Friday, December 12, 2008

Rude awakenings

When I tell people that I live in an old factory that has been converted into a loft they think it's pretty cool. I thought it was cool until like the 3rd day. It's a huge space in a pretty nice neighborhood. Travis and I thought it was exactly what we were looking for. I still think Travis feels pretty good about it, but I am much more sensitive than he is. I hate hearing other people's noises (unless it's some sort of crazy, juicy conversation), smelling other people's smells, and dealing with other people's laziness (read: messes left in public places). I know this is all part of the apartment living experience, but in my last dwelling all of the people living in my "building" (a house converted into 3 apartments) were awesome.

I bring this up because I really hate my building this morning. I didn't go to bed until 2am. I had worked a late shift at the Retail Job, and I wasn't exactly tired when I came home. I didn't expect to be woken up at 8am by hammers and saws and workmen talking. But it happened. The apartment next to mine has been vacant for a while, so I guess they decided to move the door from one end of the apartment to the other (Travis later talked to the men and they're converting the apartment to a two bedroom). So instead of having my nice little lonely door at the end of the hall where I never have to talk to anyone and can just sneak in quickly before having to make conversation, I now have a door about 1 foot away from mine. So you can imagine the noise. My loft has 14 ft ceilings and no substantial furniture to absorb sound. Every little thing echos. So I had a nice time listening to echoing hammers and saws and the freight elevator going up and down.

Somehow I went back to sleep! I amazed myself. I must've been exhausted.

Well I was sleeping soundly until Stanley made a sneak attack on Miso, who had decided to cuddle with Travis at the computer desk. That woke me up, but I went back to sleep. Some Travis noises (computer, walking, shower, quiet music, etc.) made me stir, but I managed to sleep.

That is until I was abruptly woken up by the musical stylings of Bobby Vinton. WHAT?! At first I thought it was some cheesey old Christmas music, but then I listened a little harder. It was so loud and strange, so I just thought it was coming from the construction workers. I mean that would be weird, but whatever. And then I realized it was actually coming from my really strange upstairs neighbors. Oh boy.

I haven't had much luck with upstairs neighbors in this building. The first set decided it was cool if their dog peed all over their apartment, and it was even cooler that the pee dripped through their floor and into my apartment (no insulation or anything between their floor and my ceiling. Just wood floor boards and wood ceiling beams). They also thought it would be cool to blast kind of shitty R&B from 11pm to 3am. Whatever. They left at the end of July and we were ecstatic.

In comparison our new neighbors are great. They are pretty quiet most of the time. Their dog doesn't pee everywhere. But they listen to the most awful music. And they sing along. AND THEY CAN'T SING. Most of us can't, but I don't think most people crank up the Bobby Vinton at 10am on a Friday and really belt it out. Both the guy and the girl are equally awful singers and sing equally loud. Usually not together though (thank goodness). Now it only lasted about two hours, but still. Imagine living in a place where the music of your neighbors sounds like it's coming from your own stereo. And getting their lovely sing-a-long redition of top of it.

To add to their weirdness... Travis thinks that they are into acting. When he's working from home they like run lines and stuff. They also sing sans music, and then I kind of wish I were deaf. They also have these parties (I think it's a party) like once a month where a bunch of people come over, stay for an hour, leave for about 2 hours, and then come back for one or two more hours. And the whole time it sounds like they are walking around. I can hear them talk, but more than anything I can hear all of their footsteps. And it doesn't stop the whole time they're up there. What kind of party is this? Have you ever been to a party where you just walked around the whole time? I'm so confused.

But I really don't want to complain about them. I could still be living under the crazy lesbians with two bad dogs and a penchant for shitty R&B and using their crazy karate muscles to intimidate me.

Anyway. Here are some pictures of my loft because I forgot to post them before. It's so cute. I just wish I didn't have neighbors. And they put more money into nice fixtures.


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