Second-hand hip hop

This weekend, hanging out in my apartment has been like living next to a club that never closes. The apartment next to mine has been vacant for a couple months since my coworker Mike got married and moved out. Even before he moved out, it might as well have been empty. It was simply a storage shed for his furniture while, for all practical purposes, he lived with his fiancee.

Well, my landlord found a new renter, and I'm realizing how thin my walls are. Friday night, the repeating bass lines of hip hop songs came floating through my walls until about 1 a.m. Well, at least that's when I finally drifted off to sleep. I awoke to more of the same Saturday morning at about 7 a.m. And every time I stopped by my place throughout the day.

I don't have a problem with hip hop. In fact, I love it. But not at 1 a.m. or 7 a.m. - when I am trying to sleep. And not when the only part of the song I can hear is the bass line, which just loops over and over and over. Listening to music that someone else is playing across a wall is a little like sitting next to someone smoking a cigarette: It's a lot better for them than it is for you.

I feel bad saying anything to my neighbor because she seems really nice. She just likes her music loud. I'm not really ready to go be the prudish neighbor yet. We'll see what happens tomorrow morning - my last chance to sleep in before another week starts again.

Lesson learned: I miss Mike.