crowded ≠ community

I don't know if it's the weather, the end-of-quarter stress, or if things have really changed, but i'm tired of living in an apartment. I like my space--it's almost all i need--and i like the location, but i'm tired of:

Hearing my neighbor who sings in the shower at two a.m. and hearing each time he opens the mirror/medicine cupboard and mutters to himself. Our medicine cupboards are back to back--i can even see light around it--and sound travels quite well through that. He also, being hard of hearing, isn't very quiet when he leaves between 3:30 and 4 in the morning. And i can hear his television well enough to know what number to call for products in infomercials. Should i complain? Or let him know? I dunno, but he's a little intimidating to me...

Then there's another neighbor. They left, fortunately, because i would hear their garbage disposal at odd hours of the night, right by my bed. I hope the new neighbors aren't as likely to tidy up the kitchen when most people are asleep.

And another neighbor. I can hear everything upstairs. Everything, and i can tell you what his favorite radio station is, including what the DJ said at 5 this morning.

And what makes people think that their phone conversation will be more private when they move from inside their apartment to the courtyard? Now all 40 units can hear the conversation, at 7:30 on a weekend morning.

Yup, i'm tired of apartment living. Maybe i'm just tired of apartment living without adequate insulation and without well-sealed windows and doors. I want to live in a small house in the country, far from every one else...

...and hence the suburbs were born.

God's green earth

The other day it rained. It didn't rain much, and it didn't rain hard, but it was enough to clear some of the smog and dust and haze out of the air. Dark, moody clouds ambled their way along the mountains and the hills, with "God light" gleaming through in patches. It was so beautiful--the urban forest, the shape of hills not obscured through grading and terraces and rows of houses, the sky blue between the clouds.

That was driving to school along Colima between Hacienda and Azusa. Driving home on Fullerton Road, cresting the hill into La Habra, i could see the Coyote Hills, Catalina, the ships in port, Signal Hill, and the valleys--from the Cleveland National Forest to the ocean--again pastoral and lovely.

And it made me sad, because it so often doesn't look this way, but it was a reminder of how lovely God's creation was, how beautiful it can be, and the paradise that drew people to southern California. But then, discontented with what was here, somehow it was decided--whether a deliberate design decision or simply the cultural vernacular--that this semi-arid place should be something else. And i wish that i didn't have to drive everywhere, which contributes to the problem, and could instead use a reasonably efficient public transit system.