Recycle

I'm by myself at the coffeehouse, have a line of eight people, and this stank ass balding hippie freak cuts in front of the line and says "Where's the recycling?"

"I don't know. Try over by the trash can, there's probably a box or something."

He does this evil, impatient half-laugh. "There is no box. Where is your recycle?"

"Sir, I don't know. This is a galleria, I'm sure there's recycling somewhere in here, but I don't know where."

He pushes his glasses up over his nose. "You don't know??? Where do you recycle?"

"At home." I say. The lady behind him clears her throat. "I'm really busy right now. There's a security guard over there who can point you in the direction of the recycle."

"I think you need to talk to your boss and get recycling in here."

"My boss owns a chain of coffeehouses, all of which have recycling in them," this is probably a lie, "but this is a galleria storefront, so only the people who run the galleria can install recycling, so why don't you go talk to the security guard, and he can point you to their offices."

"But if I talk to you, and you talk to your boss, then we can fix the real problem. Recycling is good, don't you think?"

And because Celeste is quitting, and I'm tired, and I'm all itchy from having shaved, I say "Why don't you go back to Burlington Vermont and let me work."

And he is stunned. "How did you know I was from Burlington?"

Because you smell like cheap pot and week old farts. "I used to live up there, and you look kind of familiar, now if you'll excuse me." This is a lie. But, generally, assholes who want to impress their equally stank, dreadlocked girlfriends by antagonizing coffeehop workers about environmental concerns are all from Burlington, Vermont.

Stanky goes away to try and find Canadian Hydro, and I return to the line, where someone is telling me about how soldiers are trained to kill, but no one ever untrains them, and I'm about to ask him why he's telling me this when I realize I'm wearing my "God Bless America" t-shirt, and I don't have time to explain that it's ironic, I just want him to take his machiatto and leave me alone.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/136943.html

Burning Questions

It's 3:15. Soon the buses will be leaving. But now the parking lot is swarming with campers. Ross is doing the robot in the middle of it. Grant is crying near the bushes. Allyson is bouncing a soccer ball on her head. Eric is digging in the sand, as usual. I don't know who the twins are, but they won't stop poking me. Where the fuck are all the counselors? I shouldn't be left by myself with hundreds of children moving around a parking lot filled with soon to be moving buses. Where is AJ? Christine? Diama? Fuck, I'd even settle for Bernard, just SOMEONE. Then, the rabbit bus starts backing up. A child screams. I start to run over, but now the goat is backing up, then the skunk bus, then the turtle, then the zebra bus, and the unicorn. I don't know which direction to run in. All the children are screaming. Stop the fucken buses can't you see the children are my curtains being pushed back by the fan. The beeping buses, then, must be my alarm clock. I pull it out of the wall. No, not my alarm clock. What, then?

"What the fuck?" Sole Remaining Gay Roommate Dale asks.

"Is that the fire alarm?"

"What do you think?"

I can never resist answering a question with a question. "Is the house on fire?"

"Do you smell smoke?" Dale and I may be more similar than I'm comfortable admitting.

A brief check of our bedrooms and our bathroom reveals firelessnes. Ditto the kitchen, the living room, and the two bathrooms. "Do you mind checking Bikey's room, while I investigate the basement?" And before he can protest, I bound down the stairs, where there is not so much as a spark.

From upstairs, I hear "Oh. My. God." So the fire is in Bikely's room.

I race back up the stairs. "Where is the fire extinguisher? Have you called 911?"

Dale is standing on the threshold of her room. "Have you ever seen such a sty?"

"So, it's not on fire?"

"Would I be just standing here if it was?"

"Do you think the fire is in the other apartment?" A couple of weeks ago, Dale left some pork roasting in the oven while he went canoeing in the Amazon or something, and the smoke detectors went off. Bikey told me we had to be careful because our smoke alarms were connected to the ones downstairs, and we wouldn't want to wake up our downstairs neighbors late at night. "Right," I said, "Let them burn."

"Are our smoke detectors connected to theirs?" Dale asks.

"How long have you lived here?"

We walk down to their front door. "Should I knock?"

I roll my eyes at him. "Do you think they're home?"

He pounds on the door. "Nope." He says. "Nobody's home."

"Ha!" I say. "That was a statement, I win."

"Dude, our house is no fire, and you're playing grammar games?"

I blush. "Weren't you?"

"Do I need to answer that?"

I cup my hands around my eyes and look in the window. "Do you see any smoke in there?"

"Do you?"

I didn't. But there was a fire somewhere in the house, and it probably wasn't getting any smaller. "Isn't there a door in the basement that goes into their apartment?"

Dale cocked his head. "Do you think it's unlocked?"

It wasn't. We took turns trying to batter it down with Law & Order style shoulder lunges. When that failed, I attempted a few kung fu style kicks, with much the same results. Though, I did almost fall down the stairs a couple of times. "Wasn't one of their windows open?"

"Are you giving up on the door?"

I went outside, and cut the bottom of the screen with my key. I then pried the screen off.

"Isn't this breaking and entering?"

I rolled my eyes again. "And trying to break their door wasn't?"

I lifted myself up, and was halfway into the window when Dale asked "What if the neighbors see us?"

I froze. "Do you hear anything?"

"What?"

"Their alarms aren't going off. Just ours. The fire is in our apartment."

"Ha!" Damn. "Do you think I should call the fire department?"

