current playlist: sounds of my neighbors

how lovely. i was about to go to bed because i'm finally tired enough to fall asleep at a normal hour when i hear music playing softly from somewhere in my apartment. i look down at my phone - it's not ringing. i put my ear up to the wall - it's not my next door neighbor. i mute the tv and realize it is coming from outside my window. i didn't hear much of the first song, the second song was hate it or love it by the game, and then i heard a few foreign-language dance songs. and it's not like i had to stick my head out the window to hear this music. i am sitting at the other end of my apartment and hear the music clearly - every word. i think the music is coming from the fancy apartment with the big windows and the holiday lights across the way.

for those who don't live in ny, the streets here are jam-packed with apartment buildings. the blocks are brownstone after brownstone after high-rise. my building is 5 floors high and has 4 apartments on each floor. my apartment is in the back of the building and my windows face the back of the buildings a block down from me. by new york standards, there's a good distance (maybe 50-70 yards) between the buildings. in between the buildings are yards to the people who live on the first floor. the yards aren't very private because the 50 other apartments or so above the yard can look down and see everything. it's tight-quarters around here.

so, now, after doing some investigating, it looks like the parent's at the fancy apartment with the big windows are away and the kid's think they're cool and have decided to throw a party. wonderful. on a random thursday night in a family neighborhood. it's not like this is the east village where loud music and voices are an everyday occurence. and it's not like i could close my window to cut out some of the noise. it's about 60 degrees out and i don't have control of the heat. it turns into a sauna with the window closed. but, even with this noise, this apartment is the quietest new york apartment i've lived in.

and i've lived in 4 apartments in my 2 1/2 years here. in my first apartment in ny, i was woken up every morning at 5am to trucks picking up the dumpsters, and then just when i would fall back to sleep, i would wake up a few hours later to the sound of jack-hammering, construction workers yelling at each other, and other sounds related to building a high-rise building for 8 out of the 12 months of my lease. in my second apartment, i would hear people walking up and down the stairs, which wasn't too bad compared to the heavy walkers living above me who liked to wrestle or run in place or something that made a lot of noise. i knew when they got into the apartment and which room they were walking to by following the noise of their loud steps. and then there was the nightly wrestling session, which a few times prompted by roomate to take a broomstick and bang it on the ceiling a few times to try and get them to shut up. i only lived in my next apartment for a month and that's about all i could handle. my room was at the front of the building, on a street with multiple restaurants on it. so i would constantly hear cars, trash trucks, and drunk people walking by. i didn't get much sleep there. so up until tonight, living in this apartment has brought me a lot of good, quiet sleep which i appreciate.

back to the party at the fancy apartment. there's probably about 5 lame guys at this party and they're outside in their yard that everyone can see. songs on the playlist include some annoying rap music, gwen stefani's new song, living on a prayer, the gorillaz, and kelly clarkson. behind this music i hear a lot of bass, guy's talking, sometimes singing, the occasional clapping (who claps along to songs?), and the comments, "you're neighbors are going to love this" and "c'mon neighbors, wake up and have fun." i feel like i'm in a college dorm room. well, after one of the guys tried singing along to kelly clarkson, one of the neighbors wasn't having fun and yelled out her window telling them to shut up. and that worked, a little. i still hear the bass, and the clapping, and some talking, but i no longer hear the music.

and that's not the first time i've heard that outspoken neighbor. one other time, someone in that same fancy apartment was having band practice or something on what sounded like an organ playing funeral music. it was pretty awful sounding and it was late at night. the lady yelled out her window telling them to shut up, but i don't think they heard, so the funeral music went on for another 20 minutes.

the fancy apartment isn't the only neighbor i hear noise from. there is the occassional coldplay song playing out of the window from the person living below me, the hammering and drilling from the girl on the other side of one of my walls, and the weekly bagpige playing from the old man who lives on the first floor.

so, there it is. the 5-person party in the fancy apartment continues. this weekend, i'll hear through the wall the girl next door talking on her phone. and next week around 6pm, the sounds of the bagpipe will find their way through my building as usual. the noises from my neighbors are loud and they are annoying, but they are the sounds of living in an apartment in the city. and i somehow find comfort in them.