I'm just putting the finishing touches on some travel plans for August, and it's not a moment too soon. I need to get out of here for a couple of weeks, and August, the sauna month, is the ideal time to do it. It's all just becoming a touch too much, and I need silence. It's loud here. All the time.

Even here in my apartment, where I try hard to absorb silence, and where I rarely even listen to music any more, it finds me. The distorted nasal announcements from the train platform under my balcony…the constant foooooooosh of tire treads on Rainy-Season streets…the occasional bbbrrrooobbbrrrooo of the rat-pigeons that land for a minute…the echoing chatter of the custodial ladies, sweeping and mopping my hall…the sub-sonic thrubthrubthrubTHRUB of passing trucks…the dropped manhole-cover sound of bikes racing over a loose metal grating in the sidewalk…the ripping-atmosphere whine of planes going by overhead on their way to Itami airport (every 5 minutes)…the rolling squeak of my neighbour's balcony door, as he opens and closes it often enough to make me think he's signaling someone in the park…ahh perfect - there's some thunder…the sharp, spiked, and altogether too loud ooo-eee ooo-eee ooo-eee-ooo of a decidedly French-sounding ambulance, accompanied by a wholly unnecessary loudspeakered voice, asking everyone to please kindly get out of the way…the BBBLLLAAAAAT BBBLLLAAAAATT blat BBBLLLAAAAATT of some jerk on some motorcycle, who will no doubt provide the loud ambulance with another reason to be loud…and the general white-noise hum and whisper of a city supporting far too many people ties it all together - filling in any potentially peaceful moments until the symphony starts up again.

Aside from the PA on the ambulance, this mélange is not specific to Japan - I know that. I also know that I have chosen to place myself here, and I enjoy it most of the time. I think everyone everywhere gets this feeling, and we know it’s time to be elsewhere for a breather. The above list is actually a transcription of what I sat here and paid attention to as I typed, and this is a fairly quiet place, relatively speaking. It's when I go out into the local world that the cacophony threatens to take my last nerve out behind the barn and put it down.

The clacking of these keys is driving me crazy, so I'm off to wrap a pillow around my head until I have to go back to work.