Earplugs

It always seems that just as I turn off my reading light and sink down into the covers at night, my new upstairs neighbor finds it necessary to mobilize. She generally comes home late, and as soon as I hear her stomping past my door up to the 3rd floor, I know I'm in for some serious fun. Sometimes, as I lay there trying to push thoughts and quandaries out of my clogged head and keep my eyes closed tight, it sounds like she is walking around with a couple of those plastic milk crates strapped to her feet as shoes - shuffling this way and that across her wood floors. Then, around 1:00 am, she begins to (seemingly) throw bricks willy-nilly around her apartment. Following that game, there's usually a series of doors and cabinets being opened and shut in rhythm. One or two punk rock songs are played randomly throughout all of this, along with a few loud sighs. Then, around 2:30 or 3:00, she decides to take a shower, the pipes ringing through my walls - at which point I reluctantly place my earplugs above my lobes. It's a step up, I guess, maybe, from the last tenants above me, who would come home drunk on a regular basis, and make loud, passionate love directly above me.