Monday, 09 December 2002 | Insect

At night, when I'm lying in bed next to a gray cat and underneath my alarm clock which sits on a rudimentary shelf that Ingo helped me build, I listen to the music coming from the apartment above me. I come inches from cursing it, because it keeps me awake, but really I am anxious to hear what song my neighbor will play next. S/he seems to own my CD collection's twin, but a twin who is more obese and richer and a little evasive. Sometimes I want to run up there and ask who the artist is that's currently being played, or admit to my neighbor how I often turn off my own music so I can listen to his/hers.

It can be aggravatingly quiet; just loud enough for me to identify it, but not quite loud enough to be satisfying. Like when my dad would ride in my car and turn the music down—not off—but down to the point that it was barely audible so that talking would be possible, in case one wanted to. So that the music was in limbo, eternally struggling for its life like an upside-down insect.