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I read those pages again and, as usual, feel there is nothing else to be said. And there is something special about a website or a book or a movie that a friend asks you to read or see.

I am not feeling very talkative these days, nor do I feel like saying anything here or in any other journal or diary I maintain. I'm not too sure these web-pages qualify as a diary or journal, nor am I sure how to describe them as anything but a Place. But you certainly will not find me talking-about-myself-talking-about-myself for more than a few clumsy moments.

The drills and jackhammers and buzz-saws at my place of work are destroying my nervous system. I've always known that I had whatever condition it is that means "fear of noise," but I was never sure if noise was something I feared irrationally, or if it was just something to which I have an exacerbated sensitivity.

Those last 2 words sounded funny. Ha-ha.

My place of work is a construction zone. While I am trying to develop ideas and be creative, people are screaming, hammers are pounding, jackhammers and power-saws are screeching, and at the end of every 5 minute period I realize that I can not remember anything that I just said or that someone said to me. At the end of the day I leave the building in a stupor, wondering what in the hell I might have done that day.

Noise has always wrecked my mind. Once I was at a donut shop in Manhattan. It was quiet, but out of nowhere a little girl started squealing and screaming in this high-pitched, head-piercing way. I absolutely panicked, screamed a muffled Uuuuuuurrrrrgggh!! and covered both ears, raising my hands quickly and knocking over my coffee, spilling it all over the counter.

I looked toward them to see who or what had made that noise (I have heard panhandlers and homeless people and other grown adults do this, and I wanted to be sure I was not about to be hit up for change or mugged). The parents of the little girl looked back at me, clearly miffed that any person would find a squealing child (their squealing child) to be anything but adorable.

So that is what work is like. In fact, the only thing missing is a nursery full of screaming babies shitting all over the floor.

Construction workers are building offices right around us, making my place of work the noisiest place I have ever been in. All I can do is rush to get the hell out of there, and reassure myself that it is not always going to be this way.

But in the meantime, I am resigned to doing work which requires no thought.

Today, though, I rented a piano. A Petrof console. It will be here early this week, and when it arrives I will practice and practice and practice. Today is the first time I've played a piano in 2 months, and it just felt so exciting. Can not really describe it, but the whole act of playing the piano is such a part of my physical existence that not having it as a "thing-to-do" makes me feel flaccid.

There is an often misused word.

But the muscles in my arms were getting flabby. Those yellow muscles which beefed up the area of my hand above the palm and before the fingers were deteriorating. Subsiding. And I just felt strange. Like my brain was hot.

I am going to sleep now. Have yourself a splendid time wherever you are.

• June 22, 1997 - Wandering
• June 16, 1997 - Makin' Whoopie
• June 8, 1997 - Away From the Transient Residence
• May 14, 1997 - At the Transient Residence