heffalumps and woozles

My upstairs neighbor is a force to be reckoned with.

I've had upstairs neighbors before. Loud ones. Upstairs neighbors who bounced basketballs at 7am and upstairs neighbors who, like Craig David, were Born to Do It.

But current upstairs neighbor takes the cake.

Let us call her Stompy.

I know it's a single female inhabitant. I know her name. I know she orders prints from snapfish.

I also know that she has a tendency to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, generally around 4am. She probably has gone to lots of concerts, because her TV is loud enough for the both of us to enjoy. I know she washes dishes only in the evenings, and she eats dinner roughly around 7. She wakes up, and probably goes to the gym, and then comes back and takes a shower. She wakes up before I do but leaves after, so that's the only guess I can properly make.

Doesn't that just make you feel uncomfortable?

It makes me uncomfortable that I know THAT much about her. It also makes me uncomfortable that I have to fill in the gaps in the story. I don't know her face, but I know how often she pees? Give me a break. Creepy! But, to my own defense, it fills the time while I'm staring at the ceiling laying in bed, swearing quietly to myself, wishing for her sudden purchase of thick, expensive wall to wall carpeting. There must be some good to this woman, though she stomps around mightily.

I imagine she's training injured elephants who have been shipped from Nepal who were mis-treated how to perform gallant tricks so that an organic, free-range circus can take them around the country and have them shake hands with disabled children. How can you hate an animal lover? An activist?

Maybe she has a life long dream of being in a revival of "42nd Street" and has been a self-taught tapdancer since the age of 7. She practices at night to keep her dreams alive and her apartment warm. At night she cries herself to sleep, but to dream of glimmering character shoes and bow-ties. That dream keeps her moving, and that moving keeps her going.

Or, she's plagued by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It's ruined her life, and the only way she can cope properly is to rearrange the furniture on a daily basis. Her dining table has been in all possible corners and now is occasionally moved into the bedroom, just to shake it up a little. Her medication also gives her superhuman strength, so it's easy to lift those couches but her OCD makes it hard for her to select the proper locations.

She has 24-hour dance-a-thons for Easter Seals. Twice a week.

Perhaps she is a determined Catholic who wants to bring drifters back to the flock. She MUST know I gave Catholicism up for Lent in 2003, and has decided that the only way to get me back in touch with the Lord, is to irritate me to the brink of summoning Jesus, Mary and Joseph by name. Only after I take them in vain so many times will I properly feel Catholic-flavored guilt and repent. Become a nun. Decide that the noises from above are not from a neighbor, but from God himself. Give up sleep and food in favor of fasting and meditating upon said noise as divine intervention of syncopated footsteps and nonsensical creaking of floorboards as the modern burning bush.

Is a Republican and saw all my liberally-leaning mail and has decided to make me pay for my bleeding heart.

Is a Democrat and doesn't think I do enough for the cause. Isn't the relinquishing of my relationship until election day enough? Doesn't the DK do enough for the BOTH OF US?

Is Satan. Tempts me with forbidden fruit of silence. Thinks I'm hilariously cute when huffy.

Is Jake Gyllenhaal. Tempts me with forbidden fruit of self. Thinks I'm hilariously cute when huffy.

Is my mother, so she can guarantee that I can't sleep in.

(DCblogs, Express: kisses!!)