I'm Not Alone

I have an issue. Ok, I have many "issues," but one in particular has caused me a whole lot of grief from as far back as junior high or high school.

I can't stand mouth noises.

I can't tolerate lip-smacking, gum-popping, tooth-sucking, finger-licking, chip-crunching, apple-mushing, or repeated sniffing. All the sounds of mastication are abhorrent to me. A lot of people say, "Well, yeah! It's rude to chew with your mouth open." That's not what I mean. Bad manners are annoying. These sounds, the sounds of mouths and breathing and liquid sloshing around tongues, produce a very particular reaction in me: I get violently angry, and I want nothing more than to smack the offender in the face to get them to stop or flee the room immediately.

I used to describe the sensation as "wanting to rip the person's tongue out and wrap it around their head to get them to stop." Not pretty, not rational.

Riding the subway with a gum-cracker is the 9th Circle of Hell. If I don't have my iPod to drown out the sound, I have to close my eyes and attempt to concentrate on something else, just to quiet the "beast rocking in the corner," to keep from screaming or doing the gum-cracker serious bodily harm.

I keep quiet about it. When I have mentioned it in the past, people look at me blankly, and I can almost hear their thoughts: "Cuh-razy. Plumb crazy." I mentioned it to my family long, long ago. They thought I was being melodramatic. They often tease me by smacking their lips.

Until today, I thought I was the only one who flew into a violent rage when she couldn't escape from those sounds. I thought I was alone. I honestly thought that there was something very, very wrong with me. I'd given up thinking that there was anything I could do about it. I figured I'd just have to exercise enormous self-control every time I was around someone with a noisy mouth.

Turns out I'm not alone.

Selective Sound Sensitivity can occur in people of all ages, and can have a sudden or gradual onset, often around puberty. [ding!] Most often cited objectionable sounds include lip smacking [ding!], chewing [ding!], swallowing, breathing, [ding! ding!]...

Reactions can include rage [ding!], sadness, panic attack [ding!], indecision, loss of cognition, physical itching or crawling sensations, urge to flee, or fight [ding! ding! ding!]. Some people have to make vocalizations in response to the aggravating sound [I totally pop a piece of gum when I can't escape; it helps], others wear earplugs in an attempt to avoid provocation [I've considered doing this on the subway, but felt like too much of a dingus to do it].

When I found this Yahoo! Group and read the description, I started to cry. It's such a relief to know that my reaction to these noises is not something I manufactured for whatever reason. I kept repeating to myself, "It's real. It's real." I may now be an official resident in Crazytown, but at least the population is greater than 1. Scroll down to the responses on the bottom of this page, and you'll see just how many other people have Selective Sound Sensitivity.

So what happens now? I don't know. I'll keep researching, and I'm awaiting approval to join the Selective Sound Sensitivity Yahoo! Group. Some message groups have tossed around therapy ideas, from "pink noise" CDs to Prozac. I certainly hope it doesn't come down to drugs, but honestly, I won't rule them out.

For now, it's enough to know that I'm not the only one.

Coliseum in the Sun

Coliseum in the Sun
Originally uploaded by AdiaMichelle

Hey! I'm back.

Sorry. I've been sniffling, sneezing, moaning and moping about the house for the last few days; when I wasn't shooting a music video or workshopping or catering, that is.

SO. I watched the episode of Life On Mars for which I was an extra. I am there, I am visible. It was cool to know that thousands of people had watched that episode. Granted, no one was looking at me in the background, but it was still cool.

I have a confession to make, though. There was an additional scene that involved all the BLA members sans me. That was, um, hard to watch. It was cool to see all the people I'd hung out with for two days, but I couldn't help wondering I had done something wrong in that I wasn't invited back for another day of work. Had I not behaved myself? Did I totally suck? Was I pulling focus? What did I do?

And in the end, I'll never know. There's no reason for me to beat myself up over it. No actor mind taffy!

