Dang'd Kids and their Music

This past Saturday, I fell asleep on the couch as will happen from time to time. I woke up about 4am or so and toddled off to my bed to complete my slumbers. Unfortunately, it would be about an hour or so before I finally was able to fall back asleep. Not because I wasn't tired or anything of that nature. No I wasn't able to sleep because of a vicious row that my neighbors were having. Before I go on, a little history...

I have lived in a myriad of locations and apartments. From my parent's house to a dorm room to a student apartment to a studio apartment to 3 different "real" apartments. I've lived in Chicago, Mount Prospect, Lisle, Springfield and now, outside Dayton, Ohio. Up until recently, I have had no problems with my neighbors or the amount of noise that they make. Actually, I'm not including the dorm room or student apartment since raucous behavior and noise just goes with the territory. Nor am I including my parent's house since I like to have some place to stay when I return to Chicagoland. Nope, nothing until I moved out of my parent's house once and for all at the somewhat obscene age of...well, that's not really important to this story.

In my first apartment, a small studio apartment, I had only one incident where I was disturbed by a neighbor's music. I can't recall if I was actually awoken by the music or I was trying to get to sleep after being out (I am assuming the latter for reasons that will be clear in a minute), but I do remember hearing "smooth" jazz. Since there is only one reason that anyone listens to "smooth" jazz that late at night, I wasn't going to go downstairs and complain.

At my next apartment in Mount Prospect there was a single incident also relating to music. This time, my neighbors were having a party and the music was up a bit, but once I got into my bedroom and closed the door, it was barely noticible. The problem was that the host (or hostess - I never actually met the person living right next to me - seems to have passed out at some point and the whatever CD they had on started skipping. Now, one would think that having to listen to the same 5 seconds of a song over and over and over and over for about 3-4 hours would burn it forever into your head, but truthfully, I have no clue what the song was.

While living in Lisle, I had no complaints about music or people walking to loudly, etc. There was one minor irritation, but it's not something that could be helped. It seems that the couple that lived above me had recently had a child - again, never actually met them - so for the first few months, I did have a baby crying at regular points during the night. But, since I was now in a two bedroom apartment (actually a one bedroom with a den) the only time I could hear the baby cry was when I was up really late watching TV or on the computer.

Another thing that you have to understand is that once I fall asleep, there is hardly anything that will wake me up. I once stayed at some friends' condo in Chicago when a building right across the street from the bedroom I was in went up in flames. The firemen, more concerned with putting out the fire than letting people sleep, made no attempt to keep quiet. The fire trucks came tearing down the street sirens blaring and lights flashing, they extended the jacks with a great hydraulic whine, shouted orders and sprayed upteen gallons of water on the house and, generally, made a nuiscene of themselves. Actually, I have no idea if this is what really took place, since my friends had to tell me about it the next morning. I thought they were kidding until they made me look out my window and see the destroyed residence for myself...and damned if there wasn't a fire gutted house across the street! So, you see, I sleep pretty heavily. Although, I will always hear the phone ring. Explain that if you can.

Anyway, back to the main point of this whole entry. The incident on Saturday night/Sunday morning was not the first time that this had happened with these particular neighbors. Now, these neighbors - who I have said hello to - are a couple of 20-somethings who are most definately night-owls (but then who isn't at that age?). Another issue is that their entryway/front room is directly behind my bedroom so I can hear anything above a normal conversation. The first happened a couple of weeks after they moved in. I'm guessing that I wasn't sleeping well because I was woken up at 3am or so by their music. It wasn't bad music - no rap, hip-hop crap or "smooth" jazz - still it was 3am on Thursday morning. This went on until about 5am, at which point I was able to get back to sleep.

You may be wondering why didn't I just go and knock on their door and tell them to keep it down. Two reasons. First, I'm normally able to not only sleep through anything, but also fall asleep through anything. Second, this is not an apartment building, it is a "complex" (for some reason, as I was typing complex my back got a whole lot straighter). In order to go and bang on their front door, I would have to go outside and who wants to deal with that kind of bother.