"Do you have a better idea?" I asked.

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

We took a break from our game so he could call the fire department, and I could replace the screen, hoping they wouldn't notice the gaping hole at the bottom. I joined him on the porch when I was finished. "Is this not the worst way to start a day ever?"

"Could be worse." I said, conceding our contest to make a point. "At least you don't own that car." I said, pointing to a car with a busted window, and a pile of broken glass under it.

"Ha!" He said "Wasn't that a statem--wait, I do own that car."

After he ascertained that nothing but his radio's faceplate, and a few CDs had been stolen, he called the police to make a report. "Didn't you just call the fire department?" The woman on the other end of the phone asked. When he conceded yes, she asked for his registration number.

"It's in the house." He said.

"The one on fire?" She asked.

When she was done laughing at him, he hung up and lit a cigarette.

"Do you really think you should be smoking when the fire department gets here?"

He put out the cigarette on the railing, and shot me an evil look. "Do I care?"

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/134261.html

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

The Real Catty World (Part 8: Missing Hard Wood)

The phone is knocking on my bedroom door, upset that I've turned the ringer off. It passes me a note: "Hi. I am an Ellen Jamesian..." I crumple it up without reading the rest of it, and go back to sleep.

The phone is tickling my feet with its semi-erect antenna. I crack my knees, and curl into the fetal position.

"Can't you hear the phone ringing?" Landlord asks. It's not yet eleven o'clock, but I am passed out and what the fuck is Landlord doing in my room while I'm sleeping. "The phone is for you."

"I am asleep." I tell him.

"Are you going to get the phone?"

"It's not ringing."

While the phone was napping, I tore out its vocal chords.

"It's for you." He is a Mynah Bird.

"Fine. I'll answer it." I say, sitting up, the quilt shielding my naked body from the Landlord's vagabond eyes. "Ok." I say. "I'll get it."

He is a rabbit in headlights. Swaying with the cobra, but my cobra is hidden under the quilt.

"You can go now."

"Aren't you going to get it?" He asks, licking his lips.

"Yea. Thanks. Could you please get out of my room?"

X-Ray Tech moved out in March because Landlord has no sense of privacy. I've done my best to explain my boundaries: If you need to come into the room, knock. If no one answers, stay out. If I say "Come in," come in. If I don't, don't.

"It's just that the phone kept ringing and no one was answering it. It's for you."

"Yes." I say. "I get it. Phone for me. Please get out of my room so I can answer the phone."

The week Dr. O moved in, Landlord had scheduled his annual carpet cleaning but neglected to tell any of us until 5:30 that morning. I was still asleep when he knocked on my door, and, according to Dr. O, said "Carpet Cleaners are coming today."

My room was sorted piles of laundry, unstapled chapbook pages, two decks of playing cards arranged by numbers.

"Why didn't you clean your room?" He asked when I got home from work. "The carpet cleaner couldn't clean the carpet in there."

"Carpet cleaner?" I asked.

"I told you this morning that the carpet cleaners were coming and you responded." He said, leaning into me like an elderly queen making a point.

"I responded?" I asked.

"Yea." Dr. O said. "I think you said 'It's five o'clock in the fucken morning, what do you want?'."

Landlord squints at her. "Oh. Well, I didn't hear what he said, just that he responded."

I understand this. I don't care what you say, just say it. Whisper your confession, scream your dissatisfaction, murmur a non-sequitur, just fucken talk.

I don't deal well with silence. But these days, I'm dealing it face down, fifty-two card pick up style. And whether it's the two of hearts or the queen of spades, all silence looks the same from the back of the deck.

I've got to go. The phone isn't ringing.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/117765.html

The Real Catty World (Part 7: Regular)

You are not regular. I don't care if you shit every day at 8:45 AM, spend from 9-5 in a cubicle crunching numbers and drinking coffee. The fact that you like "24" and "Desperate Housewives" makes you average, but "average" and "regular" are not the same thing. Six inches hanging straight down may be average, but it ain't regular.

Three customers at work today asked for a "regular" coffee; one meant a medium black houseblend, one wanted a small houseblend with two creams and two sugars, and one wanted a shot of espresso. Words failed me, but not as much as the word "regular" failed them.

When a person writes a personal ad, and says he's a "regular guy", I picture an obese black underwear model with blonde hair, purple eyes, wearing only a sweater vest and six Swatch watches. His ass has a door over the hole that says "unleaded only". You know, regular.

I don't like regular people. My friends have style: Zuzu is adopting a miniature dachshund (against my advice) and, because dachshunds are German, naming it Pup Ratzinger. Celeste uses a 1950's era medical kit as a purse, and even writes with pens shaped like syringes. Dmitri drinks ketchup straight from the bottle when he's nervous. My friends don't even have regular names.



Landlord woke me up at 5 AM to tell me my room was messy. I knew this already. "Why are you in my room anyway?"

"I'm looking for dishes." he said.

"Try the kitchen." I rolled over and fell back asleep. I dreamed I was on "American Idol", freestyling a Christian gospelesque song while Billy Joel plaeds classical piano. I have this dream every Tuesday. It's a regular occurrence.

I rewoke up at 9:30, had eggs and toast with my new roommate, an Australian woman who tests the effects of psychotropic drugs on schizophrenics. I call her Dr. O.

