Maybe I'm Crazy...

Well, not me, my neighbor. I have a crazy neighbor. I live in the city (even though it is just downtown Grand Rapids it still has its share of crazies) so I expect to hear noise, people, emergency vehicles, etc. and I am totally OK with that. What I am not OK with is my crazy neighbor.

She has what I can best describe as "little fits" all the time. She loves Elvis and constantly plays his music. "Blue Christmas" is a particular favorite. One Saturday she played it for six hours straight.

She moved in some time this fall. At first I thought I had a neighbor who liked horror movies because of the blood curdling screams I heard coming from her apartment. As it continued, I thought she may be in an abusive relationship or something terrible because of the screaming. However, it all became clear on New Year's Eve of this year. I spent a low key evening with a small group of friends in town and returned home shortly after midnight. Upon my arrival she was outside jumping up and down with a party hat on just screaming and yelling. She was all alone...and sober.

As it turns out "Crazy Mary", as I like to call her (I have no idea what her name is) is crazy. All that yelling, screaming, jamming to Elvis and occasional wall-pounding is just her doing her thing. A month or so ago she had a mental breakdown on a Thursday night and started beating on the walls and playing her music so loud walls were shaking. Our other neighbors reported that she was sitting in her living room alone (she has plastic furniture - cheap front porch furniture if you get my drift) rocking back and forth.

Scary.

Since then, I come home at night expecting Crazy Mary to jump out of the bushes or to find she has set our whole little block area on fire. I talked to my next door neighbor the other day who said she is "touched in the head." Glad someone confirmed it...I guess.

Today I walked by Crazy Mary's front window to find she has two Care Bears positioned in the picture window for all to see. She has also written what I believe is her name in black Sharpie the  brass mailbox that hangs next to her front door. Out of fear she would jump out when she saw me staring in her window and at mailbox, I high-tailed it out too quickly to read the name. It was hard to read anyway...I failed to mention it looked like a six year old wrote it.

And people say GR is boring.