Apartment Shopping in my Mind

I live behind a bar.

There, I said it. Phew, what a load off my mind to finally be out about that.

Oh, wait . . . that’s not right. It was that queer thing I should be worried outing myself about. Good thing I didn’t mention that then, huh?

It’s a pretty respectable bar, as bars go: A sports pub actually, with tons of huge screens for people to drunkenly scream at for no apparent reason, as if the players can actually hear them–or each other for that matter, as loud as it gets over there. Recently renovated, pleasantly arranged, well-lit . .  it’s a friendly looking place in there, from what I can tell. If I actually drank or could fathom sports I might give you a better view of it than through its large shiny windows as I’m passing by each day. But I don’t, much, so there.

The pub is nestled on the ground floor of my comfortably appointed and friendly apartment building, with a lovely courtyard separating it from my cozy little apartment. I’m happy with the arrangement . . . for the most part . . .

Until about 1:00AM.

You’d think I’d be happy that the noise abates around this time of night. But if you know me (i.e., you pay attention to the posting times of these blog entries. No, if you could actually see the posting times of these blog entries), you’d deduce that it’s not really a fly in my bearnaise sauce. You may not deduce the bearnaise sauce bit, actually. But if you did, I’d send you a cookie and a one-way plane ticket to Siberia, because frankly you’re freaking me out.

No, what happens around the wee hours of the morning are conversations. Drunken ones. Directly under my window.

I don’t mind conversations actually. The daytime ones are quite entertaining. I’ve witnessed a plethora of phone calls, debates, arguments, diagnoses, theories, educated and uneducated guesses, prophecies and neural pathway cleaning exercises (otherwise known as self-monologues) beneath my windows that have affected me anywhere along the spectrum of Boredom level 0.2, to Rolling under my desk laughing until my head pops off level 92.8. Although not entirely sane, at least they were relatively sober.

BonNuR1CIAA2UeQ.jpg largeBut at night it gets a little scary. It’s not the slurring or the exclamations about why my building keeps moving that I find so frightening . . .  but the way in which the monumentally drunk are stripped down to their bare essence. Their true colors. Their actual selves.

Most of the participants of these verbal expectorations are male, with a few rare drunk women mixed in to amp up the frighteningness (yes, I’m glaringly guilty of adding “ness” to almost any word, without the actual benefit of feeling guilty. about it . . . because I can). Not to kill your buzz here, but if I were to get a nickel for every misogynistic comment I’ve heard under my window past a certain hour, along with all kinds of premeditated rape-like details, I’d be able to afford installing huge neon lights on the moon that spell out, “Hey guys, WTF?” (I originally had “is wrong with you!” added to the end, but I calculated I’d need another 7 cents per misogynist.

I don’t really want to talk about it, but it looks like I did anyway. I mean someone has to. These guys’ male friends who DO have scruples might want to step up here. Just saying.

I’m kind of hoping this phenomenon is rarer than it seems, though I will clearly not be holding my breath on this point anytime soon. Perhaps it takes a mentality that thinks getting this drunk is actually fun, for that person to also be unclear on the whole human empathy thing. I don’t really know.

Until I find a cure for stupid, I’m thinking the best thing I can probably do is either: A) Learn to sleep like a “normal” person (Side-splitting laugh level 85.3), or B) find another apartment that exhibits a complete lack of bar-ness*.

Anyone know of a modest apartment I can rent in NW Portland?

[ * Yes, I did it again. If Lock Ness or Eliot Ness can do it, so can I. So there. ]

6 Comments

  1. OMG. In all the understanding of how adorably cozy inside and how ickily yuckness it is outside, I never had a clue about all this. ICKINESS!! Of course, the space shuttle and I are at your beck and call to assist with this endeavor in any way possible! ((Checks calendar)) Yup, my weekends are … available 😛 Let’s get you outta there <3

    1. Author

      It’s not as bad as it sounds (not that I would exaggerate or anything . . . giggle), since it’s mostly on weekends that it gets like this, when I’m usually with you. (Yayyyy =) ) And I figured out I can just turn up my own music to drown it out. It’s just knowing that [some] men actually think this way about women that makes it so squidgy, and that they’re right outside my window sometimes.

      1. yeah…. that’s still seriously icky. and, hearing the yelling and whatnot that was happening when we were there last night even, before it was all that late even… yeah. i don’t retract my original comments giggle. Let’s get you outta there 😛 <3

  2. Well I’m sorry to say Miki, but there really is no cure for stupid.
    It seems to me that idiocy follows the general principle of entropy, always increasing and is a basic law of nature.
    Let me explain:
    Given that genius = 1 and Idiot = 0 and given any distribution of people not having entirely 1.0 level geniuses, then multiplying the “idiot level” of any crowd will always result in “more idiot”.

    I call it the “Janine Idiotness Principle” (yes I stole your favorite suffix there).
    Adding alcohol to any individual will always result in the square of their idiotness, thus ampifying the “idiot level” significantly.

    Additionally; Y chromosomes always have a value of 0.5 and are multiple by any carbon hyrdogen oxide molecules to the fourth power (C2H6O) i.e. alcohol.
    Therefore it can be plainly demonstrated that any idiot “i” of less than 1.0 combined with a Y chromosome and alcohol would yield ((i**2) * 0.5) ** 4 which is an incredibly powerful idiot indeed.

    You can imagine what happens to that formula when applied to virtually any crowd.
    Idiotness is thus prevalent everywhere in the universe, but no where is this more apparent than below an apartment window outside a sports bar at 1am on a “Saturday night binge”.

    I think I could probably get a grant for this research if only the funding committee would spend one Saturday night in your apartment without themselves succumbing the same idiotness law, which unfortunately appears to be impossible because “grant committee member” has it’s own term in the formula with a multiplier of spectacularly small proportions.

    So If any progress is ever to be made with the “Janine Idiotness Principle” then I think the only course of action is to perhaps consider renting out your apartment for for research purposes on Saturday nights.
    I’m sure with the income from the study funds you would be able to find a much nicer apartment with a much more respectable distance from any ad-hoc idiotness research center (commonly termed “sports bar”).

    Janine, RRS, NVS, TOOHM, author of the Janine Idiotness Principle theorum.

    1. Author

      I may have to seriously consider letting you write this blog from now on. Sounds like you have enough material for one. giggle

      1. Miki dear, I don’t have any material, I just have an large quantity of misplaced neural connections that when provoked by your wonderful blog, write copious amounts of nonsense in reply.
        🙂 keep it up !

Your thoughts and ideas are welcome here. ^_^