Some Moments of Happiness, and an Angry Rant with Noplace to Go

First, I need to say that my mini-concert at the new senior facility went well.  I nailed the two high As in "The Drinking Song" and everything else went well.  The people seemed to really enjoy it.  Later in the year I will get in touch with the woman who coordinates these things and see if she wants us to come back.

And I loved the name of the program: Engage Life.  In addition to having concerts, they also have outings for the residents where they take them to museums.  Once again, it was reinforced that I have a "calling" to work with seniors that I hope will extend into my future if I am left behind by my angel.

I am also really really trying to love my "little life" which most of the time I do.

As for the rant, I am writing it down here because I don't know what else to do with it.  I wrote a letter to the Times section "Social Qs" but have no idea if it will be answered let alone printed (I didn't even get an automated response, which I found odd, as I did when I wrote to The Ethicist a few years ago.  They answered, but did not print, my question.)

As I've probably mentioned numerous times before, I live in a NYC apartment building in which half of the tenants (all rent regulated) have lived for 20, 30, or more years.  For the most part we are a cohesive and supportive community and are committed to "speaking with one voice" if we have to communicate with the building management.

Unfortunately, I have a neighbor, someone I detest (he is simply a "type" that I detest) mostly because he treats the communal laundry room as his personal "man cave" and any time I go down there to do laundry he is blasting loud music.  I have no idea what it is; once he told me what he was playing was the "Velvet Underground".  There are several issues here.  First, I dislike most of the music he plays.  Second, in this era of technology, he should be using ear buds.  (I suggested this to him but he said he doesn't like them because he wants to be aware of his surroundings! He's kidding, right? He couldn't even hear if someone said "hello".)  Third, no one should be playing music in a public place.  Fourth, no one should be playing music that loud if they don't want to end up deaf.  But fifth and most importantly I see the whole thing as a form of male aggression.

Any time I come down there if he has music on, he does turn it off, saying "I didn't know you were coming down here."  To me that's not enough.  That is making it about me.  That I'm "too sensitive" so he will be "nice".  The typical male/female trope of men taking space (auditory included) and then accommodating to women who don't like it rather than just not doing it in the first place!! 

I am at my wits end about this.  Actually, when the new building manager took over, they circulated a list of do's and dont's (unfortunately they attached it to people's leases, which is illegal) that covered a wide range of topics including (this is legal if posted in a lobby) that people were not allowed to play music in public places.  I mentioned it to my neighbor, who claims he never saw it, which might be true.  I was going to email it to him but decided against it because it also referred to  people not making noise in their apartments.  That's a rats' nest I don't want to stir up.  I have never gotten complaints about my singing, even the ten minutes I spend warming up at 7:45 before leaving to sing in the 9 am service once a month.  And in fairness, I have never complained about noise coming from anyone else's apartment,  which I hear occasionally: everything from loud rock music (never past 9 pm and not as loud as it is when I'm actually standing next to it in the laundry room) to a little girl and her father screaming at each other.

I suppose now with the advent of women speaking out, I have come to see the behavior of this neighbor as assaultive.  He's giving the finger to civilized adult society, like a teenager (he's almost 70).  And what I hate equally is he's always trying to "engage" with me in some way.  Once at a tenants' meeting, for example, he told me I looked like a skinhead because my jeans were rolled up (hello I'm short!!!) and I had on red socks.  What kind of idiotic comment was that? What did he think he was trying to do? All it did was make me feel aggressed against. 

I think why I hate him so much is that he thinks he's hip and cool and has committed the unforgiveable sin of thinking that I will like him because he is hip and cool.  I don't do hip and cool.  I sing Bach.