I have lived in apartments for a long time. A long time. The first seven years of my life and the last 13 as well.

I’m thinking of something tonight, mostly because it’s happening as I’m writing, but I’m thinking about how odd it is to share a residence with someone or some people who you’re otherwise unconnected to. You hear their televisions and annoying music–sometimes their phone conversations depending on the volume and pitch of a person’s voice.

I’ve learned to tune most things out, though at peak emotional moments I sometimes can’t help but listen. Screaming fights have always been a challenge for me. I hate them. But I can’t seem to break away. I’m morbidly curious about the fights I hear through the walls.

As an adult–as someone who is in control of her own life–it boggles my mind that you would continue sharing your space with someone who you repeatedly and on multiple occasions screamingly called an asshole or a bitch or any other string of expletives that I’ve heard through the various floors and walls of my different apartments.

Over and over and over. Screaming. Who wants to live like that?

It’s weird to have such intimate knowledge of people you don’t know. I’ve often known more about careless neighbors’ love lives than their girlfriends or boyfriends did. I knew what they sounded like when they had sex. But it was never the dramas or the sex that kept me uncomfortably entranced.

It was always the yelling. I guess the difference is that I understand interpersonal drama, relationship drama, and everyone has sex. But the screaming and yelling is beyond me. I really need to snap out of the morbid curiosity trance and turn my stereo on. It’s not entertainment…