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Aug. 29th, 2014 03:14 pm So, the last few weeks, settling into the new apartment, I've grown curious about my neighbors. Everyone's really friendly here, which after my last place (where people barely saw each other, let alone spoke) is a refreshing experience for me. But I barely know anyone's name, and then I thought, I'm a researcher...
So I started out by investigating the layouts of the other apartments, until I had a basic ground plan of the floor, and then I started looking into who owned or rented them. I know this is creepy. It's also my job for eight hours of the day, it's hard to switch it off.
It's an exercise in the study of human nature and also in mild frustration, because like, now I know the guy down the hall teaches at Columbia College Chicago and he seems super interesting but I've never actually seen his face. And I want to tell the woman across from me she is paying too much rent on her apartment. But how do you bring up the fact that you know (from, I need to stress this, publicly available data, I didn't go through anyone's trash) how much rent they pay?
This is not something I would do anything with. Like, I wouldn't sell their identities or anything. I just like knowing who my neighbors are.
At the same time, the urge to build a Wall Of Crazy as some kind of awesome art installation is damn near overwhelming. It's not like it would be hard to get the ground plan blown up to poster size, and I have yarn and scissors and the linkedin profiles of about half of them....
So I started out by investigating the layouts of the other apartments, until I had a basic ground plan of the floor, and then I started looking into who owned or rented them. I know this is creepy. It's also my job for eight hours of the day, it's hard to switch it off.
It's an exercise in the study of human nature and also in mild frustration, because like, now I know the guy down the hall teaches at Columbia College Chicago and he seems super interesting but I've never actually seen his face. And I want to tell the woman across from me she is paying too much rent on her apartment. But how do you bring up the fact that you know (from, I need to stress this, publicly available data, I didn't go through anyone's trash) how much rent they pay?
This is not something I would do anything with. Like, I wouldn't sell their identities or anything. I just like knowing who my neighbors are.
At the same time, the urge to build a Wall Of Crazy as some kind of awesome art installation is damn near overwhelming. It's not like it would be hard to get the ground plan blown up to poster size, and I have yarn and scissors and the linkedin profiles of about half of them....
