The LBC has a Melrose Place...and I live in it.

Once upon a time, in a quiet little corner of the LBC, there was an apartment complex where seven young and mostly single people lived. And this is the latest drama going on in their lives.

First some background info:

• The walls between all the apartments are very, very thin.
• The guy in apartment 1 is sleeping with the girl in apartment 3.
• The girl in apartment 3 lives with her younger brother (TCN), who is sort of romantically involved with me (in apartment 2).
• When TCN and I got in a little fight about a month ago, the guy in apartment 1 was there to help me through it. We were up talking for hours and he sort of started putting the moves on me, a little bit. And since then we've sort of been friends. I guess.
• The guy in apartment 1 is cute. TCN is cute. But the cutest guy is the one who lives in apartment 4. He's tall, attractive, really nice, and a surfer. He's my age and he's offered to go surfing with me....but he's married! And, the woman he's married to has cancer. She seems to be doing okay though, which is good, because she's also nice.
• She has a 16 year old son from a previous marriage (she's older) who is a little surfer bum. TCN acts like an older brother to him, but he's concerned that this little surfer bum is about to become a "big waste of space." He smokes a lot of pot. His mom gets annoyed because pot isn't good for him, but she smokes a lot of pot because of her cancer. And so there is a constant little struggle there.
• These four apartments sit side-by-side in a townhouse arrangement on the south side of a shared driveway. Across the driveway is another set of four apartments arranged in the same style. These other four apartments are housed by a senior citizen, two young families, and a quiet professional who is never home.
• The arrangement of these two complexes across a shared driveway makes for a lot of echoes. So sounds travel big time.

Some other characters involved that don't live in the complex:

• B: the friend of TCN's from college who has become friends with me since my involvement with TCN. She lives two blocks away.
• P: the friend of TCN's from elementary school who moved here in January and who has become friends with me since my involvement with TCN. He lives about half a mile away. Sometimes he flirts with me. Sometimes I wonder what his intentions are...sometimes he's nice and sometimes he's weird.

In light of all these interesting connections, here are some highlights from Saturday/Sunday that might be of interest:

Noon

The guy in apartment 1 told me out of the blue that he'd been doing some internet dating. I wasn't sure what to make of that, as I thought he and the girl in apartment 3 were still involved. But I couldn't ask because the girl in apartment 3 came out. They were going to brunch together.

6pm

The guy in apartment 1 and I were talking about his online dating situation again. This time, I asked how apartment 3 felt about it. He said the following: he met a girl he likes, he's gotten laid a couple of times by other (presumably easy) girls, and that the girl in apartment 3 knows about all of this and seems okay with it.

8pm-Midnight

B, P, TCN and I were supposed to go out Saturday night. I was supposed to meet up with all of them around 11:30 or so, but things didn't work out for various reasons: P got annoyed at B and TCN. B/TCN told P to leave, so he did. I was communicating with P about meeting up with them, but because he left early and the other two were being drunk and irresponsible, I ended up not joining them and I was upset at them for being flaky. I went to bed.

2:45 am

B/TCN return and yell for me from the drive way. Despite the romantic drunk yelling--a la Romeo and Juliet--I ignored them. Then B called my cell. We cleared up the miscommunications about the night. But I was annoyed because I could hear B and TCN eating food, laughing lots and being very drunk. Eventually I fell asleep.

5:30 am

I woke up to the sounds of someone in the complex having loud, loud s*x. The kind you'd hear on an adult channel. The kind that sounds like someone is dying. At first I wasn't sure where it was coming from but it seemed to be coming from apartment 1. I got up to get some water, realized I had left the heater on in the living room, and went downstairs to turn it off. Downstairs, I could still hear the sounds of the crazy s*x. This was surprising because even though I know apartment 1 has been hooking up with apartment 3 (and other new easy online girls) I have never heard these sounds come from there. Out of shock and disorientation (and some concern for that girl's well being) I actually went outside to see where the sounds were coming from.

The sounds were coming from apartment 1. The lights were on and the windows were open. I looked over to apartment 3 and noticed that the girls lights were on too. This meant one of two things: 1) she was with the guy in apartment 1. Maybe for some "I want you back" s*x; or 2) he was with a new online girl and apartment 3 could hear ('cause everyone could) and was sad.

And so there I was, standing in the middle of the shared driveway at 5:30 am, annoyed with TCN/B/P for being dumb, immature and drunk the night before, sleepy and disturbed (at the sounds of the s*x and the possibility of how it might feel for apartment 3 girl to hear her ex going at it hard core with another hussy).

Sunday Morning/Afternoon:

TCN walked by. I said hi and his response annoyed me, so I shut the door on him. A minute later he yelled up to me in my room that he wasn't done talking. He was nice at that point and things are all normal again.

B and P all apologized to me for the night before and B told me that when she went home around 5am, the girl in apartment 3 was not at home. Which means, the sounds came from apartment 3 WITH apartment 1. I guess it was "I want you back s*x." I never ran into apartment 1 guy yesterday but I was relieved to see that apartment 3 girl was able to walk.

2:45 am Last night:

Apartment 1 sent me a text message asking if I was up. I reponded this morning with this: "No, I wasn't up when you sent that. But, I WAS up the other night when you were getting your groove on with someone who was VERY VERY into it. All the children in the neighborhood lost their innocence."

Everyone who lives on the north-side of the driveway must hate us south-side dwellers.