those klipsch headphones, and i thought i had left the first pair at the hospital or something when i broke my ankle a couple years back, and couldn’t find them after, and i was all drugged out at the time of hospital discharge so i figured they’d gotten left on the little bedside table there or something? promptly ordered another pair, only to, months later, find the original pair tucked in my desk at home. wtf?). anyway, here’s me on my way to run some errand or other on my bike, and i’m walking through the garage toward my bike getting the earphone situated in my ear (right side only; left ear headphone-free for traffic listening purposes while riding). can’t quite get it to sit in there right, as seems to be more often the case lately because my ear canals are changing shape or something? and anyway i go to pull it out, and i look at my hand and it’s only the plastic body/driver part of the earphone, and the rubber tip itself seems to, um, well, seems to be stuck in my ear canal still? so i stop in my tracks there, about to unlock my bike, and i’m kind of gingerly rooting around in my right ear canal to see if i can nab that sucker and yank it out of there and get on with my errands. but i can’t seem to get it. “shoot!” i thought. but i figured, okay, well, i’ll just bite the bullet and quickly go back upstairs and take my dumb shoes off and go back in the house and grab the tweezers and just easily snatch the thing out, and then go get on my bike and get on w/ my business, finally. and all along this kind of low-frequency buzzing anxiety is starting to take hold of me gradually at first, running scenarios, like, jesus, am i going to have to go to the hospital for this? but wait, well, shoko’s off at work all day, so i’d kind of have to just ride it out w/ this rubber gasket stuck in my ear canal for the rest of the day, mid-to-high frequencies drastically attenuated on the right side, but that’s okay, right? meanwhile i’ve made it there to the bathroom, all the lights on, rooting around w/ two different kinds of tweezers (the round-edged “nook” brand that shoko got me for christmas – incredible pair of tweezers, perfect for nose hair, etc., love you shoko! – proving inadequate here, and so i snuck into shoko’s makeup box and got her razor-sharp little ones), along with a toothpick that i’d grabbed from the kitchen for some reason that must have made sense at the time but that i can’t now fathom. standing in there taking stabs at the thing, reaching in w/ the tweezers and trying to make sure i’m not grabbing cartilage before clamping down hard and yanking out, each time failing and each time noticing that i have to work a little more actively to keep myself relaxed, like, listen, there’s no rush, just take your time, it’s not like you have to be anywhere or anything, right. right!? and of course it’s impossible to really know what’s going on in there, in the ear canal, this whole time, too. what if i stick something in too far and puncture my ear drum or some shit? i do audio for a living, for crying out loud. should i just leave it for now and have shoko take a crack at it later in the evening? okay, think: do i know anyone else around here who’d be available at this time of the day, and whom i’d be comfortable asking for help w/ something like this? (answer: no). and on and on, as i stand there staring intently at myself in the mirror, breathing a little more closely regulated than normal, delicately trying to set the tweezers just so before clamping down and yanking. and, by golly, one of those times, i don’t know what i did, but with a very satisfying schhhhlop it came sucking out of my ear. i stood there for a couple minutes afterward, glad to be over with that tiny ordeal. popped it back on the earphone, earphone back into my ear, shoes on, out of the house, onto my bike, and on my way.