Wherein I am Literally Awoken by the Past

First, ignore the time stamps on the bottoms of my blog posts. They are always random and made up and I can't figure out how to fix them. 

That being said, you should know that it is the middle of the night. And I'm fairly certain that this is the first blog in the history of Feeling Kinda Blog Today that I have ever written moments after being awoken out of a deep sound sleep. 

Here's how it breaks down. I live in a really big building. I think there are about 80 units in my building. Everyone here is pretty cool. I met a few neighbors when I moved in over a year ago and they were all very...friendly. 

People say hi in the stairwell and everyone seems pretty normal and decent. There was a fire alarm a few weeks ago and out of the 80 units only me and one other girl went outside. We ended up chatting, mostly about how I'd forgotten my cat, and she was super nice. 

Or there was this guy, who was so so so so pretty and his mailbox was next to mine and I lost all capacity to speak or think or breathe around him and so generally I made a scowling face and sort of, hid behind pillars and stuff whenever I ran into him in the lobby. But he seemed nice.

There are a lot of young people in my building, like...super young...like..."My First Apartment" young. And then there are young people like me, like, medium young, like..."My 8th apartment but this time I'm really going to make something out of my life" young. And tonight...there was a battle between them. 

It. Ruled.

So I'm lying in bed, asleep and I awake to the loud thumping on floor one of music and singing. There is a group of four or five hammered young ladies and one guy and they are BELTING, with gut wrenching raw emotion I might add, every line to Alanis Morisette's "You Outta Know". I kind of want to get mad about the noise, but you guys, they are so sincere and so into it. You know that this was an impromptu get together because one of those bitches just got dumped. "Oh my god! You know what we need tonight after work then? You need to come over and bring a bottle of something hard and we are going to have an Alanis night!!!" So, I didn't get mad.

People in my building don't really get mad, they get funny. I remember one time watching Gone With the Wind in my apartment with the windows open and then suddenly the next night I heard the movie playing in at least two other apartments. Or sometimes someone will sneeze in one apartment and someone in a different apartment will say "Bless you." Once I remember lying on the couch watching tv in a pair of the worlds most hilarious pajamas and just looking up and out one of my massive windows to a guy at a desk in full view. It's the first time I understood why we have shades instead of blinds...which I now use. The part of the building I live in is a courtyard so it's a little "Rear Window"ish in terms of everyone being all up in each other's bidniz. But I like it. Mostly because no one complained back when I was having a lot of parties and also because as a kid and still to this day it makes me nuts to fall asleep without noise. I hate feeling like Im the only one awake. I've learned to just keep a radio handy and that does the trick, but I also enjoy leaving the window open, especially on a night like this. 

So, the girls are singing their hearts out to Alanis when all of a sudden from the third floor a window flies open. The Alanis girls turn down the music expecting to get yelled at and instead the third floor blasts forth with Madonna's "Get Into the Groove."

Brilliant. It's an all out music war, 80's vs. 90's between the first and third floors. Want to know the most amazing part, that some of you may have already guessed? I live on the SECOND floor. 

The Alanis girls counter Madonna with "I don't ever wanna feeeeeeeel, like I did that day, take me to the place I loooooove, take me all the way" (Red Hot Chili Peppers right?) A strange comeback in my opinion but I see how it's fun to sing along loudly to it. Madonna group pipes up with some song that I didn't recognize but that is clearly 80's...ooh, not good, I think in a challenge like this you need to stick to the classics. Alanis group returns blaring the always hilarious to hear in the middle of the night fan favorite "When I think about you I touch myself"...again, another odd choice but extra points for hilarity. This goes on for a few more rounds until Alanis group let's the boy pic a song and he picks some showtune and he's the only one singing...at which point I awarded the immediate win to Madonna group. They were going to win regardless of the arbitrary showtune since they were the 80's group and 80's always trumps 90's. I suppose the game would have gone on longer too, but I live on the very very border of Ravenswood and a little place called Uptown better known as "Crazytown" or "Murderville" and so while on the one hand you see a lot of new mommies pushing their golden haired babies in joggers while walking the family labrador and checking their emails on their blackberry pearls...you also see...on the same street mind you...a drooling woman with no pants shouting obscenities at a birds nest. 

It's all part of the charm.

So it was no one in my actual building who put a stop to the battle of the bands...rather, a concerned passerby who screamed at the top of her lungs, "You shut that shit off you crazy ass mutha-f***ers!"

See, cause we care about each other in this neighborhood. So they did, they all burst out giggling and then those muthaf***ers did indeed, shut that shit off. 

I used to do that, get slammed with my friends and stay up singing-along all night and not giving a shit about old lades with cats upstairs who are trying to sleep. During this whole thing I found myself not at all annoyed...mostly just sort of jealous.

But I guess that's how it goes. Luckily in the summertime I have a certain friend who shall remain nameless who has a certain car that remains topless and we are able to cruise around and sing the shit out of some ridiculous old songs so that makes me feel better. 

Anyway, if I have to be awoken out of a dead sleep...I can think of no better reason than to witness a sing-along-off between the songs of my childhood and the songs of my teenage years.

Unless I was being awoken and handed a million dollars. 

Or unless I was being awoken like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty...to make out with a hot prince.

Or maybe unless I was being awoken to...ok, yes, there are a number of things that would be better to wake up to. 

But all in all, a sing-off ain't so bad.