Love thy neighbor

Until a bare couple of months ago, I felt completely trapped, stuck in the same vicinity as a neighbor whose idea of a good time was dragging (a kickass) stereo system outside into his front yard, and blast it.

Knowing some of Paraguayan culture's finer points of private entertainment, I didn't make much of it, especially knowing he doesn't have friends and still wants to party on a friday or saturday night. But then he started doing this same thing on thursdays, friday and saturday. Then, sometimes he'd add mondays, sometimes tuesdays, sometimes wednesdays, sometimes all of them.

A few weeks of heated and angry discussions followed by apologies (mostly from his side) later and a conversation with an indifferent Cop in front of his house, I told the neighbor he could do whatever the hell he wants to, since there is no use in asking him for this personal favor: to turn his goddamn music down every time he pulls this stunt.

Of course he didn't understand why, since I work with music I must like listening to music, and loud. When I told him I don't like the things he listens to he asked me to give him some music I like, so being your own boss in deciding how loud you want your neighborhood to hear your music was no concept to him either - being completely blind in regards to his own doing.

But that must have been it - someone giving up on him personally - that made him only play music really loud only twice in the past 7 weeks.

And even though I'm not treated to some of his funnier displays of complete drunkenness like yelling at cars that go by fast (because they're going by too fast for him), or yelling at the clouds when it thunders (because he descends from an ape), sometimes I can still hear him yelling faintly from the back of his house or over on one street up from mine.

It's nice to hear the rain fall without having someone ruin it for me.