Speaking of acting, things may, um, be changing for me. I may or may not have a full-time job come, oh, tomorrow. Which means that acting would be relegated to evenings and weekends. That's how I started in Minnesota. Not a bad way to start over here. But, once again, nothing is set in stone. I'll keep ya posted.

UPDATE: Yeah, no full-time job. I had it, and then I let it go. I kind of convulse into a laughing fit whenever I think about it. Mostly because turning it down makes no sense. But then again, chasing a dream never makes sense looking forward. Looking backward, though:

As we look back and survey the terrain to determine where we've been and where we are in relationship to where we're going, we clearly see that we could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came. There aren't any other roads; there aren't any shortcuts. There's no way to parachute into this terrain.

-The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Il Coliseo

Il Coliseo
Originally uploaded by AdiaMichelle

I liked visiting the Coliseum. I was in a bit of a funk when we got there (for whatever reason; something trivial, I'm sure), but it was awesome to tromp around in there walking in the footsteps of ancient people. Always supa cool.

I woke up with a sore throat this morning. It was with me yesterday, but I thought it was because I hadn't had enough water. Nope. It's the scratchy kind that announces that unwelcome visitor: the virus. So I stayed in bed as long as I could. (I got released from the catering gig last night at 12:30 am, didn't get home until 2:15 am due to track work and wonky trains and waiting waiting waiting.)

I fear that my novel may suffer if I start suffering from a cold, so I will employ a strategy that seems to work well: sleep as much as possible right away to keep the ick from dragging out for days.

News flash: W00t! I just scheduled an audition for next week for a company I auditioned for in the spring. Yay! I love when that happens.

Mutant Eyebrow Hair

Mutant Eyebrow Hair
Originally uploaded by AdiaMichelle

Sorry about the lack of blog and photo yesterday. I had to get up early for a pointless conference call at work. It was pointless because the procedure discussed will not take place until after I leave. Gotta love it!

Yesterday morning was beautiful, though, and I was glad to be up and about in it. The air was dry, really dry, for the first time since May. It was dry enough that my skin started to itch when I got out of the shower. I thought, "Why am I itchy? Oh yeah! This is what low humidity feels like! I need lotion!" I briefly considered moving to the desert so that I could experience that sensation on a regular basis.

Today is still cool, dry, and brilliantly sunny. August, you amaze me!

This post is not about acting.

So, the thing I was going to write about the gym? I'll give you the truncated version.

I was on the stationary bike, workin' up a sweat. All through my workout (and this was about 20 minutes into it) I felt some obstruction in my nose every time I exhaled. I hate that: when you have loose-ish boogers and you're in public or your hands are busy so you can't do anything about it right away. So I have some loose-ish boogers and I'm exhaling through my nose to keep my breathing calm, hoping that said boogers don't fly out of my nose while I'm still working out and before I have a chance to run into a bathroom stall. You might ask, "Well why didn't you just breathe through your mouth to keep from feeling that icky feeling?" And I might answer, "Because in some sick way, I kind of like it. I hate it, but I kind of like seeing how much I can test the boogies before they do come out. I want to know how far I can go." I might answer something like that. So with about five minutes to go, I exhale and - you guessed it - a large, dry, green boogie comes flying out of my nose, ricochets off my knee and lands on the floor near the bike.

My eyes got big, but only momentarily. I didn't want to give away what had just happened. No "tells". I thought, "I hope no one in that looooong line of women standing and staring at nothing or possibly me working out while they wait for their aerobics or step or body groove or whatever it is class to start saw that boogie fly out of my nose and me making no effort to pick it up." Because I wasn't going to pick it up. There was no way I was going to stop riding with only four minutes left to get down on my hands and knees and look for a lone nose emerald in the berber carpet that was probably harboring all manner of germs and nasties. There was no way that was going to happen.

So anyone who saw that? Sorry. Hope I didn't gross you out too much.