What Noise Annoys An Oyster?

Zeitgeisters, I live in a small block of flats because I am somewhat of a psycho and have issues about being alone. I’m dealing with it in therapy at the moment, so who knows, I might get over myself eventually.

Anyway, I like the quiet. And my block of flats is mostly that. One of my neighbours regularly arrives home at 3am-ish., but I’m usually on my computer blogging or at least watching Bart John selling the Time-Life "Singers and Songwriters" 3-CD set in a paid presentation on Network 10. I’m an insomniac. Whenever I hear my neighbour’s keys crunching into the lock of her front door I am reminded of these lines:

When a Broadway baby says "Good night,"
It's early in the morning.
Manhattan babies don't sleep tight until the dawn:
Good night, baby,
Good night, milkman's on his way.
Sleep tight, baby,
Sleep tight, let's call it a day,
Listen to the lullaby of old Broadway

The song Lullaby of Broadway was written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin in the 1930s. I used to think the notion of coming home so late that it was almost dawn sounded ineffably romantic. I was a kid, what can I say? I don’t think my neighbour is a hoofer on the Great White Way, but if I was realistic about the world and how it works I probably wouldn’t do half of what I do.

So yes, I confess that one of my cultural reference points are 20th century musicals. People look at you askance, when you admit to this, but musical haters, it’s your loss.

Countless times (or at least six or seven) someone has send to me, I just don’t find it convincing when the guy opens his mouth to express his emotions in song. Yeah, get that. And I never found it all that convincing when Arnold opened his mouth to deliver an alleged witticism after spraying the Columbian drug lords with multiple rounds from his machine gun. Different strokes for different folks.

So Mabel returning from the Ziegfeld Follies doesn’t disturb me, the noise that is really getting up my nose and into my ear at the moment is my neighbour’s MSN Messenger’s standard-alert tone. It’s three am in the damned morning and I can hear those three notes (musos please correct me if necessary) every few minutes.

He- I think I know who it is - lives two flights up and I know the very moment that someone in his contact list is messaging him back.

I believe I have successfully channelled my neighbour and here is an excerpt of his conversation (He is Loudness Disciple, folks):

URKLE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
And that’s when I told her, no way are we having a dog, Why don’t we start with a houseplant?

LOUDNESS DISCIPLE
Word. What kind of plant?

URKLE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
African Violet. Zinnia. WTF do I know about plants?

LOUDNESS DISCIPLE
OMG could that ho’ be any louder?

URKLE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
Who? Brunette Scarlett Johannsen?

LOUDNESS DISCIPLE
No, my other neighbour. She always comes home at 3 am in the morning!! WTF!!!

URKLE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
3 AM in the morning is a tautology – dumbass!!

LOUDNESS DISCIPLE
Like I give a crap. Great , now the guy downstairs has started bashing on the keys of his computer. What a tool.

URKLE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
Sounds like a blogger. Who else writes at this time of night?

LOUDNESS DISCIPLE
Word.

And…scene. So, yet another thing to annoy us in this irritating miasma of joy that we call life in the 21st century. However to bring it all back to therapy, We all need someone to love and something to complain about. These are essential. Everything else is a bonus.

Elevate the Insignificant

Mr Trivia


P.S.. I was looking up “ineffably” in an online dictionary to research this blog. Yeah, I’m amazed that I do any research, too. And the definition provided one of those examples that makes one wonder about the state of mind of the definer. Check it out.

ineffably, indescribably, unutterably, unspeakably

to an inexpressible degree; "she was looking very young tonight, and, as usual, indescribably beautiful, in a simple strapless dress of a green and white silky cotton"

It just seemed very specific.