It’s the Monday night after a Sunday closing, and I already don’t know what to do with myself.
…Tonight I’ve experienced three alternate “post-work-day” scenarios to try and fill the time.
First home, I went for a walk. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was.
…I took a different route, into a different neighborhood, attacked some hills, contemplated joining some kids on a swingset in the park, but then thought better of it, as that is exactly how you end up in jail on random kid-attack charges for something you never did while real sickos walk the streets, scoping out their next victims, while drooling.
…I am a bit of a hypochondriac about these kind of things, but current court cases have not risen my sense of confidence to the contrary in any way.
…So…instead of playing, I walked home. Where I then delved into Empire Magazine while shoving as many rice krispy treats as humanly possible, into my face. You know, to counteract anything possibly healthy or invigorating about all the sweating I had just done.
…Then Mrs. Johnson showed up and it was all, “So, whatchu been up to?” and “How was the show?” and “Here, lemme sock you in the guts a little more…”
…Followed by a trip to help Ma with another load, moving into the new Town House.
…And now, after having a picnic on the futon (that I was too lazy to build back up into a couch, since Cecily last slept on it…Saturday night), I am laying on my tummy, listening to my landing neighbor toot about on their clarinet…actually, it’s not a “toot” so much as a “loldel.” (A “loldel” is like a “yodel” minus the “yo”) It’s never a real song…but clearly played by a pro, as no squeaks or whines or honks ever jump out. To me, it sounds like they are forever composing a film underscore. Unlike in jazz free-form, it doesn’t seamlessly link, but alters randomly…with variations but no through-rhythm, going along for a bit before breaking up into a new slower, or higher, or lower piece, changing tempo, with frequent pauses in between.
I like it.
…Though it’s nothing you could do a chore or dance to. It is meant just for their exercise, not as an interlude. But it always makes me wonder what they are practicing for, the kind of music that they really play, and where. And whether it is the same person, or another, who as the pianist in the flat, takes exercise in the same exact kind of way.
…Either way, I like sharing the landing with musicians. Good ones. Classes up the building a bit. And I like that I can justly refer to ours as the Arts Floor of the building. It makes me feel more Bohemian.
…Though my practices tend to more resemble schizophrenia, to the outside observer or listener, than any kind of art. And based on the conversation content, prob’ly of a severely disturbed nature.
In the past seven months of lines and character work alone, I’ve gone on Shakespearean rants, sobbed myself into a total breakdown-fueled suicide, gotten hauled off to a concentration camp, flirted in ridiculously rampant run-on sentence structure in period English, without end, and of late have hacked in nonstop German about spies and undergrounds, in between yodeling a ton of Scottish rolling “R’s” while blathering on about my “hoosband,” and running away from the London police, while accidentally handcuffed to a suspected murderer…with all the kind of once-sided conversations that naturally go with that.
…In fact…now that I think on it, that could be a small contributing reason to the fact that my landing neighbors seem to move quite frequently. In fact, all of them do. By far, I am the oldest tenant in the building…not in “age,” but in longevity. Even now, there is a moving van across the way, and the “vacancy” sign has gone back up on the hanger bolts under our main title post.
…But I honestly think it can’t all be just me. And anyway, the musicians in C1 have been around for at least nine months now. And that says something.
…Even if only that, being musicans, they are too fucking poor to afford to move out and away from the psychotic freak schizo they are currently sharing the landing with.
…Who may, or may not be, alternately suplimenting her income by part-time prostitution, based on the vast numbers of people (of either sex) randomly spending the night, and/or leaving or arriving at three o’clock in the morning.
Such is life.
~D
