is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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OPB.
I don't know about fences, but good sound proofing makes good neighbors. Gus lives in a condo building that used to be a hotel. That is my temporary residence, while I pack up Brooklyn, work in Haverford, and reside in Center City Philadelphia until the Haverford house is ready for me.
This place where I currently reside is a historic building called "Bentwood," heh, because it used to be a bentwood rocker factory, before it was a hotel, before it was a condo building in Chinatown. On the inside the condo units are constructed to look quasi-industrial, with exposed pipes and beams and brick and all that. It's not bad looking. But the walls, ceilings and floors are so thin that you are always well aware that the person upstairs loves to play rock band while stomping, the person on the left loves karaoke, the person on the right has loud sex fairly often, and the person downstairs uses household appliances 24-7. It is a terrible terrible awareness of others that one would hope one might be shielded from when in one's home. Sure, it's important to make room for others and tolerate their noises out there in the world where we must find ways to eke out a common existence despite our plurality, but WHEN I AM AT HOME I have no need of the outside world's karaoke and sex grunts, OK?
Also, the bathroom is wired so that every time you're in there with the light on (it is windowless, so unless you like pitch darkness and know your way around a toilet without vision, you'll have the light on) the fan has to be on, too. But it is a fan that makes a terrible racket. I can hear the fans of OPB (other people's bathrooms) whenever they turn theirs on, too, such is the racket. A patience-sapping noise. It is the noise of defeat and misery. It counteracts any relaxation a person might get from a hot bath.
Did I mention I'm moving in two weeks?
So I'll be spending some time with some packing materials in Brooklyn this weekend and next....
9:46 a.m. - December 01, 2009
M - 2009-12-08 05:33:06
I am happy for you! You are moving, and this is good. GREAT when you think about all that noise from the other side of the wall, floorboards, ceiling.
I read this entry just moments after cranking some music to cover up the sex in the basement sounds seeping up into my room. Until now I had thought I had escaped that feeling of direct contact noise in this new place. Apparently not. Too bad those loud dogs next door don't howl during the coital moans! That would entertain me completely.
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