Day 45 - White Noise

I've always considered myself a light sleeper, even though I grew up in a relatively lively neighborhood, in a room facing the street. The sounds of passerbys, cars, and the occasional bus all became background noise to me. Although heaven forbid I left my door open, and the sink in the bathroom was leaking.

A few months ago my landlord changed the water heater in our building. Bill and my bedroom so happens to be right up against it. The new water heater is not a friend of mine; it clanks and clunks and thumps loudly every time someone flushes a toilet or turns their sink on. After a few back a forth emails with our landlord I realized that it was either unfixable or just not going to get fixed. I spent several sleepless nights, and several more on the couch.

Aside from the water heater, we are also surrounded by many other lovely sounds. Our neighbor upstairs works odd hours, and paces back and forth in her apartment during the wee hours of the morning. Across the narrow space between our apartment building and the one next to us live a stoner (I can only assume) college couple, who watch movies with their window open, laughing and commenting loudly at anything and everything until the sun comes up.

Yet somehow after months of thinking that we would have to move, I've gotten used to it all. I mentioned to Bill the other day that our landlord must have fixed the water heater. Bill looked confused, and said that it's still as loud as it's ever been. Although Bill is a heavy sleeper, so it never really bothered him.

I guess like the cars, and the passerbys, and the buses of my youth, the waterheater, stoner couple, and pacing lady upstairs are the new noises in the background. I've gotten so used to them, I don't even notice them anymore. Perhaps they should add another setting on white noise machines for city dwellers. It would consist of water heater banging, loud stoned neighbor laughter, and much more.