Sunday night, Andreas and I went to our favorite Olde Englishe Dive Barre, The Canterbury. We walked in to find one of Andreas’ former coworkers sitting with a friend next to the only booth left in the house. While Andreas and the coworker said their hellos, the coworker’s friend and I sat awkwardly in silence. He, clearly more socially adept than me, breeched conversation first.

“So,” he asked, “Do you two live in the neighborhood?”

“Yup,” I said, pointing. “We live right up there, on [our street].”

He smiled. “Oh! I live right up there on [the street adjacent to our street].”

“On the corner?”

“No, second door in.”

“In the back?” I asked, starting to get a little spooked.

“Yes, second floor.”

“Well then,” I ventured, as Andreas and his old coworker chatted on in the background, “We look into each other’s apartments.”

“Really!? You guys just moved in, right? With the prayer flags on the fire escape? Lemme tell you, I am so glad that creepy woman who lived there is gone. She used to lean out on the fire escape and just stare at me while she smoked cigarettes. It was really creepy.”

He was referring, of course, the infamous Evil Mime who used to live in our apartment. She had excellent taste in paint colors, but apparently she was an absolute nightmare neighbor, making continual noise complaints all day long (mimes need SILENCE, you know), and harassing the other neighbors constantly. And now it turns out that even the guy who lives across the way from her found her evil.

Regardless, it’s kind of weird to know that he’s over there. It was good to meet a neighbor (and rather fortuitous), but still…I’m ok with people being able to see into my apartment if they’re strangers, but if I’ve sort of met them? That’s a bit stranger, somehow. Harder not to care what they see.