"When I was sixteen," I told her, "my roommate, JBOB and I took mescaline for the first time. Just as the high started kicking in, we were given free tickets for a preview showing of Natural Born Killers. When it let out, we alternated between hiding in doorways and searching the city for Laura Palmer's remains. I haven't touched mescaline or NBK since."

At ten thirty, I caught a bus to work. A complete stranger with piercing green eyes said, as he stepped off the bus, "I love your haircut."

I stammered out a weak "Thanks?". He turned around and waved. His shirt said "Future Fry Cook". The film version of my life has run out of extras.

I was barely at work for a half hour when Clitty called. Twice. Fuck Clitty, I should refer to her as Needy Smurf. No, that's too harsh. Needy Bitch. She's been telling my coworkers she's my girlfriend, and she constantly "calls me back", which is remarkable only because I never call her first.

After an uneventful day of pouring coffee, I took the T to Quincy to mail books to prisoners. As I opened the door to the church I heard "Safey?" And across the street was my beautiful ex-not-quite-boyfriend, MAMIP. "It really is you."

I wondered if he was surprised at my haircut, the fact that I was wearing the shirt he bought me, or that I was entering a church. Turns out, one of my illustrious former coworkers told him I'd moved back to Arizona. "Right." I said. "Just after I had breast augmentation and took up drinking kerosene and lighting my belches on fire."

He stared blankly at me. I am on the receiving end of this look more than I care to admit.

We exchanged new phone numbers and soap opera stares until he had to go to work.

When I was finished with my volunteer work, I headed over to Zuzu's for dinner and BTVS. Then I headed home and went to sleep. Alone.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/114642.html

The Real Catty World (Part 6: Three Half Naked Chinese Boys)

I would like to apologize to The American Public for the current blizzard situation. It's my fault. In September 2000, I moved to Burlington, Vermont, where I spent some time hanging out with my friends, Dagster and The Soggy Blind Lesbian (they have real names, but they're intimidated by my other friends' cool monikers). 2000/2001 was the snowiest winter in Vermont in 50 years. On December 26th, the three of us had a reunion, and sure enough it was a disgusting snow muck in Boston. Last Sunday, Dagster and I made pizza and went out to a poetry slam. It snowed. Today, I passed her on my way for a brief visit with my mother on The Cape. I'll be lucky to get out of here by Monday.

Thus far, it's been an eventful 2005. The new apartment...the new aprtment...Dear God, the new apartment.

The day after Christmas, my Dad dropped me off at the ferry (with an er, not an ai, wise-asses), and I headed into Boston to have dinner with the aforementioned Dagster and SBL. On my way, I decided to stop at my new apartment and put my luggage in my room, so as not to drag hundreds of pounds of suitcases around in the freezing snow. Now, I know Boston pretty well. I'm fairly new to Slummerville, but I know I live off Broadway, so when I get off the T and see a bus that says "via Broadway", I get on it. For whatever reason the "via Broadway" bus does not run via Broadway. So I had to ride it all the way back to the T station, and then walk the mile or so home. I was not inhappymode.

Now, those of you regular readers might think what happens next would be something of an enjoyment for me; a late Christmas present from the God of Twisted Whores: I opened the door to my new apartment, a room I'd set up with all my belongings, a bed I'd slept in twice, and what do I find? Three half-naked Chinese boys. The room is filled with suitcases that I don't remember owning, and there are three half naked Chinese strangers sleeping in my goddamned bed. Did I strip off my clothes and join them? Take off my shoe and beat them until they ran screaming out into the snow? Read them the advanced copy of the Are We There Yet? screenplay until they beat each other to death with my industrial sized stapler? No. I calmly closed the door to my room, and had a bit of a "what the fuck?" session with The Landlord. The crazy assed, what the hell was I thinking moving into this place Landlord. Oh, right, I was thinking "Food is included in the rent." Unfortunately, sanity, privacy, and a healthy sense of personal boundaries were not.

Having griped out some of my stress, I head into town to meet Dagster and SBL. About halfway there, I get a phone call from SBL, Dagster and she have been in a minor car accident (I told Dagster she should have let the blindie drive). They are fine, but are freaked out about the snowy driving conditions, so they go to Dagster's house, which is also in Slummerville. I go to The Lizard Lounge for poetry. I am one of five people including the real host, and the bartender that is stupid enough to go out for poetry during a snowstorm. We drink free drinks, and I catch a cab Chez Dagster.

By the time I get home, it is the 27th, and the Chinese Boys are barricaded in another room. Apparently, the pill popping gay roommate sat on one of their faces at three o'clock in the morning, so they decided to move into an empty room, and put a desk in front of the door so he couldn't get in. My room no longer shows evidence of anything Chinese, not even General Tso's Chicken.

The Chinese boys (who are mildly hot, but a tad on the rich and clueless side for me) head out to New York, leaving me, Landlord and Pill Popper. Pill Popper regales me with tales of his youth on Cape Cod. He repeatedly refers to me as Michael, Jonathan, and occasionally Frank; never by my proper name. He goes into vast details about all the clubs he used to go to on The Cape. Unfortunately for him, I actually did grow up on The Cape, and know that every story he tells me is complete and utter bullshit. Fairy fantasy tales. Meanwhile, The Landlord has adopted a Korean houseboy.