From the sounds of it, the fight the other night was a doozy. Though, I have no idea what it was actually about. I came into it late and I couldn't make out half of it. My theory is if you are going to wake up the neighborhood with your screaming and fighting at least do it loud enough so that people can hear through the walls. All I got was the a lot of indeciperable words with the occasional swear word that I could recognize - including the "C" word. What took me by surprise was not the use, but the user - she said it refering to another woman. I'm pretty sure that that is illegal.

Maybe I can get them to play classical music next time. That's always nice to drift off to.

Warning - The Material You Are About To Read May Be Inappropriate For Small Children

"Perhaps, just perhaps", I said to myself when first contemplating this entry, "I'm about to reveal a bit too much about myself." Then I realized that my second post was entirely about the consequences of going to the bathroom with cold hands and decided that this is, if not any better, at least no worse.

You see, at some point in the past I seem to have become some sort of mad scientist. This is actually pretty surprising since:

• Madness does not run in my family - cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease and age-related dementia, sure! No madness though.
• I never really excelled in the sciences in school. Even though I somehow managed to get into the honors section of high school chemistry the only way that I actually passed the class was by borrowing other student's lab books and cribbing on the exams.

So with these two facts in mind, even I'm confused as to how exactly I descended into madness and bleeding edge research.

It is now apparent that I have become the Dr. Frankenstein of the refrigerator - trying to create life from lifeless flesh. Unlike the good Doctor, I think that, among other things, I'm using chicken (at this stage it is both difficult to remember or recognize what I started out with) and not human bodies for my experiment. Also, I don't have a trusty, humped-back assistant (Hump? What hump?) named Igor (pronounced either ee-gor or eye-gor, your choice)

The problem is that I only rarely cook so when I do, I generally make enough to have left-overs. Once I have sealed the remaining morsals of the meal into one of those nice Zip-Loc storage containers - this, by the way, is where Igor would really come in handy...he could do the dishes - I gently place it into the refridgerator and....promptly forget about them. Now since I don't cook that often, I don't shop that often, because I don't shop that often I don't generally have anything in my refridgerator, because I know that I don't have anything in the refridgerator I don't look in it for food, because I don't look into the refridgerator for food it any leftovers that I may have so carefully placed in there end up looking like the creeping crud.

Actually, it is a pretty good example of anerobic mold growth. What is anerobic mold growth, you ask? Besides being one of the countless useless pieces of information taking up space in my head for no real purpose (which is kind of the definition of useless), it is a when mold grows in an oxygen depleted state. Okay, enough real science for now, back to my story. Now, I'm not taking samples and putting them through the battery of CSI-esque tests that could reveal not only what type of mold it is, but also where it spent its childhood, when and with whom it last had sex, maybe - just maybe - answer that age old question...well, you get the idea.

I've actually become a bit scared to look in the fridge any longer. I've kept it trapped it trapped in the refridgerator for so long, who knows what a really, really pissed off mold is want to do. I suppose that when I do finally screw up the courage to confront this homicidal mold sample, I shall just have to do it wearing my official protective suit, just like the military wears. If you don't hear from me in the next few days, well, it's been nice knowing you and I'm leaving everything to Natalie...except the porn, which Kevin gets. specifically it's Kevin D who is getting the porn and not Kevin U - sorry, but I don't have any of the porn you like Kev.

Other Thoughts
I watched the entire Democratic National Convention - fine, it was like 2 months ago, but who's counting - and after listening to each of the speakers, including John Kerry, I decided that I'm voting for Bill Clinton again. I don't care that he is constitionally banned - because of the actual Constitution and because his constitituion isn't quite up to after the quadruple bypass surgery the other day - I'm still voting for him. Of course that assumes that I get my Ohio driver's licence and register to vote. I still have a few days.

I also watched President Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Which is really a shame since I missed Zell Miller (a Democrat) lay into the nominal head of his party. Though I guess we still come out on top...they get Zell Miller and we get John McCain. There is no possible way that I could do the President's speech justice...I'll let The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and John Bliss's Your Weekly Reader do it for me in a much smarter and funnier way than I ever could hope to acheive.

Oh, and in case you haven't yet figured out that I will not be voting to re-elect the current occupant of 1600 Pennslyvania Ave, here are a few other Bush related sites that I found very amusing.

Bush Yoga - Yoga Poses by George Bush

Bush Flip Flops