In The Ghetto
June 18th, 2005
I love living in the ghetto of Kenosha. Before I get into this further, I want to re-state that I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the city. Life in the Lincoln Park area really is quite good; the neighbors are nice, the streets are (mostly) clean and I’ve never once had a problem living here.
But can we do something about the screaming?
Across the street from us is a duplex, one of the last remaining on the block. Apparently mom and dad are just “friends,” and since junior’s popped up out of nowhere, now they have to fight over what’s going on. Daily. Constantly. Loudly. Complete with sides for each one. It’s like the rumble on The Outsiders or West Side Story out there. Come on, I just need to get to my car, and you’re blocking it.
Down the road a bit, the people on the corner have a fascination for fireworks, which is fine, but there’s nothing to celebrate. And for sure there can’t be something to celebrate nightly. I grew up in Minnesota–those things are illegal there. I’m not used to this whole screeching noise with pops and flashes. The first time one went off was hilarious–it was the night Aaron and Madeline stayed with us; Janine, Madeline and I were hanging out in the living room watching who knows what on the TV when we heard the small explosion. All of us, good Minnesotan kids we are, thought the sound was gunshots. Turned off all the lights in the house and sat in the middle of the room on the floor. Yup. Sort of like the days of duck and cover, except without the hilarious classroom films.
My personal favorite, though, is our need within the house to be “good neighbors.” When we start to get loud, we all try and quiet ourselves down. Like it really matters when you’re living in the ghetto. The arguments across the street will just overpower us anyway, so what’s the use?
In other news, I worked on some newspaper stuff today. Got the rate sheet done, hired an account representative and finished up a slew of other work that I had been procrastinating on. Now I just have to follow through with all of that, and I might even be able to take some time off in July!
I’ve come to notice that there are a number of people reading this, thanks to cool traffic monitoring, and yet nobody is commenting. Here’s the cool thing about Blogger that didn’t exist over at Xanga: you don’t have to have an account on here to comment. Just click on “Comment” and be on your way. Make me feel special, like these increasingly-frequent updates are worthwhile. Comment!
