Sunday afternoon, sitting on the porch drinking coffee, watching a mockingbird hop around on the sidewalk. My mind drifts back to early last year. It’s 2014, and my roommate / bandmate / apparently hetero-lifemate Wade & I have been in our tiny apartment overlooking Sunset Blvd for about six months. It’s in Echo Park, which is in the process of filling up with hipsters, but was by all accounts pretty rough until a few years ago - gunshots, car alarms, the whole thing. I can't remember hearing a car alarm in years, but now there’s a mockingbird living right outside our apartment who only does car alarm impressions, and only at night, starting about 1 am.
Wade likes to read Wikipedia in his spare time. He tells me that northern mockingbirds are one of the most successfully urbanized species of any animal, and that the males stake out a territory and sing in all directions at a specific time of day until they attract a mate. Our new mockingbird is apparently a juvenile trying to get laid. I tell Wade I don’t care, that bird needs to shut up, cause I have to get up early for work.
One night, unable to take it anymore, I walk outside in my boxers and a t-shirt and shake the tree the bird is perched on, shouting, “You’re never going to get laid!” The bird moves one tree over and starts up again a few minutes later. The next day I change my mind and start praying for the bird to get laid after all, feeling that this is the wiser and more positive approach. A few weeks later, my prayers seem to be answered.
This year, a century plant sprouted up next to our place. (It’s really pretty, but according to Wade, it actually happens like every thirty or forty years, not 100.) The mockingbird sits in it sometimes and sings, but it seems to be at a more reasonable volume and a more decent hour. Or maybe I’m just not noticing it as much. Maybe I’m in the process of urbanizing, myself.