Korean houseboy won't let me do my own dishes, won't let me cook my own food, and gets in the habit of interrupting "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to ask me questions about American culture. He has a fetish for "silver hairs." Hence, he is fucking my Landlord, though he is about five years younger than me, and Landlord is thirty years older. I try and stay out of the house as much as possible. New Year's Eve Eve, I am rescued from the madhouse by my friend, Celeste, and her ultra-cool roommate. We eat pizza and play arcade games at The Good Times Emporium. I even beat a straight boy at air hockey.

Actual New Year's Eve, I move my stuff into my new new room; a refinished attic with all sorts of cool angles, and closet space for all my friends who can't deal with their sexual orientation. I set up my bookcase and my laptop, and mourn the fact that my computer isn't equipped for wireless Internet yet.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/95840.html

The Real Catty World (Part 5: Random Notes)

Back in the days of dorm rooms and keggers, when naked Colombians wandered the halls trolling for horny Insafemodes; back when straight roommates didn't want their in the closet but probably obviously gay roommates to walk in them during "special time" (generally third period); back when third period was a time for Latin Class, and did not mean you were dating a twelve year old girl; back when you just didn't feel like blowing the kid across the hall or helping him with his remedial math; back then there was a system. Each door had a crudely drawn map or a piece of construction paper with notes such as "In the room studying, do not disturb", "Decided to find out what my French teacher looked like...am actually at class", "Hockey practice" and other possibilities for where people were and what they were doing. This way you didn't have to waste your time knocking on the cute boy's door, begging for his sweet ass, because you knew he was rehearsing for some play that probably involved him wearing tights. This meant you had to go to your room and put a pin in the "Do Not Disturb" area of your map in order to go masturbate to the thought of the cute boy in tights.

I look back fondly on those times. Especially when I think of Fledge in tights.

Looking back on them fondly, however, does not mean I want to relive them. So when The Landlord casually mentioned that he'd like me to leave notes letting him know whether or not I was home, and where I would be if I wasn't home, I gave him the Spock eye. Apparently, I'm so quiet, that he's never certain if I'm home and if he'll disturb me. I pointed out that if I was disturbed I would cease to be quiet, come out of my room and say something. Still, he wanted the notes.

I debated using Post-It Notes and making various "In" "Out" "None of your fucken business, what are you a stalker?" statements for various occasions. I even debated carving the word here into the door with a question mark after it. There's your note, bucko.

I was just about to go out and buy a stack of Post-It Notes when I remembered the old map system. ten points I could possibly be at, one pin. Here's what I came up with:

"Doing lines off a whore's ass. Please knock before entering. BYOC."

"The moaning you hear is just a TV show I'm watching. What sounds like a squeaking futon frame is a digital recording of dolphins talking. It helps me relax. I'm certainly not having sex in your house. Oh, and don't bother checking for the cute Colombian kid downstairs, he's uhhh...not there."

"It may sound like I'm home, but that's because you're a delusional control freak who hears things that aren't there. Don't worry, though, I'm not having a conversation with your therapist right now or anything."

"On streetcorner making rent"

"That smell isn't pot smoke, I'm not even home. What? Stop looking at the door like that. Don't even think about knocking! Hey, I said--"

"Out. But not all in your face about it."

"I spent all of last night/this morning on a Moonbounce with the Brazilian national college soccer team. If you even think about knocking before 8 PM, I'll have Max decapitate you with a swift kick of his soccer ball."

"Turn around. Sucker."

"In Fallujah fighting insurgent terrorists to make the world safe for Democracy, just like a Good Little American Patriot. I'm definitely not sleeping with your boyfriend at The Park Plaza hotel. That would be wrong."

"I'm just sitting on my desk waiting for YOU whoever YOU may be to come in. Don't bother knocking, just come in. I promise the rattlesnake waiting on the other side of the door has been defanged. He's really a sweet little snake. He loves to be punched, though. Why don't you punch him on your way in?"

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/95042.html

The Real Catty World (Part 4: Still Crushin')

Crush. Crush. Crush. Orange Crush. Grape Crush. High School Crush. Crushed Velvet. Crush from Demolition. Crush. Crush. Crush. I've had every sort of crush imaginable. Hot boys with no brains. Smart boys with no asses. Big dicked, boner-brained hipsters, hippies who've met every criteria associated with the word thick you can imagine, I've even crushed on dorks with overbites so big you could hang them from the Sears Tower by their upper jaw. Does anyone remember Strawberry Crush or Watermelon Crush? Back in the days of Fresca and Tab you could get any type of Crush you wanted. The options were...well...crushing. I've been all kinds of crushed. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, agnostically. I crush. You crush. We crush. I have been crushed.

The two people I've fallen hardest for, I haven't been able to write about. MAMIP and Liam. Liam was a pretty typical crush for me: cute nerd who everyone thinks is quiet, but is secretly a jaded neurotic type with a killer body and hot nerd tongue. Not that we ever kissed, but the ex-girlfriend who stole his virginity, then did the whole "I think I'm pregnant" routine with him TWICE when he tried to break up with her, she told me the things he could do with his tongue were amazing. Unfuck her for torturing me that way.

MAMIP was far from typical. Sweet, charming, sincere, honest, sexy. He has a voice that makes women (and ten percent of the guys) orgasm from fifty feet away just by saying the word "Oy." His Portuguese Oy has often caused me to give a Yiddish Oi. His voice. A man that hot, but so sweet and shy shouldn't have that kind of voice. He should have to talk through JAWS...with a lisp. But no, he's got Voice.

