How often do you find bras that fit, and are comfy (as far as bras go) and quite pretty, 5 minutes walk from your house, for about $15?

Just thought I’d balance the last post’s complaining with a few sounds of jubilation.

I go now to buy many bras for hoarding against future scarcity.

I’ve said before that this is a quiet street. And by Bangkok standards, it is. You won’t go deaf living here, there’s no demolition site or nightclub within earshot, no through traffic, and people mostly observe the legal hours for use of power tools. There are hours, sometimes hours at a stretch, when it actually is quiet.

That said, between the people who get up early and the people who go to bed late, and their kids and dogs and aircons and water pumps, I can find myself assaulted by noise pretty well all day long, too. And it’s my problem, not theirs. I get that. You can’t expect anyone to keep the noise down because a writer is trying to think or because someone who works from home just wants to take a nap or enjoy a little silence for no special reason. Although, honestly, I think you can expect people, out of common courtesy, not to talk at the top of their voices at 6 a.m. or leave their car parked under your window playing doof-doof music.

Well, I can expect it, but I won’t get it. I will get noise. Not because this is Bangkok but because this is Planet Earth and human beings are noisy. I’m sensitive to noise. I get the impression that I’m in a minority. I like many of the sounds of nature, though, so perhaps I should be living in a cave in Mongolia or something — but that wouldn’t be without its drawbacks.

Anyway, I feel like I’m often fighting noise. Earplugs, rain recordings, wandering the streets looking for a quiet corner of an alley somewhere — sometimes I really do get desperate and feel quite upset by not being able to get away from noise. I found a graveyard, a nice big one, which can be fairly quiet; however, the owners of the graveyard have turned it into a recreation facility with a jogging track, sports equipment etc — and karaoke machines. It’s awesome, actually. But thanks to the karaoke, the quiet stretches tend not to be very long.

There’s a mosque with a Muslim graveyard nearby, and it doesn’t have karaoke — but it also doesn’t look so open to the public, or at least not to the infidel.

I get tired because noises wake me up at night. And then, during the day, when some dog is barking, like it is now, and earplugs don’t keep it out and I just can’t think, I get frustrated and hot under the collar. It’s not that I don’t get any quiet, I just need more than I’m getting.

I need to do something. I can’t make the noise stop, so I need to find ways to deal with it. I’m considering hypnotherapy. I also want to try sleeping pills, something to help me sleep more deeply but without waking up groggy in the mornings. I’d be grateful for any recommendations.