What?

At our old house in Florida, Mark could be in the kitchen, I could be in the living room, and we could actually carry on a conversation. It wasn't even one of those "open" kitchen things. There were walls between the two rooms. Now I'm not saying that homes built in the late 1950s were shoddy, at least not in Florida. That place had weathered numerous hurricanes without much of a problem. I just think that the acoustics were different, or maybe the interior walls were thin. Things are much different with our hundred year old house in Chicago. For some reason you have to be in the same room with somebody before you can communicate. Take the kitchen. Mark can be sitting five feet outside the kitchen, in the dining room, I can be five feet inside the kitchen, and we might as well be on different streets. Oh, I can hear his voice. That high pitched sound of Mark talking loudly, but I have no idea what he's saying. The minute his words reach the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen they are chopped up, twisted, and dispersed into the ether. I can literally stick my head through the doorway, into the dining room, and hear Mark clearly. Move back one foot inside the kitchen, and it's gobbly gook. I don't know if it's the acoustics of the old house or maybe Mark is just doing that 'Gaslight' thing on me. Or I could simply be getting older and my hearing is shot.