Imagining 207
Jan. 23rd, 2004 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonSo I've got this neighbor upstairs...
Miss 207 is a little bit of a thing. I don't suppose she weighs much over a hundred pounds, maybe only a few inches above five feet tall. But sometimes when she's in her apartment, it sounds like elephants are rutting up there. Which is pretty standard apartment living, except she's frequently making this noise at 1, 2, or 3 in the morning. Not so unusual, but damned inconsiderate all the same. I have talked to her, politely, and she's always apologetic and the situation is remedied for awhile, but inevitably she Forgets and the whole cycle begins again. Sometimes I am forced to the nerdliest expedient of all—pounding on the ceiling with a broom. I really hate that solution, not just because it's extremely geeky, but because by the time I resort to it I am so mad I can't get back to sleep easily. But that's apartment living, right?
207 has a Boyfriend who's not always there. When he returns it's like the 7th Fleet has landed after an extensive time at sea and there's a whole lot of "reunion" going on—the full Meg Ryan routine from When Harry Met Sally. When he's not there, 207 plays the same song over and over again. I guess it reminds her of him. Sometimes when she's playing this song she starts banging things around. I guess she's Depressed he's not there, or Angry, or feeling Life Is So Unfair. I usually feel the same way when she wakes me up at 2 a.m. stomping and banging. I will say this for her, though, she doesn't play the music in the wee hours. But hearing it over and over and over and over for most of an afternoon while I'm trying to write or read or do art or even watch the damned TV starts to edge my thoughts towards sharp objects, projectiles, and black magic curses.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to seriously curse anyone too terribly bad. Maybe just, "May your panties wad up to an extremely uncomfortable degree." But you know what they say: whatever you wish on someone comes back to you threefold. Maybe that's why my underwear seems to mysterious shrink and wad sometimes...
The thing that strikes me about this situation is how much our lives interpenetrate the lives of others even when we don't wish them to; how transparent our business is even when we're being private, even when others are not actively seeking information on us. I know way more about 207 then I want to know, and she would probably be horrified to realize how much of an inside track I have on her habits—and not from actively seeking info, just from occupying my space while she is occupying hers.
On the other hand, we inhabit a fiction of each others' lives. I have no doubt she thinks I'm a troll who would eat her children (if she had any), and that she's told her kitties repeatedly, "Don't go near that bad woman." I myself have created whole scenarios concerning her situation. I'm a writer—I can't help myself, and so there are elaborate plots about why Boyfriend mysteriously appears and disappears, why she feels so abandoned when he's gone, why so 7th Fleetish when he's there. Okay, he's tall and nice-looking and got a great pair of shoulders on him, so I understand the lust equation quite well—but there's something so frantic about her demonstration of enjoyment and her wanting to show him she's having a good time. Maybe she is. Or maybe it's just When Harry Met Sally Syndrome.
Whatever. It's all just fiction, anyway. I don't truly know her, she doesn't know me, and I doubt—given the talks and the pounding (hers and mine) we will ever be able to get beyond the fiction we've created about each other to the real people.
But that's life on the urban frontier.
Miss 207 is a little bit of a thing. I don't suppose she weighs much over a hundred pounds, maybe only a few inches above five feet tall. But sometimes when she's in her apartment, it sounds like elephants are rutting up there. Which is pretty standard apartment living, except she's frequently making this noise at 1, 2, or 3 in the morning. Not so unusual, but damned inconsiderate all the same. I have talked to her, politely, and she's always apologetic and the situation is remedied for awhile, but inevitably she Forgets and the whole cycle begins again. Sometimes I am forced to the nerdliest expedient of all—pounding on the ceiling with a broom. I really hate that solution, not just because it's extremely geeky, but because by the time I resort to it I am so mad I can't get back to sleep easily. But that's apartment living, right?
207 has a Boyfriend who's not always there. When he returns it's like the 7th Fleet has landed after an extensive time at sea and there's a whole lot of "reunion" going on—the full Meg Ryan routine from When Harry Met Sally. When he's not there, 207 plays the same song over and over again. I guess it reminds her of him. Sometimes when she's playing this song she starts banging things around. I guess she's Depressed he's not there, or Angry, or feeling Life Is So Unfair. I usually feel the same way when she wakes me up at 2 a.m. stomping and banging. I will say this for her, though, she doesn't play the music in the wee hours. But hearing it over and over and over and over for most of an afternoon while I'm trying to write or read or do art or even watch the damned TV starts to edge my thoughts towards sharp objects, projectiles, and black magic curses.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to seriously curse anyone too terribly bad. Maybe just, "May your panties wad up to an extremely uncomfortable degree." But you know what they say: whatever you wish on someone comes back to you threefold. Maybe that's why my underwear seems to mysterious shrink and wad sometimes...
The thing that strikes me about this situation is how much our lives interpenetrate the lives of others even when we don't wish them to; how transparent our business is even when we're being private, even when others are not actively seeking information on us. I know way more about 207 then I want to know, and she would probably be horrified to realize how much of an inside track I have on her habits—and not from actively seeking info, just from occupying my space while she is occupying hers.
On the other hand, we inhabit a fiction of each others' lives. I have no doubt she thinks I'm a troll who would eat her children (if she had any), and that she's told her kitties repeatedly, "Don't go near that bad woman." I myself have created whole scenarios concerning her situation. I'm a writer—I can't help myself, and so there are elaborate plots about why Boyfriend mysteriously appears and disappears, why she feels so abandoned when he's gone, why so 7th Fleetish when he's there. Okay, he's tall and nice-looking and got a great pair of shoulders on him, so I understand the lust equation quite well—but there's something so frantic about her demonstration of enjoyment and her wanting to show him she's having a good time. Maybe she is. Or maybe it's just When Harry Met Sally Syndrome.
Whatever. It's all just fiction, anyway. I don't truly know her, she doesn't know me, and I doubt—given the talks and the pounding (hers and mine) we will ever be able to get beyond the fiction we've created about each other to the real people.
But that's life on the urban frontier.