Obviously Paranoid

People tell me I have a very active imagination. Well duh! Would I be such an awesome writer and hilarious person if I didn't? Unlikely. I don't think I'm clinically paranoid- not like schizophrenic or anything (wait-deja vu here...I think we've discussed this before). I've seen schizophrenia and I don't think I exhibit the symptoms closely enough to see a doctor.

This morning as I was doing the dishes, around 7 or 7:30, I heard the squeak of the neighbor's bath faucet (they are loud in this complex) and the water in my kitchen faucet lost pressure and a bit of heat. I made a point not to mess with it or turn it off and on as it really sucks when you're trying to shower and someone else is messing with the water.

We all went about our day.

Somewhere between 11 am and 1 pm, the neighbor turned on her stereo excessively loud. The walls are thin here and my living room wall vibrated with the boom of the bass. Ugh.

Around 1 or 2 the downstairs neighbor came up to ask my neighbor to turn the music down. She knocked on the door and window for about 5 minutes before giving up and disappearing.

I had errands to run.

I got home past 3 and the stereo was still going. Obviously my neighbor was dead. It was the only explanation. Either she had killed herself or someone had killed her.

By 5 I was beside myself with the noise. I do not do noise well. And constant noise is completely intolerable to me. I can't handle it. I can't handle the background noise that people love so much. People playing music too loud, talking too loud. I just read something about noise sensitivity but that's another story. Back to the neighbor.

I tried my noise canceling headphones. First I tried them with music which only exacerbated the problem. Adding more noise to noise intolerance is not the answer.

I discovered free white noise generators on the internet. Pretty cool. Simply Noise has white noise, pink noise, and brown noise. As well as rain noise. Turns out my ears or brain or whatever handles pink noise much better than the white or brown noise. And rain wasn't what I was looking for.

MyNoise not only has a ton of color noise but also some other sounds for health, tuning out other noise, relaxation, etc. What's cool about this one is you get to first calibrate all the noise for your ears. We all hear tones differently and calibrating the noise took some very offensive tones out for me.

Anyway, I could still hear the thumping music.

So I took two tylenol and a long hot bath...and ate most of a large chocolate orange bar. And felt significantly better.

6 pm- the music was still going strong. The downstairs neighbor pounded a little while. The manager came up and pounded awhile. She was definitely dead. I decided she killed herself and left the music on real loud so someone would call the police and she'd be found before she was too rotted. That was nice of her.

My manager called my cell phone and asked if I was home and if the music was bothering me. I told her it had been since about noon. She said she just called the neighbor and she isn't even home and no one should be there and there wasn't any music on when she left and the downstairs neighbor must be mistaken. Nope, it was definitely her apartment. She was on her way home from Salinas, an hour away.

So an ex boyfriend broke in and hung himself. When she got home, she'd have a scary surprise. I wondered if she would go in by herself or if she'd ask one of us to go in with her. I would be scared to go in if somehow, mysteriously, the radio was turned on when I wasn't home. Actually I'd probably call the police and have them go in and check it out.

I heard the door open next door and then the music was finally off.

Holy shit she went in by herself!

I peaked out the window. The security door was left wide open. I didn't hear anything else. Well if it were me I'd want someone with me.

I opened my door and peaked my head out. No sound. Ah geez.

Well she wasn't screaming so that was a good sign.

I walked outside and stepped over to her door. The security door was wide open but her inside door was only open about half an inch. The light was on inside.

"Cheryl?" I called to the door.

"Yeah?" I heard her reply.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." She came out apologizing. She has no idea how the stereo turned on, but she had just gotten it and thought maybe it was on some sort of a timer on accident. She felt terrible. I was just surprised she just went on in as if she didn't think she'd find someone in there. Am I the only one who automatically assumes the worst in a situation like this? How else would your stereo turn on, blasting, without some crazy ex boyfriend breaking in and turning it on? Or a serial killer or just plain crazed maniac?

I also don't know how someone could break into one of these apartments without leaving significant damage either, so it had to have been someone with a key.

I still think someone went in there. She asked if anyone had been in there during the day. I don't know. I didn't really have a reason to pay attention. She said no one should be in there while she's gone. First off, that just seems weird. How would anyone get in there anyway? No one should be in my house when I'm gone either. Weird. Second, I don't know when she's there or not. I have no reason to make any sort of mental note about the opening and closing of her front door. It's much easier to note my heavily vibrating walls.