A Beating Sound

Tinnitus:  The perception of noise, such as a ringing or beating sound, which has no external source.

I've developed kind of this ringing in my ears.  It reminds me of the day after a Black Sabbath concert.  Kind of a hissing, white noise, centered in my brain.  I've noticed it over the last few months when I'm in a quiet spot, like sitting on the can in the morning.  Maybe I should turn on the exhaust fan in the bathroom.  That's exactly what I did when I was drinking and my car would begin to make an unusual clanking or grinding noise, an event that was not at all uncommon given the average quality of the cars I could afford.  I didn't turn the bathroom exhaust fan on per se but I did turn the car radio up.  I figured if I couldn't hear the noise it didn't exist.

The mouse does not exist.  The mouse does not exist.  The mouse does not exist.

My research on the internet did not turn up even the possibility of cancer.  This fact threw me into a cold sweat.  I haven't had a good case of cancer in a few weeks.  I'm running out of cancers that I don't have that still manage to afflict me, strangely enough.  Cancer is like a good bowel movement - it's often the highlight of the day.

As an aside on my fifteenth sobriety birthday Little Westside Jonny and I were in the front few rows of a Black Sabbath concert, surrounding by guys my age who never quit smoking weed.  Clearly, my decision to stop drinking and using has been the best for me in the long run if what I saw stumbling around the concert venue was any indication.  But I'll tell you what - my ears were fucking ringing the next day.  I couldn't hear anything and I was wearing ear plugs - not pieces of cotton, either, but those bright orange ear plugs you see stuffed in the earholes of guys working on running jet engines.

It's probably another indication of my encroaching decrepitude.  Every time I go into full cancer research mode I get the note that whatever cancer I'm trying to outrun could also actually be something that occurs as a normal part of aging.  

I've made a doctor's appointment.  That's my indicated action.