The gays who live downstairs can't sing. God, they are hot. They can dress, are fit and are probably choice meat over in Boystown. But here, at 4450, they're AWFUL singers. Better insulation -- or something -- is what I prayed for repeatedly last night, as the neighbors with the toy terrier wailed out the hits: Beyonce, Carrie Underwood, the CLASSIC Kelly Clarkson "Since U Been Gone" remix. A smoke cloud seeped through their ceiling and into my room, triggering my inner hate weapon. And, as the night grew, so did the volume, as a girl aiming to sleep would fear. Several events could be heard clearly, one being a "I'm not fucking afraid of you you fuhhhhhkingggg beeeeetch!!!!" screaming match between two guys, who from the sound of them were skinnier than Mary Kate, wearing tight denim and little white t-shirts with something sexually provocative but ambiguous on the front. This segwayed into another partygoer saying "I'm afraid!" and the slam of a door. Argument closes, the increased volume and screech-karaoke of Britney Spears' "Circus". How fucking appropriate.
Despite my usual urge to knock down the door of a person in any vicinity of me who has no consideration or manners and tell them to stop doing what they're doing, I just searched for some ear plugs. My best ones. They didn't work. So my heart started to pound in the way one's heart pounds when they're filling up with anger. Faster, faster, louder, louder. Ache in my jaw from the clenching of my jittery teeth. My eyes started to fill with tears because I knew the outcome of what would be my typical response to this. Louder music more regularly, bitchy attitudes and possible consequences for those attending the party I so desperately wanted to silence that I didn't actually want. Some whiffs were marijuana - the urge to call the police for this disturbance of the peace would either be unfulfilled or would cause arrests. And, in the future, any time I wanted to have a party, I couldn't. Then again, my party wouldn't be so loud or so late. Or smoky - no one can smoke in this apartment.
I felt so annoyed that my neighbors could be so unfair to those around them. A little Mexican family lives next door and has small children. People could want to sleep. Then again, their nearest neighbors are hipsters who seem carefree, although judgmental and totally too stylish. I confuse their good looks and Chrome bag coolness for snobbery, some might say. Once, walking out the door, knowing I was behind her, Hipster One didn't even hold the gate for me, but instead swung it quickly without shame. Closing me off, and in fact, almost hitting me in the process with the gate. I checked a couple times to see if she had headphones in - no. So, maybe these snobby hipster neighbors would call the cops for me. Indie rock poky-elbow types hate Britney Spears and her posse of pop artists, anyways. If I was wanting to kill someone for this extreme act of rudeness, surely they would. But then I thought, no. If anything, the Broken Social Scene over here is probably down there smoking pot and making conversation. Gays and hipsters go hand-in-hand. It's like anything goes meets Project Runway meets Pitchfork Music Festival.
So there I was - crying in bed (PMS ALERT) and hungry from a night of not eating as much as the skinny people around me. Feeling sudden bursts of courage that led nowhere but another brisk roll and pillow punch. I never went down there to tell them to turn it down, even at 2:36 a.m. when it would have been most appropriate to step up for the local community and demand some decency. I just transcribed a very kind, cursive letter in my head to be penned on yellow legal paper in the morning for their notice. I needed them to know that while I understand we are young and want to have a good time, that there is nothing that says it means being young and having fun should be at the expense of others' sleep or sanity. I also imagined waking up at 7:00 a.m. (exhausted from a lack of sleep myself) to blast my music and get a war going so I could at least get a niblet of revenge. As their night started to die down more, the music would stop abruptly for a party meeting of screams and shouts about what everyone was doing next. Then, as my heart would start to settle, like the monster was finally dead, it'd go back up. The volume, the drama, the shameless disruptions.
I started talking to myself, telling myself to just go to sleep. "Stop worrying about them, go to bed." But I couldn't. Even though my mood was truly a four year old napless exhaustion tantrum. An internal tantrum, but one that punched at my organs and made me want to get a broom and pound the floor until a hole was between us. I'd yell down into the hole or pour water in it and act like a crazy old witch. That'd really go over well. They'd just turn it up louder and taunt me more often. After a night of hearing the party's duals, dance-offs and riot-like singing (to totally shallow and meaningless club mixes), I knew what would happen to me if I pretended to have any say whatsoever in what was going on. How DARE I have the fucking nerve to ask THEM to turn their music down. Right? And I suspect any person of this age and having this kind of drinking, smoking (pot) and dancing party would feel the same. "What a bitch - who the hell does she think she is? Fucking heffer!!" I hated myself for being the kind of person who is okay with stopping a party so she can go to sleep. I hated that I didn't just knock on the door with a bottle of cheap Trader Joe's wine and demand to be let in. I hated that I couldn't fall asleep and get over the noise like most people could. I hated it that I knew I wouldn't do anything - fearing their judgment of me the most.
This week I am going to set a goal for myself. I am going to knock on that door and say hi. To my stranger neighbors who have since last night continued to blast their music and squeal high notes into my heating vents. Two people and their dog - whom I've been pissed off at since about 12:00 a.m. this morning. I will knock on that door, I will introduce myself and we will be friends. We will cook dinners, and I will feed their dog when they're not home. And, the next time they have a party, I'll know and I'll be invited, and I won't lay in bed wanting to kill these strange people I don't know for having no concern whatsoever for me or my night of sleep. I'll be at the party, and even if it keeps going, I'll come upstairs drunk, pass out and have no clue how loud it is. Because that would be so much better than the ulcer that has surely formed in the past 19 hours.
