This week is off to an awful start. Rage, shame, and feeling trapped in my apartment. As the weekend draws near, hopefully I can shake off the funk and take a nice historical boat tour.
Monday August 25th, 2025
I have a postcard to share with you, but I must first tell you about a source of shame in my life.
It’s hard to talk about because it sounds like “old white guy syndrome.”
If you’ve ever known anyone or heard of anyone who gets mad about the sound of chewing, whistling or humming, they’re probably describing misophonia.
I turn into a raging asshole if I can’t get away from my noise trigger.
I have various ear plugs and sound cancelling headphones and the ability to “just leave” most of the time, but on this day these all failed me because my partner was also home and also becoming very upset about a loud neighbor.
I’m holding the misophina at bay by putting in some ear buds and listening to loud music, but she is at the point where she is banging on the ceiling with a broom and I snap.
I run upstairs, pound on the door and yell out something like “Turn down the fucking music!” and then leave.
Fight-or-flight mode is activated and I do not want to fight.
I’ve left a note on the guy’s door before, which he just brought down and put on the the wall on my floor.
Not sure what that means.
I send a text-message to the building owner/landlord and never get a reply.
This is only the second time that his has happened in about a year-and-a-half which is far better than any place that I lived at in Austin, Texas.
And that’s one of the weird things that I have to say about NYC that always surprises me.
It’s quieter here.
In Texas, there’s always some asshole that decides to throw a party with his car’s sound system at an apartment complex at 3 am.
Noise happens, rage builds, freakout happens, run away, rage fades, shame sets in.
Misophonia.
What a dumb thing to win from the genetic lottery.
I send a postcard to my friend Tony in Michigan about the event.
Tuesday August 26th, 2025
Mystery postcard that I forgot to write in my notes.
Probably a postcard to Tony.
I send Tony a lot of postcards.
I got a new keyboard to replace the last two gaming keyboards that have both failed.
This one has cool lights on it.
My first mechanical keyboard.
It’s working great, so far.
Tuesdays are trivia night and tonight we’re playing at The Bonnie.
Growing out the beard to be extra scruffy for an upcoming camping trip.
We do pretty okay at trivia.
Not with my help, though.
I mostly supply the phone.
Wednesday August 27th, 2025
A funny conversation happened in the game lobby of a pre-game round of Dead by Daylight.
So there is a player named “Nod 4 PP Slaps” and another player named “WAZZUUUUUUUP” sees this and said “Yeah, David” (the name of the character the PP slapper is playing) “slap it”
To which the PP slapper replies “I will slap it right off of you.”
To which WAZZUUUUUUUP replies “I want you to make that shit jiggle.”
In Dead by Daylight there are a few movements that characters can do that people do silly things with.
There’s a “come here” motion you can make with your character.
Folks will often squat behind other players and make this motion to slap their butt.
Or junk.
There was much junk slapping in this round.
One of our new friends and trivia partners has gotten a little bit into postcards after I told her about postcrossing, and we swapped addresses.
I have sent her this homemade postcard.
I explain how I see postcards in most food boxes that I buy, now and shared plans for my upcoming road trip.
Thursday August 28th, 2025
Another food box, another postcard.
This one to Tony again chatting about upcoming weekend plans.
There’s a boat tour thing in Manhattan that Lauri and I might go to.
Friday August 29th, 2025
I fell down a rabbit hole of post office details.
It started with their fun facts page: https://facts.usps.com/fun/
Related to this, I’ve been lightly researching the idea of collecting postmarks / cancellation stamps.
While looking into this I found a website and a blog that talk about this and they mention rules in the postal operations manual.
So then I fell down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to get a physical copy of this book.
You can send a letter or make a phone call to inquire about this, and it seemed only appropriate to send a postcard.
My return address is on the sticker under my thumb on this card.
Noting that I sent this postcard out around August 29th and I am writing this blog post on October 5th and I have not yet received a response.
Maybe the sticker fell off?
Saturday August 30th, 2025
Seaport Museum day!
Oh weird.
I can see myself in the reflection.
Much better.
They have nice gallery guides that they hand out.
A delightful start to the visit, but we’re here to see the dang boats.
Off to the docks!
The tour doesn’t start for another 30 minutes or so, so we’ll get on this boat and look around for a bit.
It feels like one of the workers is being grumpy and rushing me, but we get on the boat and we have a nice wander around.
It’s wild to be on an old boat and see a modern New York on the horizon.
A good walk around a lovely vessel, but it is now tour time.
Off to the next ship!
The Ambrose.
The grumpy guy and a lady from the building where we checked-in are leading this tour.
“Sea Girt”
I took a picture of this to figure out what that means later.
One quick search on the internet and the first result is on the Urban Dictionary.
I would say that this is usually an “Oh no!” moment, but it turns out Sea Girt is a town in New Jersey.
Now is a good time to mention that grumpy guy isn’t grumpy at all.
He’s a cool guy and he leads a dang good tour.
I was wrong and entirely misinterpreted our first interaction.
A fantastic tour.
Highly recommend.
Now that the tour’s over and since we’re in Manhattan, we might as well go out for a bite to eat.
Time to try out Bodhi Kosher Vegetarian.
While we’re here, I should send Tony a postcard.
On this postcard I explain to Tony that I have allergies and they’re making me sniffly, but that Lauri is convinced that the sniffles are a sign of a cold.
Future Levi here noting that it was indeed allergies and not a cold.
Back to August Levi.
They’re getting rid of some of the old subway cars, soon.
Y’know what?
Today’s a good day to buy a Nintendo Switch 2.
So we ran to the Nintendo store and scooped one up.
Also: Thank you Nintendo for going back to normal video game console names.
Microsoft, you should do the same.
Sunday August 31st, 2025
A potato day.
Video games and YouTube only.
Two weeks until I go on my big camping road trip.
I should pack.
Adventurenet.net 
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