Imagine my pants splattering surprise when, after seven months of not talking to each other, he called me. When his name showed up on Caller ID, I dropped the phone on the sidewalk, then scrambled to pick it up, elbowing two old ladies, and a toddler with a clear learning disability. "Hey (let's for the fuck of it call him Mark) Marc!"

"¿Stevie?"

He had dialed the wrong number. "No, it's Safey."

"Oh, hey Safey. I'm sorry I was trying to dial someone else."

Imagine how disappointed I'd be if that's how the conversation had actually gone down. It didn't.

After seven months, I'd had all the silence I could take from him. So I called him when I KNEW he'd be at work. How did I know? Certainly not because I called his work first to find out if he was there. What kind of desperate psycho do you think I am? Surely not THAT kind.

When his voicemail picked up, I smoothly left him a message: "Oh, Marc, I'm sorry I was trying to call my friend Martin. Hey, I haven't talked to you in ages. I don't know what you've been up to lately, but I miss hanging out with you. Maybe I'll stop in and visit you at work one of these days. Happy Holidays."

Oh, yeah. I'm smoove like Smoove B. I combined my awkward lack of social skills, creative dishonesty, and free cell phone minutes into a looooooooooooooooove trap. And that's why I dropped the phone, and beat up a couple of septuagenarians and an infant to get at my cell.

"Hey, Marc, how are you?"

"I'm good." And the way he said good was just...soooo...goooooooooooooooooooooooo

ooooooooood. It was twenty-someodd degrees and I was melting. "How are you?"

Well, I was, if not depressed, very much apathetic. No Internet access, I'm not fully moved out of my old place or into my new one. I've been couch surfing by request. A few nights with Zuzu, a few with Cali, now with Celeste. All in all this week has gone from not very good to wow, this is going to suck. Until the call.

I'd regale you with all the sensual details of our conversation, like how we're going to get together for coffee, even though neither of us drink coffee, but that sort of thing is boring. Instead I'll talk about all the sex we aren't going to have because he's probably still not out, and he lives with his close-knit family, and I now live with...

Ahhh, the new house.

The Landlord is The King of Signs. The door tells the mailman where to leave which letters. There's a sign on the bottom stair telling you to watch your step, and clean your feet. At the top of the steps, each bedroom door is marked with which roommate lives in the room. There wil be four of us, including the landlord. We certainly don't want to get all confused thinking someone lives in the wrong room. The kitchen tells you which glasses The Landlord would rather you use, as well as which spices go with which kind of food, and how long to dry each type of dish. Don't even ask about the full colored manual in the washing room. It has graphs. Plural. GraphS.

The first night that I crashed at my future house, there was a note telling me how to turn on the lights. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sign because all the lights were out. This caused me to stumble into Roommate #1: The Frat Boy, who was stumbling drunkenly down the stairs. He gave the typical Frat Boy Mating Call "What the Fuck?" when he bumped into me. I introduced myself, he went to the bathroom, and then to bed. I haven't seen him since.

Roommate #2 is on The Real South Beach Diet. Pills. Many many many pills. Even Barry Bonds has called the house asking Roommate #2 to stop taking so many goddamned pills. It's freakish. The way he hunches over when he shuffles downstairs to smoke or take some pills. It's the only thing he leaves the house for: to get more pills from the pharmacy. Luckily, Roommate #2 will be gone in two weeks. I'm not sure who will be replacing him. Frat Boy will also be gone in the new year.

Roommate #3 is...I didn't get his name. He was talking to me for about ten minutes, but the entire time he was talking, all I was thinking was "pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty", which I'm pretty sure means he's straight.

Which beings us back to Marc, who isn't straight but he plays one in his social groups. I've missed him like astronauts miss gravity. He wants to see my new place. In my mind this means we're going to fuck all day, fall in love, make beautiful Brazilian-Irish-American babies. But I know in his mind, he's just curious about where I live. I'm fairly pessimistically certain that he's incapable of loving me with the furor that I love him.

Next week, I'll be back in his orbit. He will pull every bone, muscle, and organ into a new alignment. I will be so atrophied that the gravity of his kiss will tear through my body, leaving me as a pile of bones on the carpet of my new place. Crushed. Again.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/93103.html

The Real Catty World (Part 3: FOOD In The Rent)

I am a terrible judge of character. I confuse people's generosity with martyr complexes. I can't tell the difference between a wonderful, giving person with a few quirks, and a complete psychopath with moments of humanity. So it is that I completely misjudged the house that I assumed would be Gay.

I made the assumption because so many of the people who replied to my roommate ads were GGGGGGAY, and came right out and mentioned that they were looking for GGGGGGAY roommates. So when I read the e-mail from someone who had a house that he touted as having an "International flair", and made perfectly innocent statements that, because of my interactions with other "innocent" statement makers, I believed they were codes for "I am a dirty pervert who will give you a cheap place to live so long as I can fondle myself while I watch you sleep." This was not the case at all.

In order to prep myself for impending Gayness, I spent the entire two mile or so walk to the house listening to music that I won't admit to publicly, some of the artists' names rhymed with Wisteena Magumera and Whitney Gears.

I took off my headphones just as I approached a house where a man somewhere between his late fifties and late sixties was leaning over, working on a garden. Unlike the stodgy Harvard professor/landlords, though, his look was complimented by a natural unegotistical speech pattern, and actual eye contact. Borderline creepy eye contact. But borderline, so that's okay.

