I spent a little more than four thousand dollars to sound proof the two windows in my bedroom and have zero regrets. I now sleep in a kind of tomb. When friends come over, I bring them in. See? I say. Of course there’s nothing to see. What I mean is: Get a load of this silence!
Some of you will remember the before times, when my biggest enemies on earth were a group of guys in their 20s whose basement apartment spilled out into a little courtyard in the alleyways behind my building. On many a Friday and Saturday night they had parties there and made booming, garrulous male noises, and before my new windows, because of some freak relationship of physics with sound travel between the air and the buildings, it was as if they were having a party right outside my bedroom window.
I hated them.
There was no way for me to defeat them, though, in part because I could never tell exactly where they lived. One time I put a jacket on over my pjs and left the house to try and figure out which building was having the rager. But I couldn’t.
I would hear their dumb voices and their dumb laughs when I was putting my kids to bed and my entire system would go into a despair state because I knew a party was coming and that peace would be impossible until about 1am (and sometimes as late as 3am). Surprise, surprise, craning my head out the window to yell to them did not work. Neither did pleading with them to go to a bar. None of it was any use. They just said little unpleasant toxic male things.
One time a few female voices entered the mix and I yelled to the women that they should think twice before hooking up with these guys. How do you think they’ll treat you when they don’t give a shit about their neighbors? No one responded, so, obviously, I took it further: And they’re bringing new women over all of the time, I yelled. You can do better, I promise!
I was dying to throw eggs down there but I knew that that could land me in a court room or even jail. Because while other people are good at vengeance, I am not. My kids would have to tell their friends that their mom was driven to crime, by noise.
I wish I had known that I was only two extremely expensive window treatments away from sonic paradise. And I shall plug City Proof as the company who did the work. They sound proof windows every morning, noon and night, that’s all they do, and that’s what I wanted, sound proofing savants, career windowists. The internet is a messy dumpster these days and it’s impossible to suss out what’s a real review of a product or service and what’s been influenced or faked. But the folks at City Proof were great, their product is great; these days no matter what’s happening in the East Village it’s like a quaker meeting in my bedroom.
And now I’m just a woman in love with her windows, aghast at the suffering I did, the fear I had at dispensing some my savings on the very thing that would most improve my sleep, my sanity, my overall health, and therefore my relationships to everyone and everything. It’s got me remembering a story an editor I once worked with told me, that when she was contemplating getting a new air conditioner, her father said: Don’t suffer. That was his motto. It’s a good effing motto. Amazing how unnatural that instinct is to me.
Star Pupil
Last night at Tibet House I attended a celebration launch of my memoir student Monique Erickson’s new community-driven arts and poetry journal, LONESOME. There had to be a hundred people there, listening fully, rapturously, to poetry and music. The issue itself - hard covered and extravagantly full - is such an achievement. I was so pleased to run into another of my memoir students, Cathy Simmons, who has a piece in the issue inspired by a writing prompt I gave in class. Folks interested in being published or showing their art work in LONESOME should spend some time with the first issue and then submit here.
Putting Cash Where it Belongs…
In NYC public school teachers’ pockets.
It’s that time of year again, where I’m collecting cash for my kids’ teachers. We are so lucky to have such monumentally talented, skilled and loving adults looking after and educating our kids. They bring enormous value to our lives - impossible to put a price tag to it. But they are underpaid and teacher burn out is real - we want to send them off into summer with great feelings about the year and some cash to do something fun or purchase something essential. If you’d like to chip in to the TEN teachers, teaching assistants, paras and who teach my daughters, you can send me $ with a note saying Teacher Gift via Paypal lizzie_simon@yahoo.com or Venmo @Elizabeth-Simon-160
If you’d prefer to give a gift to the PTA that’ll be spread to all of the teachers in the school, as well as towards arts programs, field trips and trying to get a Spanish teacher back who was cut for budgetary reasons, you can do so here, but you need to tell me you did so, because I won’t know, and I will want to thank you.
Thank you for reading and thanks especially to my paying subscribers. I’m up to 695 free subscribers and 89 paying - want to bump up those numbers? Please share Lizzie’s Letter with a friend. Because who else is going to tell you about pricey windows and poetry publications?
I will leave you with this gem.
xo Lizzie
I remember your essay about the annoying good ol’ boys making it impossible to rest and sleep. Glad you found a solution! So wonderful seeing you last night! Thanks for the shout out🫶🏻😘
Lots of LOL moments with this!! It's delightful!