The person in the apartment next door has a piano. A real piano.

Ya know, there is a reason I have a keyboard (technically an “electric piano” - 88 keys, weighted) instead of a friggin PIANO. I wear headphones, and nobody can hear me playing. The sound of a piano travels, even if you’re playing quietly.

This is just rude.

The guy I bought my apartment from in Brooklyn had a piano - and he also had soundproofing all over the walls (it was quite interesting seeing what happened when that all got yanked off). But he also absolutely needed a real piano…he worked as a jazz pianist. My keyboard is about as close to a real piano as you can get, but it’s still not the same.

Not to mention, I think even I’m better than this person next door, and I kinda think I suck these days. I mean - I started playing when I was 5, stopped for 10 years, and started up again about 4 years ago. I’m decent, but I know what my fingers need to do, and they’re just not doing it. I was much better when I was younger. This person?? If I hear “Moon River” (with mistakes) or scales one more time I just might kill them. It’d be a little different if they were good. I’d still be anoyed, but not quite as much.

Someday, when I’m in a HOUSE, I will buy a baby grand. There’s nothing like playing a real, grand piano. Even when I was a kid I only had an upright.

But in an apartment? No way. I don’t understand how anyone can even think it’s ok to own a piano in an apartment.

LA is so weird.

The cable guy is here right now, and this is just wacky. Each tv is near what looks like a cable jack, but they’re not working (or as he says, they’re not the ones that are supposed to be used). Instead, I get wires going from one room to the other, all over the apartment.

I think it’s just stupid. I mean - I can buy wireless speakers. I’m on wireless internet - still on my complex’s connection, which is sketchy, but it works well enough. I will have a wireless network as soon as I unpack my router and computer, and have my tivo’s talking to each other. My phone will connect to the internet from anywhere in the world. I was reading digg.com in France. So why can’t my cable run wireless?

I know, I know, direct tv. But that’s satellite, and I don’t exactly want a dish in my living room (which is evidently what they do here). I’m talking about digital cable. Time Warner, in fact. I want one working jack, running wireless over my network. It only makes sense. Cables are so…90’s (haha).

Someone’s gotta be working on it, right?

I don’t know what it is about sleeping in my own bed that makes such a HUGE different from sleeping in really nice hotel beds - but there is one. Without a doubt, I slept better last night than I had since the day I moved out in Virginia, and I feel soooo much better today.

I also got to try out my brand spankin new coffee maker this morning - my old one was dying, and I finally caved and bought one of the fancy shmancy ones with a thermal carafe. It only made sense to buy one, on the weekends I tend to drink an entire pot of coffee, and there’s nothing worse for coffee than leaving it on the burner for hours on end like I did. So I bought a coffee maker and just left it packed up until I got here. And it makes yummy coffee.
Yesterday, the movers didn’t finish until somewhere around 5, mainly because only one person was really doing the moving up here from the elevator to my apartment, the two other guys were downstairs the entire time (which he bitched about, rightfully so, I think). I also haven’t ever had quite as much broken in a move before, and I haven’t even unpacked much of anything yet! My TV is trashed…it works (or I think it does, the cable guy’s coming this morning)…but the case is shattered but good, my piano stand is flat out broken, and I had a few other things get scraped up and chipped - tables, chairs, etc. I also had to throw out the futon - no fault of the movers on this one, it just wouldn’t fit into the room I wanted it in. They could have taken it apart, but this was the cheap broken futon I put together myself (that, to quote Jeanine, “eats people”), and I had a very strong feeling that if they took it apart, it would never actually come back together again.

And today I have lots of unpacking to do. Last night’s unpacking was pretty much just focused on what I had to do - electronics for the cable guy, linen for the bed, clothes to wear that hadn’t been in the hotel with me for two weeks, things like that. Today and tomorrow I get to really unpack everything. I will still prioritize - it’s no fun taking a shower without a shower curtain like I did last night, for example, but for the most part, I’m going to try to have most of the boxes gone by tomorrow night.

I figure, I’ve done this enough by now, I should be able to just plow through unpacking. Or that’s what overly optimistic me is thinking, anyway.

It’s so appropriate that I’m currently wearing a shirt that starts with ‘OMG WTF’ (this is it). I was, well, as far as I knew, scheduled to move in at 9am this morning. but my movers call, say they’re on the way, I call the front gate, and am told someone else had the elevator booked and was already moving in.

I then got yelled at. Over and over and over again…to the point that I finally called the building’s management. (she’d said that her supervisor was out today, which was crap since I did eventually talk to him. Twice.)

I am proud to say that I didn’t ever yell back or lose my temper (which really is an accomplishment for me), but…dear lord! this woman was unbelievable.

The end result (after over an hour’s worth of phone calls) was that the other move was done by 10:15 (i went down to see what was going on, found an empty truck) and security says they’ll let my movers in now, so I’m just waiting for them.

but, wow, its been a looong time since I’ve talked to someone THAT rude. I’ve said it before, and ill say it again….don’t fuck with a New Yorker. We WILL get our way in the end.

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