Dear Lee & Michael,
An interruption in previously scheduled programming for a urgent letter to my downstairs neighbors
Dear Lee & Michael,
I hope that you are having a jolly and joyful holiday season so far!
To be honest with you, I was surprised to receive your most recent missive. I thought I was doing so well keeping quiet for you! But then I remembered and must admit—I was out until 4:30 on Saturday night (or Sunday morning rather, as you correctly point out) celebrating my friend Charlotte’s birthday. I know, I know—it’s shocking! I can’t remember the last time I was out that late, but after Charlotte’s party in Brooklyn we came back to the West Village, and we were having so much fun, we just couldn’t bear for the night to end. There’s really no place on earth like Automatic Slim’s at 3:30 in the morning. Anyway, I’m guessing that you heard my lover and me arriving home after our reveling, and I’m sorry for that! In the future I will endeavor to be quieter when I am out until the wee hours—though after the way I felt on Sunday, I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to impress you with my stealth anytime soon.
As for the rest of it, I’m afraid I don’t know how to help you. I suppose I can begin by assuring you that I do not spend hours “stomping back and forth” in my apartment. That would frankly be a preposterous use of my time. You see—I’m one of those unlucky few who has to work physically in the office every day of the week. This means that Monday through Friday, I only spend about six waking hours in the apartment per day (I’m excluding sleep, as I am not a sleepwalker TO MY KNOWLEDGE). The majority of those hours are spent in my kitchen (on tiles, not creaky floorboards), either cooking or doing the dishes after I cook. Living without a dishwasher was a big adjustment at first, but I’ve come to love it. The washing up is meditative, and is there anything more satisfying than clean dishes piled up on gleaming countertops?
When I’m not being a domestic goddess, I can be found lounging on the couch with my book. I don’t have the accent chair that I want for my living room yet, but I’m hoping to get it soon. My mom found some good ones on Facebook Marketplace if you can believe it! Once I have the chair, I’ll probably lounge there too—as long as it’s comfortable. I also do love a good soak in the bath. Our bathtubs are so nice and deep. Sometimes I sit and write at my dining table. I write every week actually—and you can subscribe to my newsletter here if you’re interested. I’ve only written about you a couple of times and nothing you would take issue with, I hope. I spend no time at all really in my bedroom until I’m getting into bed. I presume you’ve put your bedroom in the same place as mine, layout wise, and that you’re there when I’m supposedly keeping you up well past midnight? I prescribe to the whole “bedroom is a den for sleeping” thing as much as possible, and I sleep like a baby because of it (again, no sleepwalking TO MY KNOWLEDGE).
The only back and forth movement I can think of at all would be when I’m tidying up (never for more than 20 minutes at a time because the only chore I actually enjoy is cleaning the kitchen) or getting dressed to go out (sometimes longer than 20 minutes at a time, but only when I hate everything in my closet, and I’m sure you know how frustrating that can be!). As for “dropping heavy objects on the floor,” I’m no clumsier than the average girl. After this third letter from you in as many months, I can’t imagine that it will come as a shock when I tell you that you are the first people I think of every single time I do drop something by accident!
I would hope that in light of our previous epistolary interactions, it would go without saying that I am not an inconsiderate asshole. Remember?! The crumb cake!? I do not want to disturb you. I know that my floor is your ceiling. I studied architecture for two years in college, but even if I hadn’t, I would know. Much as you have a right to be free of ‘unnecessary noise,’ I have a right to live normally in my 80%-carpeted-as-specified-in-the-lease-apartment without fear that you’re putting a hex on me from below. I don’t actually owe you the thoughtful explanation of my day to day behavior that I just typed out. I cannot tiptoe in my own home. My calves are not strong enough.
In your past letters, you boldly assume that I don’t know what it’s like to have upstairs neighbors because I live on the top floor. Penthouse privilege. I will refrain from pointing out that you could have moved up here when the unit opened up—I would have gladly taken the “stomping” upstairs neighbors in exchange for one less flight of stairs. Oh shit, I forgot to refrain.
Your assumption is bold because you don’t know the first thing about me. Yet! But I’ll tell you. I was born and raised in Manhattan in a prewar building and grew up drifting off to sleep to the frequently inexplicable sounds of our upstairs neighbors. My parents used to make my sister and me giggle coming up with lists of increasingly outlandish things that they might be doing: spilling jars of pennies out to count them, and roll them, and take them to the bank! bowling! playing darts but they’re nailed to the ceiling and the dartboard is nailed the floor! That’s what all the noise was yesterday—they were hammering in the nails!
I went to boarding school for all four years of high school and our walls were thin as paper. Thinner. One year, I plugged my lights into a clapper so that I wouldn’t have to crawl into bed in the dark. A young genius, I know. Every night at lights out, I hopped into bed and clapped twice. Chimes of laughter and “goodnight Eve”’s would reach me from the room next door—they could hear me, and I could hear them. A different year, I found out that my boyfriend had cheated on me (for the third time), and my howling was so loud and so profane that the teacher who lived on the other side of my wall came to check on me. A friend who lived directly below me could also hear me from her top bunk perch, but we weren’t supposed to leave our rooms that late at night.
Later, in college, I lived in a really, really old apartment building. So old, I think it was partially condemned not long after we vacated the premises, and whatever insulation once existed between the walls and under the floorboards was long ago eaten away by the mold. A boy lived above me who fought frequently and loudly with his girlfriend. They jumped up and down a lot like babies in a tantrum state, and they threw things at the walls. Either that or he was deadlifting and she was cheering him on with verve and vigor! Speaking of vigor, they also had sex very loudly. Cliche, I know. I would go get the broom and bang it on my ceiling until they shut up. Please don’t bang your broom on the ceiling—it’ll leave marks, and you won’t get your full security deposit back.
My neighbors now, in this very building have their TV mounted on our shared wall, and they keep it on all night long. I’ve found that a white noise machine helps enormously to muffle the sound.
Such is apartment living. It’s kind of beautiful really when you think about it. Getting to live so intimately with so many strangers. Knowing something of the rhythms and habits of someone you don’t know at all. According to a quick Google search, there are one million forty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven residential apartments in New York City. Think of all those people living stacked on top of each other. All that humanity, thrumming and thriving. It doesn’t thrum or thrive anywhere quite like it does here.
Fondly,
Your neighbor, Eve
P.S.—Your letter was serendipitously timed. I was just getting ready to write you to say that I will be hosting twelve of my closest friends for dinner on Thursday to celebrate the winter solstice. I’m making a leg of lamb with scalloped potatoes. And a big kale salad, but who cares about that when there are scalloped potatoes?! I’m not going to make my guests take off their shoes, so you might hear some stomping. Maybe also some happy laughter and profusions of love. I hope it won’t be too disturbing, but I also don’t care if it is.
Please submit this to the New Yorker
You are much nicer than I am