it's that time of year again

It's that time in New York City again - end of summer, beginning of autumn, when everyone starts to take the air conditioning units out of their windows. And as a result, we suddenly realize that we do in fact have neighbors across the airshaft.

It seems weird, but one tends to forget that those big white boxes ten feet away actually hide people. People who, like us, go to sleep, wake up, stand naked in front of their windows, etc.

There are some people, like OperaLady, who we hear all year round. Similarly, I can count on always knowing when RapperDude is laying down a sweet track at 1am. But I tend to forget about my neighbors across the way, some of whom are physically closer to me than my roomates, and the lovely noises they make that echo through the airshaft. Which, of course, makes me think about what lovely noises I make that echo through the airshaft. But that's a different blog post.

I have two things to say to my airshaft neighbor
a) If you're going to stand in the window naked, I'm going to look. I can't help it. Am I not human? If you cut me, do I not bleed?
b) If that bothers you, oh, what could you do? Oh, I don't know, maybe DRAW YOUR CURTAINS. I'm not saying I don't mind a free show every once in a while, but I saw you stare at me judgingly.

It just makes me paranoid about who can see what into my room. You know what? I guess I don't really care, but it's one more thing for me to think about when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Now I can't wait for it to get cold so I can close my window and go back to pretending we aren't packed in like sardines.