Ughly

Yet another school is several months delinquent in paying me for a gig. Ugh. Zuzu is still dealing with the divorce from hell. Ugh. Two out of my three new roommates are fighting so fiercely, they can't be in the same room with each other. Ugh. I had to interview for a room I'm already living in. That's not so much of an ugh as a huh.

This month has been ughly. The first weekend I lived in the new house, I lived here alone, terrified that all of the other roommates had been killed in some sort of Satanic ritual, and that their ghosts would soon be back to begin haunting me. A few days later, I came home drunk after a night of poetry and Bikey and her boyfriend were in the kitchen. They both appeared to be alive.

"Yea, we were in VT for the weekend. I rode my bike up there to play recorder in an early music festival."

She rode her bike from Boston to Vermont?

I was about to ask her more intriguing questions when The Sole Remaining Gay Roommate, Dale, and The Other Girl, Chippy, entered the room. Upon their arrival, Bikey and her boyfriend vacated the room. "I fucken hate her." Dale said. "Dirty ass bike dyke with her ugly ass hobbit boyfriend."

Ugh.

"It's a good thing you're not judgmental." Chippy said to Dale.

"I'm not judgmental. I just don't like people who are ugly. Or fat."

I went upstairs to my room, trying to guage if a jump from my window would kill me. I decided it would only bruise my shins, and there's little as embarrassing as a botched suicide attempt during your first week in a new apartment.

By the end of the first week, Chippy had moved out, replaced by her friend, Allison, who was subletting. The two of us enjoyed watching Dale and Bikey not interact with each other. One of us would talk with one of them, the other would talk to the other, and we'd try and see how close we could get them before Bikey (clearly not the alpha in the situation) scurried into her room. We couldn't even get them on the same floor.

On the rare occasions that I've left the house, I've either been hanging with Celeste, or dropping off mail at the Post Office. Apparently there is a LARGE PACKAGE waiting for me in Quincy, where I haven't lived in over four years. But if there's a good reason to go to Quincy, it's to get my hands on a large package.

I was discussing the mail situation with Chippy, who was moving some of her stuff out, when I mentioned how the last night I went to pick up stuff at Landlord's, I found that he had unpacked MY belongings from MY suitcase, and hidden it, claiming MY suitcase, which had MY name written all over it, wasn't mine. This inspired me to make several other Landlord rants prompting Chippy, who I'd only spoken to once before, to say "These stories sound familiar. I think Feral (the roommate I had replaced) told them to me. He got them from some guy's Livejournal. Oh my God, you're that guy!"

"Really?" Dale asked.

I am that guy. So I told them how I met Feral via this livejournal, and how we'd had dinner a couple of times, how I'd met his boyfriend, yadda yadda.

"So what's your journal about?" Dale asked.

"Embarrassing stories mostly. It started off as anonymous gay confessions, but it's sort of expanded into embarrassing everythings."

"Wow. There's this guy who lives down the street that Feral knows who writes a journal filled with awkward stories. You should meet him."

Chippy and I stared at him for a full minute and a half of awkward silence.

"I am that guy who lived down the street."

"Oh, right."

I really hope he was drunk.

Personally, I've been finding myself getting drunker than usual lately. After several months of not really drinking so much, many people and bartenders are determined to dehydrate me via alcohol. Jim Beam's been winking at me, and Captain Morgan has officially appointed me as first mate. I was relieved to discover that Midori is actually a man. No reverse Crying Game incidents for me.

At some point this week, I really have to stop putting off going back to my old jobs. There's only so much ramen noodles my digestive system can take. Ugh.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/134020.html

Again, Moving

This month is an ostrich on a canoe. Midnight, June 30th/July 1st, and I am running to catch one of the last busses to take me to the last train between me, and Clitty's house. Clitty, who is moving the very next day, has offered me a bean bag and conversation. But first must come the bus. I am thinking "Future Fry Cook. Future Fry Cook." This may be the last time I ever take this bus, and wouldn't it be funny to run into him again.

Instead, I see a hot guy fidgeting under the T sign. "Thank God." He says. "There's another bus coming?"

I reach into my pocket and pull out a stack of bus schedules. Like a good magician's assistant, he picks out the schedule for the 101, which will whisk us to Sullivan Square.

"Wow." He says. "Are you always so prepared?"

"No, I'm moving, and I found my T schedules just as I was leaving the house." Tonight has been cast glances out of focus. Move out. Is this my suitcase? Pile of unmarked papers. Where is my cell phone? Do I have everything I need? Turn off the air conditioner. "Where are you headed?"

"Allston."

"Me, too." I say, feeling inappropriately closer to him. "I'm going to stay with a friend on Ashton Street."

"I live on Ashton Street." He says. "Weird."

And the bus comes, and we exchange horrible roommate stories. My Melissa Plummer stories are trumped by his tale of a roommate who stole all of his possessions while he was at work, down to pictures of his girlfriend and his underwear. He keeps looking at me like I'm his favorite pint of Ben & Jerry's, and I think, hmmm...maybe something could happen, I mean...pictures of his girlfriend. He casually drops his girlfriend so many times during our conversation, that I think, perhaps, I should pick her up.

I'm tempted to get off at the same T stop as him, and talk more, maybe exchange contact info, but I want food and stability and focus.

At the all night pizza/sub place, the frat boys are screaming obscenities at the guy behind the counter. "Fuck moo." Says one. I presume I have missed the context for this.

I order chicken fingers, and Cherry Coke, and contact info for hot guys who are as oblivious to drunken frat language as I am. Two out of three ain't a Meatloaf song.

Clitty is tired, and chatty when I get there. I eat chicken fingers in her kitchen, let her cat chew my fingernails for me.

I want my own place. No more Landlord. A former and recurrent coworker has a friend "I think you two would get along great, but he's kind of particular about" and I don't care what he's particular about, I'm done moving in with particular people I don't know.

I know Zuzu. I know her particularities, and how best to mesh with them. So I head over to her house. Pup Ratzinger licks my eyes out, and nibbles off my nose. For once, I may have needed it.

For two days, we shop together. Mainly meaning, she shops, I assist as best I can. No one is selling focus or a way for me to move my suitcases, or a permanent place for me to move them to.

After Zuzu's, I spend time on Celeste's couch, playing The Vagina Game with her and Trick. It's fun, but I don't want to stay. I should be on The Vineyard this week, spending time with my Dad, but the people I'd planned on traveling with are having their own trauma. Little tragedies, like my own. I find myself longing for the days when I could turn my tiny grain of sand problems into beaches large enough for me to spread a blanket on and get comfortable. Melodrama seems just out of reach.

"I am so out of touch with the world." I tell Zuzu. "I focus on every day so precisely, that I have no concept of how to handle my future."

She pours me another Kahlua and Stoli.

Celeste, Trick, and I share a few Ginger Beer and Stolis.

I can't drink enough to sleep.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/125417.html