I don�t know where the day went. Here it is past 8:00 and I�m only just now sitting down to the computer to check my day�s mail. Although it is starting to get chilly outside, I still have all the windows open. Someone is having a large and rather exuberant party at the barn on the other side of the pasture from our house. The music they are playing is loud and rather awful. They seem to have a live band doing out-of-tune covers of songs of numerous eras and genres, all of which end up sounding like something off an 80�s metal album. Currently they�re screeching through a version of Alanis Morisette�s �You Oughta Know,� the words �she�ll go down on you in a theater� being the only really definitive remainder of the original song. In what is probably an act of amplifier avoidance, or possibly simply the desire to enjoy the cool summer evening, the revelers are spilling out the doors of the barn and are draped over the paddock fences, glasses in hand.

I can see all of this from my perch on the balcony outside my bedroom. There is a valley between our house and the barn, making for an excellent view of the scene. Unfortunately, it is also a kind of natural amphitheater, causing an acoustical oddity � the sound is nearly as loud at our back door as it is at the barn, despite the fact that it is at least the length of a football field away.

It�s funny, but when I lived in the city this kind of disruption used to drive me to distraction. I tend to be extremely territorial about my aural space, and a neighbor�s party or even overly loud stereo would cause me to seethe with rage. But these are happy sounds of people having fun (with the possible exception of the band, which has now begun persecuting us with the most egregious version of �Heard it Through the Grapevine� imaginable) and I often find myself enjoying them. My husband, on the other hand, always accepted the occasional bleeding through of noise from others� activities to be part of city life, gets fairly irate when the rural code of silence is broken. He moved here for the quiet. But for me, sound is about space. In the close quarters of a city, your personal boundaries are being pushed and prodded every day. Here space is obvious and plentiful. I�m no longer so assaulted on a daily basis that I feel like I can�t take the occasional intrusion into my home.

And while we�re on the topic of urban noise, what is with the City Council of New York�s attempt to silence the Mr. Softee trucks? I feel like someone�s sad childhood memories must be behind the decision. But having nothing but fond memories of Mr. Softee myself, and feeling the pain of Mr. Softee deprivation, I urge my New York-based readers to stand up for your right to hear the siren song of the ice cream man!

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