How to be thankful for an annoying neighbor

Hi, how was your Thanksgiving? Mine was awesome, thanks for asking. As you might expect, I am not a big fan of the holiday season. It's loud, smelly, inconvenient, and crowded, clearly not designed with the needs of a chronic malcontent in mind. However, I was thankful for a few things last Thursday. One was that I got to spend the day alone. How cool is that! I didn't even go outside of my apartment. The triplex was silent: no big parties going on at the Love Shack. I luxuriated in my solitude, like a happy speck of bacteria in a delicious petri dish. Yum.

What's that you say? I'm a dysfunctional, antisocial wackjob? Aw shucks. You only say that because you have an expectation of what Thanksgiving is for. For you (I'm guessing), Thanksgiving means warm connection and interaction with family and friends, maybe over a ritual meal involving a cooked bird whose butt is stuffed with mushy croutons. If you are really lucky you have alcohol flowing, and after the requisite gorging on pumpkin or pecan pie, you can loll around on the couch complaining about how much you ate while you watch Netflix on a big screen TV. SO much to be thankful for.

I, on the hand, having experienced many years of similar rituals (minus the warm connections and big screen TV), am utterly and fervently grateful that I don't have to do that anymore. For the record, let me just say in my defense, I was willing to take my mother out to eat, fighting the crowd at one of the more festive McMenamin's like we usually do. But good old mom was under the weather, so for my demonstration of willingness (I called her on the phone), I was given dispensation by the universe to spend the day as I pleased. And so I did. I spent the day revising my paper, and it was excellent.

I have good news to report on the status of my dissertation concept paper. A few more revisions and it might be ready to send on to the committee. Does that sound familiar? I think I've written those words before. I think what we are doing now is called polishing. My sister buoyed my spirits by reminding me that every time my chairperson returns my paper for more revisions, it does not mean my paper has been rejected. On the contrary, it means I am in the process of working with a competent editor to make the paper the best it can be.

It's so hard to focus. My neighbor is home. I feel like she's in my home. The air vibrates with the bass of her music. She stomps from one part of the place to another. Maybe she is dancing. Some kind of dance involving stomping. Maybe she's dancing like no one is watching. No, I think she may be rearranging her furniture. Well, who can blame her. That is one of the top ten most fun things to do. I can't do it now, because I'm packed in like a gasping sardine with all my books and binders, but I remember how much pleasure I used to get from a fresh room configuration. Now if I could just do that with my life.

Now she is sneezing. The roar comes through the wall, loud enough for me to feel compelled to say Gesundheit! Next will come the nose-blowing. It's classic Three Stooges nose-blowing, like a foghorn. I hear it best when she is in her tile-lined bathroom, where the echo is truly impressive. I fear for her brains.

I think she is in her bedroom closet now, just on the other side of where I sit at my computer. I hear thumping, shuffling, shoving, punctuated by sneezes. Wow, she must be stirring up a lot of dust. I can relate: That is how I react whenever I clean. Maybe she's doing her annual housecleaning. (Jeez, woman. Cover your mouth!) It's weird—even though I resent the hell out of her stomping and loud music, and even though I'd like to squash her wretched little pooping machine of a dog, I feel a strange sense of kinship with this vigorous young neighbor. Looks like we have something in common. I sneeze, too.

And there you have it, how to be thankful for annoying neighbors. Find the one minute, trivial thing you have in common and forget about all the reasons why you want to kill them. You can certainly be thankful you aren't in jail for beating them to death with their own stompy shoes. And if you do happen to be in jail for that crime or something similar, well, a roof, a bed, and three squares is a blessing some people would trade their citizenship for. So no more complaining about annoying neighbors! My new approach will be to bless her journey with love and kindness. I'm good with that. As long as I don't have to interact with her face-to-face.