Missive From the Edge

I'm so exhausted I'm not even sure I can put a coherent sentence together. I lack a great deal of quality sleep. I've always been a quantity kind of gal - nine hours is the perfect amount for me; not too little, not too much. But, like most mothers, I've learned to function quite well on much less. The thing is, like most mothers, I need a large portion of whatever amount I sleep to be deep and uninterrupted.

Several years ago, I and a relative started a campaign against late night noise in our area. I egotistically like to think we started the whole snowball, but it's been bitched about by others and better. Anyway, we started with letters to the Town Council and the paper. Went to meetings, listened to hems and haws, etc. And now the Town seems to really want to do something about all the late night, excessive noise and all and I appreciate the effort, but none of what they're proposing (and this is a sweeping generalization because I'm just too darn tired so please forgive my pollyannaishness) is going to do me a bit of good. I'll tell you why, shall I?

I could care less if a wedding plays their music until 10 o'clock...as long as it's good music. If folks are gonna dance the night away to Big Band, Golden Oldies, Funk, R&B, Disco, Doo Wop - more power to ya. But if you're gonna play remixes with bass so loud my windows rattle...yeah, as a musician with a certain amount of cred and taste, I'm gonna have a problem with it keeping up my baby. I live so close to Kittens and Nicks that I can spit on the building on a really windy day...reallllllly windy. Before all this started I barely ever heard their music. I actually hear more from Ballard's outdoor entertainment during the day...and the Springhouse afternoon concerts than I've ever heard from Disco or Reggae nights.

But this isn't getting me where I'm going. My noise issues aren't those issues. My noise issues can't be regulated or protected by law or ordinance or hear-o-meter or anything else. My noise issues rely on common courtesy (a theme, it seems) and the fall of the Roman Empire. No matter what you do, no matter what law you pass or permit you require, you cannot, I repeat, cannot, regulate common sense and common courtesy. All the ordinances in the world isn't going to stop a group of drunken college students from "woo-hooing" at the top of their lungs as they walk past my bedroom window at 1:30 in the morning. In the "old days" (three years ago), the police department told me to call in on all of these "offenses" so they could keep an accurate count of how many noise complaints there really are and present them to the council at a later date. Huh? I'm woken up by passing noise marauders and you want me to get out of bed, call you to issue a complaint that cannot and will not be acted upon because by the time somebody would arrive, the marauders will more than likely have moved on or dispersed? Sorry, cap, ain't happenin'. Nope, there's no permit that's going to protect my baby's three naptimes during the day when the windows are wide open and the breeze is from the north/south/east/west. There's no ordinance that's going to provide for the tourist at the Island Manor who insists on setting the car alarm that goes off at 3 in the morning (or whoever it is that keeps setting off the damn fire alarm over there late at night and everybody has to wait for Peter Blane to wake up, get dressed and come down and turn the damn thing off!) or the party-ers that walk down the streets at 2 a.m. shouting at the top of their lungs, or the guy who's peeing in the bushes behind my house, or the groups of five or six folks who come up into the yard to have conversation at midnight, etc.

Now, as to the fall of the Roman Empire. One of the biggest indicators that the Empire was out of control and beginning to crumble was the insistence (sp?) of passing unenforceable laws.

Like I said...I'm tired. I think maybe I should be taking a nap instead of writing this. That said, I think I'm gonna go catch me some zzzzs.