Once we went in the house, he offered me coffee. I don't drink coffee. So he offered tea. I don't like tea either, but I'll drink it when someone is politely trying to make me something hot to drink.

The house was gorgeous. Very well preserved (cleaning service comes in every other week), great natural lighting, nice open feel. In fact everything about both house and landlord seemed open. The only part of the interview that left a bad taste in my mouth was the tea that scalded my tongue when I drank it too quickly. The rent even includes food. FOOD is included in the rent. FOOD. You make a grocery list, the landlord buys you food. FOOD. Did I mention that FOOD is included in the rent? A comfortable, well lit house with rent that includes utilities, high speed internet access, cable TV, FOOD, LAUNDRY DETERGENT, no-coin-necessary washer/dryer, and cleaning service. Seriously, even if this guy kills me in three months and buries me in his basement, at least I will die happily in a sort of writer's utopia that has FOOD included in the rent.

If he rents the room out to someone else, I will be insadmode.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/86303.html

The Real Catty World (Part 2: Purely Academic Reasons To Get Out Of The Rental Pool)

Not too far from Danny's apartment is the wonderful world of M.I.T. Hot nerd central. Granted, it's also ugly nerd central, but let's not dwell on that.

M.I.T. is a forest of equations that you can't see through the variables. I've always wanted to be tangentially associated with it. It implies math intelligence. I my have blinked my way through Calculus, but I am exceptionally quick with basic math, and simple geometry. For example: a fifty year old man claiming to be twenty-one has subtracted twenty-nine years off of his age, which equals me not even sticking around for the interview. Or, if Safey is looking for an apartment, and you advertise having a swimming pool, when you mean that there is a gym across the street with a swimming pool, how fast will Safey run away from your apartment when you invite him in for lunch? Very fast.

The Harvard landlords are more honest. This makes no sense to me, as Harvard is much likelier to spit out lawyers and fiction writers than chemical engineers. Then again, little in life makes sense to me these days.

The Harvard landlords tend to be "mature gentlemen" who are looking to help out younger men. While odds are against all of them having hidden cameras located in the bedrooms and bathrooms, I'm pretty sure that I met more than one "gentleman" who had a library full of homemade amateur porn starring unsuspecting young guys. "I'll cook you dinner, and do your grocery shopping, and if you need a few extra weeks to make rent" I'll rape you in your sleep was inferred at the end of the sentence. No thanks, Grandpa.

Harvard students had some fantastic apartments. Most of them well out of my price range. But looking didn't hurt. Much.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/85934.html

The Real Catty World (Part 1: Danny)

The next few months are either going to be a catalyst for future writing or a Scared Straight program. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.

I'm moving in with gay people.

No, I haven't "met someone", or been cast in the first reality show to be aired on MTV LOGO: "The Real Catty World"; I've decided to move somewhere more affordable. While my current roommates are unquestionably the coolest people I've ever lived with, there are some things I couldn't deal with anymore: the way O would hide my shoes on the other side of the house, and scatter the floor with nails and broken glass; the way D would wait for me to go down to The Inconvenience Store, and then stick my geckos in the blender; their constant waking me up at odd hours in the morning to film them having sex with the underage girls they picked up at the local burn unit; the way O pronounces the word "the". I know, I'm being picky, but that's just the way I am.

So Tuesday night, I started looking for some local places to move to. Somewhere in the price range of broke.

My first Internet Search led me to a quaint little first floor apartment in Dorchester. Reasonable rent, no roommates, moderately furnished. It seemed too good to be...it was the apartment I'd shared with Melissa Plummer. Granted, she's two tenants removed from the apartment by now, it's still not a place I'd feel comfortable living. I'd be kicking ghost dogs all the time.

After assorted promising looking rentals that, of course, did not exist anymore by the time I joined WeTrickedYouIntoSigningUpForOurApartment

Search.com, I found a few local bonanzas.

Today I met with Danny. Danny is a 23 year old Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay guy. He goes through all the ads on the various apartment sites, and expresses interest in every gay guy under 30 looking for a place to live. His apartment is in a complex directly around the corner from the house I'm living in now. It's ripe with "The Danny Touch" as he calls it. Rainbow flags? Check. Titanic poster? Check. Various CD art from Madonna and Bjork albums sticky tacked to the walls? Check. Abercrombie & Fitch ads FRAMED and hung on the walls? Check. Rainbow bedspread? Check. I was shocked when I opened the refrigerator to discover that not all the food in there was covered in pink frosting. There were, however, Snowballs on the kitchen counter. "Because it's winter." Danny cheerfully pointed out. Thanks, Captain Obvious, have another pink star.

After a few minutes of reasonable conversation, I excused myself to the bathroom, where I tested to see how long it took for the water to get hot (thanks for the tips sarchal). I envisioned an elf with a blue candle swinging from pipe to pipe between the dozens of apartments in the building, trying to get the water lukewarm as quickly as possible. Sorry Link, next time use the ocarina of time.

