It's quieter here

It is just plain quieter here on the left coast.

Over the past few weeks as I have been traveling back and forth it has dawned on me that there really is a lack of street noise - honking, people talking, fire engines roaring. I was on a business call from my NYC apt last week and my colleague stopped mid-sentence to comment about how she loves the sounds of NY. I paused and realized she meant the noise coming from my window thru the phone - sirens, buses, cars.

It reminded me that my old answering machine message had a siren roaring thru it - it went something like this, "Hi this is Debbie, ROOOOOAAAR, I can't take your call right now....." Every out of town friend thought I had set it up to fake a loud fire engine roaring thru my living room. I on the other hand hadn't even noticed it.

You don't realize how much noise we live with until you get out of Manhattan. Now I get it--all New Yorkers are basically sleep deprived from noise - that's why *we all seem so agitated.

Of course, I am torn--I like the quiet and I don't really miss the noise. What I do miss is the energy--there I said it - the cliche sentence every non New Yorker always mutters about NY that we all think is SO sappy.

*Note for the duration of this blog I will continue to refer to myself as a New Yorker. I just happen to be living in San Francisco.