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For the first four plus years I lived in my current little apartment in the last block of the Hollywood Hills, I had a neighbor downstairs who drove me bonkers. At times quite literally. At first there were fights with his live-in girlfriend. Often these would end with him bitchslaping her; I often found her huddling up on my porch smoking and crying. She eventually moved out and then he was alone. And he seemed to console himself by blasting Alanis Morisette and Fleetwood Mac at 4AM. I talked to him, I left notes, I stomped on the ground so hard I once fractured my foot, but if he wasn't in a rational mood, nothing would work. It became so that I hated going to sleep because I would fear being woken up by the Bass of Crap Classic Rock and/or whatever Techo he was into that week. Anyway, less than a year ago he moved out, and my heart leaped for joy. A girl who I never even met moved in, and she was quiet. Very quiet. Sure, there was occasionally music and banging around, but nothing late at night and nothing out of the ordinary for apartment living. I was happy. Incredibly happy. And naturally by thinking about how lucky I was and how grateful I was to have this new neighbor, I jinxed it. I woke up on Saturday morning to see my neighbor moving stuff out of her apartment. "No! No! Come back!" I thought. And as she drove off I thought, "Shit. I wonder who is going to move in?" Well, later that day I got my answer. I saw a guy in a black pick-up moving in. I almost had a heart attack. He looks exactly like, well, cross a member of Slayer with a member of Slipknot with Fred Durst, and that's my new neighbor. His stuff consisted of things like a jar of change and a futon. And, I'm sure, a stereo. A big fucking loud-ass stereo. Fuck. Suddenly I had visions of sleepless nights, and pillows shoved over my ears, and music wars through the thin floor and I don't want to go through that again. I don't. I really don't. I want sleep. Turn down the Godsmack, Metalboy! I have work in the morning! For the love of God turn it down!!! So that's the end of the ranting. That's the end of the negative thoughts. It's out there. It's out there now. Gone from my head. From now on I'm going to assume the best. Appearances are not always an accurate predictor of behavior. Also, why should I be cynical and mistrusting? The world tries to make us that constantly. Why not just assume the cat is going to be a respectful neighbor? Sure, he was pounding on the walls while moving in today at 8AM, but he probably had one day to get out of his old place and thus had no choice. I'm going to go introduce myself as soon when I see him again and use my name a lot, trying to put a face to the future possible middle-of-the-night music victim. Like Catherine's Senator mother did in Silence of the Lambs by constantly referring to her as "Catherine" in her televised plea to Buffalo Bill. Stee is a nice boy. Stee likes his music but is sure to turn things down/off by 11PM. Don't make stee move. Stee is kind. Stee like puppies. Stee will loan you beer whenever you can't scrape together enough dimes from your mayonnaise jar or from under you futon. All you have to do it be quiet and rarely home? Stee would really appreciate it. I realize I sound sorta unbalanced about this, but it really is an issue for me. I'm sure it has psychological roots in my always having to be relatively quiet when my father was working and the constant low-level tension, but whatever, there is it. I shall now drop it and move on with my life. Anyway, Pamie already talked some about the 24-Hour Plays we did this weekend. It was a wonderful experience, if at times, predictably frustrating. The best thing was the actual writing. We started at 11pm and had until 6am to write a play. It took me a while to get rolling but I eventually did. I still, however, hit that wall where usually, in my daily work, I would just turn off the computer and leave it alone until the next day. Well, this time I didn't have that luxury so I pushed through and I swear, despite the hourly breaks, I barely even remember time passing. I was just in such a zone that before I knew it I was done. The cast I blindly picked ended up being fairly good, but generally sort of green and they went in a direction with the play that I wouldn't have gone in. But they put it last, which means something good I hear, and people laughed their asses off. My piece was also too long, which was pretty shitty of me to do to the poor cast. But afterwards, when they rushed up to meet me and talked my ear off about how much they loved the play and loved being in it and could believe I'd written it in one evening, I forgot my unfair complaints and realized that we actually had somehow discovered the magic of theatre once again. It's a good feeling. (I was also very proud of pamie as her play rocked the house. Anyway, here is the play if you want to read it. (You can read pamie's play here.)
It's been a mystery, and still they try to see
why somethin' good can hurt so bad.
Caught on a one-way street, the taste of bittersweet.
Love will survive somehow, some way.
One love feeds the fire.
One heart burns desire.
I wonder, who's cryin' now?
Two hearts born to run.
Who'll be the lonely one?
I wonder, who's cryin' now?
So many stormy nights, so many wrong or rights.
Neither could change their headstrong ways.
And in a lover's rage, they tore another page.
The fightin' is worth
the love they save.
Only so many tears you can cry,
'til the heartache is over.
And now you can say your love
will never die… speaking of which. Who's cryin' now? Remember the other bad guy with me in Weird Science? Yeah, that's my point.
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