Perhaps I should respond with Bruce?

I was going to write about writing. How I started this blog a year ago and how this is my fifty-second post, which comes out to one a week, which is a really neat accomplishment. 

I was going to write about how much I’ve learned in the last year in terms of writing, life, running, coping. 

But I'm having trouble focusing on much other than the big bass beat blaring from the neighbor's car.

I live in what was once a peaceful enclave: quiet streets, big yards. It was the ideal place to raise kids. People watched out for each other and were respectful and kind. Note the past tense. 

Things are different now. Most people are still lovely. But there are a few exceptions, unfortunately.

I’ve been writing the same sentence for the last forty-five minutes because of one person in particular. It’s someone who occasionally works on a car and feels the need to blast music from the car radio while doing so. 

Have you ever asked a neighbor to turn down their music? In the almost three decades I've lived here, I have never needed to, until the last year or so. The first and only time I did it, I got screamed at. That's a little jarring, getting screamed at for asking someone to lower their music. Personally, I'd be all over the place apologizing. 

I’ve made the decision to avoid approaching this person any more when the music gets loud.

Now I wait until I can’t wait anymore, and then I just call the cops. It took me fifteen minutes of writing the same sentence about writing over and over again for me to call this time. I’ve been waiting forty minutes now for someone to show up. 

During that time, the neighbor worked hard at cleaning out the car while it was in the garage – I think the walls may have magnified the sound, and scrubbing down the floor mats in the driveway. The car is now in the driveway. Some of the doors are closed, so the bass is slightly muffled. Still, I find myself grinding my teeth and watching the clock.

I tried blocking out the sound with my kitchen radio. But that did no good. I couldn't hear it over the neighbor's bass. I closed my study door but that didn't cut the sound either. 

I could shut the windows. But it’s a beautiful day and the house will get steamy fast. And besides, why should I have to shut my windows?  Why bring more discomfort upon myself? 

So I’ve bagged what I’d been planning on writing and went with this rant instead. I’m super distracted so I’m sure it needs mucho improvement.

  

Now it’s been an hour. Forty-eight minutes since I called the police.

There are plenty of quite serious issues that cops have to deal with, especially in this city, one of the largest in New England, where much of the central area is gang-ridden and violence is as much a part of life as crossing the street.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how much the city must want quiet, law-abiding people like me to stay.  The music has been blasting for seventy-five minutes.

What I want to do now is go on realtor.com and search out new homes in areas where maybe I’d fit in better. But I can’t stand listening to this music any longer, so I guess I’ll take a drive instead. 

(I ended up calling the police again. Turns out, the police had stopped by the house. The neighbor immediately lowered the music.  Then raised it up again after the officer left. Lovely.)