There is just one problem with living in a cool artists loft space: you have to live with artists.

So here's the scene. Our building has one garage door, which leads to the garage and freight elevator. We live on the 3rd floor. The garage door is on a busy street, and there is a sign out front that states "loading and unloading only, 7am to 6pm". After getting home from Burning Man, we discovered that the garage door was broken, which meant we couldn't get to the freight elevator to bring in our stuff, so we left everything loaded in/on the two cars for a few days while we were waiting for the garage door to get fixed.

One night, after getting home around 10pm, I parked in the space in front of the (broken) garage door. Several hours later, our doorbell rings repeatedly, there is loud pounding at our door, and yelling and hollering outside in the hall. Michael got up and was confronted by an angry artist neighbor, who was livid because my car was parked in the spot in front of the garage. He yelled, screamed, called us disrespectful of the building and neighbors, and (this is my favorite part) said our (playa encrusted and camping gear-packed) cars were a disgrace to the neighborhood. This is hilarious as we live in a commercial building on capitol hill, on a main busy and loud street next to a police station and a fire station. It's not even a residential neighborhood. So anyhow, he yelled, screamed, and generally threw a tantrum in the hall.

Turns out his large dog is too old to go up and down the stairs, or even walk a block to the door. He usually uses the freight elevator to get the dog up to his loft. This night, he was ticked because my car was in his way, and I suspect he was also having a bad day. Anyhow, I moved my car, and to be a friendly neighbor, haven't parked my car there since.

So on sunday, Michael and I were finally getting the last of the Burning Man gear out of the car, as the garage door was fixed. We were parked in front of the building. Out of the blue, crazy artist guy sticks his head out of his window and yells at us to shut up, he hates us, and can't even stand to hear our voices. Michael calls up "come on, you don't hate us...", and crazy artist guy yells back "yes, I do! I hate you and I hate your stupid pets!" and slams his window. We were, of course, stunned.

The good news is we don't have to live with artists any more; we signed a lease on an awesome house down the street, and it meets all of our requirements; the wait paid of! The bad news, at least for crazy artist guy, is that it's only a couple blocks away, and he'll still have to see us and our dog when we're out for walks.