When I came back out, we had an earnest discussion of the kind of guys I liked, and I realized I was being interviewed for something more than a roommate. Well, I could do a lot worse than Danny. He was very cute and seemed both smart and funny, but I'm not going to move in and have sex with someone I just met. That's what lesbians do on their second date, not gay guys. Gay guys don't have second dates. Which is one of the reasons why I didn't say "I'll be in touch" when I left.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/85531.html

Why I Gargle With Bleach

After a long night of people abandoning plans for your birthday, a night filled a screaming match with your pseudo-boss and an awkward moment with your not-quite-ex who is your not-quite-ex because you were never quite dating; after a night like this you're almost grateful that your roommate's girlfriend greets you with a little kiss when you get home. You are grateful until her boyfriend/your roommate hands her some Altoids and says "Try one of these, your breath still smells like my dick."

original post: http://community.livejournal.com/2_much_sex_info/71183.html

Why I Almost Just Hurled

After a long day of work, I came home to write some e-mails and get to bed. After typing up a few LJ comments, I went to rap my fingers against the desk and got three fingertips coated in my (I assume) roommate's semen. Where is my Lava soap?

Uck. It's not like there isn't a box of Kleenex right next to the desk.

At least I didn't bang my head against it.

original post: http://community.livejournal.com/2_much_sex_info/41207.html

Melissaphobia (Part 7: Inconclusion)

What Melissa didn't know was that I never had any intention of calling the police. I didn't have to.

When the college who cut me the check finally mailed me a copy of said check with my forged signature, I'd called a police officer friend of mine from Arizona. He'd advised me that the easiest way to ensure her suffering without having to get my own hands dirty, was to tell the bank that had cashed the check that the signature was forged. Then, the bank would reimburse the college, who would cut me a new check. Melissa would be at the bank's mercy, not mine.

But since she didn't know that (I hadn't called the bank yet), I figured I'd try to get a thousand dollars off her anyway because I was a poor bastard and she was a manipulative, lying bitch with a dog that had pissed all over my fucken clothes. I may have been a little bitter.

She didn't give me the thousand dollars. I never saw her again. Never had the satisfaction of knowing whether she was arrested or had huge penalties from the bank. I'm not even sure she got any financial comeuppance.

What I do know is that she got evicted. Whatever she did with the thousand dollars she essentially stole from me, she didn't use it to pay rent. Also, someone informed her landlord that she had been subleasing part of the apartment to me. She hadn't told him that. He was under the impression that only one person lived there, so he'd given her a great deal on rent. So during the year that I was there, I was paying 75% of the rent and had no idea. Since she was the one who was in contact with the landlord (I've been landlordphobic ever since I moved out of Hippieville), I just assumed we had been paying the same amount. One anonymous call to the landlord changed that.

I met the landlord one night while I was working at The Corporate Restaurant. He didn't know what happened to my bookshelf, my books, my comics, or my computer (and I didn't ask about the porn) but my bedframe and a few of my clothes had shown up in the basement, where (he informed me) all of my stuff had been stored while I was away. No wonder "the storage people" had easy access to the house, they lived in the basement.

I've only been back to the house once since the day Becca and I drove my stuff to storage. It's not too far from where I ended up moving to, but the house has some serious bad juju for me. Even though I know that Melissa hasn't lived there in about a year now, I always get really angry when I drive by, or when the subway passes within sight of it. I have the incredible urge to sneak into the driveway and let the air out of all her tires. But her tires aren't there.

If she didn't end up doing any jail time (and she probably didn't, I don't think she had any prior problems with the police or with banks), I'm imagining she moved back in with her parents. Why they should be punished for her crimes, I don't know. Then again, it was their terrible breeding and/or parenting techniques that contributed to the bipolar sociopath she became.

Melissaphobia (Part 5: Checks And Unbalances)

"I don't live here anymore?" In my head I'm doing the five fingers of death (though Kill Bill 2 has not come out yet, I am intrinsically aware of its future existence).

"You said there'd be a check arriving for me in January. I never received it."

"But I called you in January, and February, and March, and you never mentioned it." I'm pulling out her eyeballs with my fingers, and squishing them beneath my shoes.

"I assumed you knew."

I was just sleep deprived enough to think this whole thing was my fault. I asked her what had happened to all my belongings, and she informed they were in storage. When I could pay her the three months of overdue rent, and the storage fees, she'd return my stuff.

It sounded fair.

I went to Corporate Restaurant and explained my predicament. I needed to work as often as possible in order to get my stuff back. Several of my coworkers offered me couches and spare beds until I found a new place to stay. My current debt to Melissa would be roughly thirteen hundred dollars, I expected to have to have about $1800 to put down on a new place. I was fucked in a way that brought me no pleasure. I was also pissed off.

I called the institution that was supposed to cut me the check. They "thought" they had sent it out to me in January. It would take a couple of days to track down, but they'd be in touch. I posted angry anti-Melissa comments in my other LJ. A certain former landlord's girlfriend (I think, I have no proof of who the anonymous fuckwad was) said of my homelessness and misfortune, "That's awesome. You deserve what you get."

I tried not to turn into InHulkMode.

I called Melissa and asked how much storage was costing her. She said she didn't know, but she'd get back to me. I called her back the next day to ask again, and received no answer. The following day, she called my cell phone asking why I was ignoring her repeated messages. I called my voice mail. I had six messages. None of them from Melissa.

The next week was my birthday. I worked eight hours, and then crashed on a coworker's couch. My mom called to ask me if I'd received my birthday money.

The following morning, I trekked over to Melissa's in search of my mail. In addition to the birthday mail (one from my mom, one from my dad, two sets of grandparents, and one aunt), I was waiting for a package from a friend in Pieceofshitdeserttown.

