Midnight Serenade

Last night, I was looking forward to spending a little time out on my patio because the weather was wonderful. There was a light, cool breeze and virtually no humidity. Perfect patio weather.
I'll have to tell you my Patio Stalking story some other time....

Anyway, so I take my book out there, light some candles and kick back.
A few sentences in, I hear my neighbor's door open. I don't bother turning around or acknowledging her, I'm here to read, not socialize and besides...it's awkward because if I'm quiet and don't move around, it's hard to notice I'm on the patio through the 6 foot fence.
I continue to read as I hear the person close the door and shuffle their feet down the landing to the top of the stairs. Then a moment later, they shuffle back, open the door, but I don't hear the door close. Then I hear the sound of an acoustic guitar. It's a little loud but I am on the patio...it's not like I'm in my bed trying to sleep. Also, it's nice; a little reading music.

After a few minutes, I hear a man's voice speaking in my direction, "Is that too loud?" It wasn't my neighbor but someone apparently staying with her.

I said, "No. Actually it's kind of nice."

"Oh! Well let me get my pick, it'll sound better!"

Crap.

So he comes out and sits on the rail just on the other side of my patio fence and asks if I have any requests.

"You going inside," was my first thought but I'm mostly a nice girl so I kind of giggled and said "Oh I don't know."

"Well, I can play anything."

So, I told him I loved the Foo Fighters and he said "They are actually one of my favorite bands. Hold on..."
He looked down at the strings for a moment, then started playing Everlong.
It wasn't great but it was very cool.
After Everlong, he played a little Metallica Fade to Black. He then segued into something he wrote and it was VERY good.
But the whole thing was surreal. First I was sitting quietly on my patio and the next thing I know, I'm being serenaded through the fence by this complete stranger.

I worried about the noise. We're a very quiet apartment complex and I felt like I needed to tell him to be quiet.
I feel like that at work a lot. People never learned that you have to be quiet in a library and they walk in talking at the top of their lungs and I literally cringe, thinking about all those people being disturbed.

While he was playing, I kept thinking about this and then got mad at myself. It's one thing to expect people to be quiet at work but I'm not responsible for this guy. If the other tenants want to complain, let them. I actually had to give myself permission to enjoy the serenade and not worry about the other apartment dwellers.

I think I might be wound tighter than this guy's guitar strings!

Posted by De at November 9, 2007 10:44 AM | TrackBack