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Apr. 22nd, 2002 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetI see that lots of people are, like, wicked bummed.
Despite the flippancy of that, I'm sorry to hear it and can only offer sympathy and that, for what it's worthy, *I* like you.
Anyway.
A bit of study this weekend but mostly I was socializing with J.'s family, and next Sunday is lost to a long-scheduled obligation, and so it's more and more clear that I'll have to skip the LARP next weekend, which sucks as I never actually get to play my favorite game, only run it. But the other things are not skippable, and a couple of evenings in the next week are nights out to see favorite bands that I've been looking forward to for months, and so it's the eat-up-all-Saturday game that must go, esp. as last Saturday was likewise consumed.
So that's unfortunate, but maybe if I'd been more productive of late...
----
How 'bout that earthquake, huh?
When we lived in Providence, J. thought she felt a minor earthquake one night when she was home by herself -- a hanging lamp and plants were swaying vigorously, things were shaking, the usual sort of thing, although not so bad as when she lived in Japan during the Kobe quake -- but there was nothing in the news about a quake in the Northeast. Could it have been a passing truck or something? It seemed to go on too long for that. In any case, it was a minor and quickly forgotten mystery, until it happened when I was home, also alone, one night. The Event went on for a couple of minutes. Bookcases were slamming themselves against the wall and the cats freaked out.
He had lived in an apartment owned by the same landlords, and he and his roommates had had trouble getting out of their lease even when the building had been condemned as unsound. So we began to worry: was our building moving on its foundation? We already worried that every time we sat down on the toilet the floorboards, slowly rotting from a never-fixed leak (every so often they just replaced the floor tiles so it didn't look so bad), would finally give way and send one of us, surprised and pantsless, as an unannounced visitor to the apartment downstairs; now it seemed that the whole building might suddenly decide to fall over.
We resolved to ask our neighbors upstairs and down- if they had noticed this, but the chance didn't come up until one night when it happened again. This time we were both home, and it was early enough in the evening that it wouldn't be rude to seek out the neighbors' advice. We knew that our upstairs neighbor, K., and his girlfriend were there, as we had seen their car arrive earlier, and so I went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
"Yeah?" K. said, after a long moment. He hadn't opened the door.
"The building just shook," I said, "and it's happened a couple of other times. We were just wondering if you had noticed or knew what was causing it."
There was another long moment.
"I think," he replied slowly, "that was us."
"Oh," said I, and crept away back down the stairs.
- - -
J. and I had never considered that possibility. I've had upstairs neighbors whose sex lives caused alarm, annoyance, or amusement, but there are certain sounds that usually indicate what is going on, and this time -- well, plants were swinging to and fro, bottles and glasses of liquid threatened the impending arrival of the tyrant lizard, and the damn bookcases were knocking against the wall!
We never really had an opportunity to express to K. that our question had been innocent, and that it wasn't a passive-aggressive complaint. Alas.
There still must have been something wrong with that building, though. I don't care how athletic K. and his woman were.
And I suppose that, come to think of it, the shaking doesn't seem to have lasted so long in retrospect, considering.
Despite the flippancy of that, I'm sorry to hear it and can only offer sympathy and that, for what it's worthy, *I* like you.
Anyway.
A bit of study this weekend but mostly I was socializing with J.'s family, and next Sunday is lost to a long-scheduled obligation, and so it's more and more clear that I'll have to skip the LARP next weekend, which sucks as I never actually get to play my favorite game, only run it. But the other things are not skippable, and a couple of evenings in the next week are nights out to see favorite bands that I've been looking forward to for months, and so it's the eat-up-all-Saturday game that must go, esp. as last Saturday was likewise consumed.
So that's unfortunate, but maybe if I'd been more productive of late...
----
How 'bout that earthquake, huh?
When we lived in Providence, J. thought she felt a minor earthquake one night when she was home by herself -- a hanging lamp and plants were swaying vigorously, things were shaking, the usual sort of thing, although not so bad as when she lived in Japan during the Kobe quake -- but there was nothing in the news about a quake in the Northeast. Could it have been a passing truck or something? It seemed to go on too long for that. In any case, it was a minor and quickly forgotten mystery, until it happened when I was home, also alone, one night. The Event went on for a couple of minutes. Bookcases were slamming themselves against the wall and the cats freaked out.
He had lived in an apartment owned by the same landlords, and he and his roommates had had trouble getting out of their lease even when the building had been condemned as unsound. So we began to worry: was our building moving on its foundation? We already worried that every time we sat down on the toilet the floorboards, slowly rotting from a never-fixed leak (every so often they just replaced the floor tiles so it didn't look so bad), would finally give way and send one of us, surprised and pantsless, as an unannounced visitor to the apartment downstairs; now it seemed that the whole building might suddenly decide to fall over.
We resolved to ask our neighbors upstairs and down- if they had noticed this, but the chance didn't come up until one night when it happened again. This time we were both home, and it was early enough in the evening that it wouldn't be rude to seek out the neighbors' advice. We knew that our upstairs neighbor, K., and his girlfriend were there, as we had seen their car arrive earlier, and so I went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
"Yeah?" K. said, after a long moment. He hadn't opened the door.
"The building just shook," I said, "and it's happened a couple of other times. We were just wondering if you had noticed or knew what was causing it."
There was another long moment.
"I think," he replied slowly, "that was us."
"Oh," said I, and crept away back down the stairs.
- - -
J. and I had never considered that possibility. I've had upstairs neighbors whose sex lives caused alarm, annoyance, or amusement, but there are certain sounds that usually indicate what is going on, and this time -- well, plants were swinging to and fro, bottles and glasses of liquid threatened the impending arrival of the tyrant lizard, and the damn bookcases were knocking against the wall!
We never really had an opportunity to express to K. that our question had been innocent, and that it wasn't a passive-aggressive complaint. Alas.
There still must have been something wrong with that building, though. I don't care how athletic K. and his woman were.
And I suppose that, come to think of it, the shaking doesn't seem to have lasted so long in retrospect, considering.
