Can't Trust That Day

The early morning hours are proving far more productive for me these past few weeks than I'd ever expected of myself. I once considered myself a night person--especially living in the "city that never sleeps"--regularly staying up until one or two, thinking myself productive at such late hours. But, honestly, I was skilled in deluding myself into thinking I was productive. True, there was the occasional creative outburst or neat-freakish cleaning frenzy, but typically, my late night hours were spent watching movies, listening to music, reading or talking on the phone with west-coasters for whom the night was still relatively young.

So NPR's Weekend Edition yesterday openly praised Michael Moore's triumph at Cannes and noted that the win would likely mean the film will be shown in U.S. theatres this summer. While I am a tad concerned about the effects watching the movie will have on my mental and physical health (uncontrollable anger = bad), I nevertheless plan to see it.

Oh, and after reading JonMc's hilarious description of a string of "interesting" neighbors, I'm inspired to throw in one of my own. In my very first apartment, I encountered a loud, rather verbally amorous couple sharing my bedroom wall. The wall-pounding rarely began before about 2am and often kept me awake until dawn. Upon closer listening (c'mon, who doesn't attempt a closer listen?), I noticed that the male half of said couple seemed to change almost nightly--sometimes a deep-voiced gentleman, a la Isaac Hayes (complete with "chocolate salty balls," I imagine) and occasionally a timid, squeaky, Jerry Lewis-sounding lad. Most often, it was a Hispanic man with a penchant for what some might call S&M but what I'd call violence (the difference being that S&M can be pleasurable and this woman gave no indication of pleasure being had). Painful smacks, loud utterances of words like "bitch" and rather unwholesome requests were commonly heard at varying levels when he was her overnight guest. My revenge was to leave Howard Stern blaring on my clock radio when I departed for work early each morning, hoping to interrupt their slumber as they'd done mine.

We soon surmised--after meeting one of her "johns" in the hallway one morning--that the woman was simply practicing the world's oldest profession. Upon finally seeing the prostitute wandering the hallway in skin-tight hot pink bicycle shorts and stilettos, we called the landlord. Soon after, the Hispanic guy (presumably her pimp) banged on our door one night and tearfully knelt down, pleading with us not to complain, insisting this was the only way they could make a living and that they'd be quieter from then on. And they were (affording me some much-needed sleep).

Posted by ayelet at May 24, 2004 09:09 AM