"You haven't gotten any mail here in months." Ms. Smiley Melissa Face informed me as she was putting her work cooler in her trunk.

"No mail?"

"None."

"You're telling my five people's birthday cards got lost in the mail?"

"I don't know what to tell you." She started to slam down her trunk.

"What's that?" I stopped the trunk with my hand. Inside was a package with my name on it.

"Oh, that. That arrived yesterday. I forgot." It was my package from Pieceofshitdeserttown. "Here."

"No, mail for me, huh?"

While there is no doubt in my mind that she did steal my birthday mail (a federal offense, mind you). I had no proof. She had not been stupid enough to forge my signature on those checks. A few days after the run in by her trunk, though, I got a call from the people who'd written me the $1000 check. They'd written it. They'd mailed it. And on January seventh, the day after I'd left on tour it had been signed over to and cashed by one Melissa F*n Bitchface.

Enter InHulkMode.

Melissaphobia (Part 4: Welcome Home)

It's 1:15 on a Sunday morning. After a two-day bus trip at the culmination of a three-month spoken word tour, I had decided to take a trip to my local venue for a surprise appearance. People were surprised. I was happy. I drank. I was tired. I was writing in short, choppy sentences.

My friend Joycee drove me home from the venue. I pulled my bags out of her trunk, walked up to my door, turned the key in the lock and...nothing. Fuck.

I rang the doorbell, but I had witnessed Melisa sleeping through me banging on her bedroom door when she had blocked our neighbor's driveway with her car. She probably slept through the sex she had with all The Midnight Men. They were probably just a bunch of crazed necrophiliacs (except the Coke guy, I'm sure he had no crazed fetishes).

I realized she had probably changed the locks due to a run in with one of The Midnight Men. Maybe somebody hit her, or maybe she had decided she was going to stick to only one married guy at a time.

When she hadn't answered the door to the apartment, and Gussy hadn't even barked at my knocking and doorbell ringing, I went around to the driveway to check for her car. It was there. While I was in the driveway, I realized that I could probably climb in through my window. I didn't remember whether I'd bothered to lock it. But the odds were that I hadn't. I hopped on to the ledge and ---

There was no furniture in my room. Bed? Gone. Bookcases? Gone. TV? Gone. Desk? Gone. Pile of films and porn? Gone. The closet was open and there were no clothes in it.

I decided that even if the window was unlocked, no good would come from climbing through it. Instead, I walked the couple of miles to Su's house and woke her up, explaining my unpleasant return. She thought I might have just been so tired that I mis-saw.

It was true that I didn't do an exhaustive visual search. There were no streetlights, no lights from inside the house.

At about five-thirty I walked back to the house where I had lived for the past year. Melissa was comingo ut of the house as I walked up to the porch.

"Hey, Insafemode." she beamed. "How was your trip?"

"It was fun. I got to see a part of the country I've never been to, amde enough money to live moderately comfortable, met some nice people. But when I got home the damnedest thing happened. My key wouldn't fit into the lock."

"Oh, yea. You don't live here anymore."

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/28964.html

Melissaphobia (Part 2: The Midnight Men)

I don't sleep at night (have you noticed most of my posts are at 4 fricken AM?). My job requires me to be at work promptly at four in the afternoon, sometimes as late as six. I'm done at midnightish, and completely wired when I get home. My life has been like this for the majority of the last three years.

When I first moved in with Melissa, I had yet to buy my bed (best purchase ever), so I was sleeping on the living room couch. I'd invited my friend and coworker Quentin over to play cards. Nothing sleazy, just cards. This was before the madness that is spectator poker. This was merely Cribbage, a game I was once damn good at.

Around 12:15 I heard a key turning in the lock. Melissa was already home. I was already home. There were only two of us. Had Gussy gone outside on her own? If so, why?

A man in his early forties in desperate need of a shave and a shower walked in, blinked curiously at Quentin and I and continued on his way down the hall to Melissa's room. I was puzzled until I heard the sounds of someone trying to quietly fuck. Ahhhh, the boyfriend.

This happened several times through the course of the year that Melissa and I lived together. But it was never the same guy twice. I wondered whether she gave her one spare key out to people she met at bars or whether she always set the key in a plastic Easter egg, and hid the egg in a different location, perhaps putting out ads in magazines or The Internet with directions to where the egg was located. The ad would read: "Want to fuck a moderately attractive girl with dependency issues while being watched and barked at by a miniature dachshund? Go to Pope Hill Park, find the easter egg under the monkey bars in the playground, and follow the directions inside. Bring condoms and rawhide bones."

The only Midnight Man who ever caught my attention was The Coke guy.

I love me some Cherry Coke. One night at around three I went into the kitchen, surprised to find a moderately attractive man in boxers drinking the last of my Cherry Coke.

"This yours?" he asked.

"Yea."

"Sorry, I was really thirsty. I'll replace it tomorrow."

He didn't know what I knew. There was no tomorrow in our house for Midnight Men. Melissa was burying herself under a pile of anonymous men in a pathetic attempt to disguise the fact that nobody loved her enough to commit to her. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.

There was no Cherry Coke in the fridge the next day, but he had blocked up the toilet.

About a week later, I was in the middle of writing when the doorbell rang. There was a Coke truck outside. On the doorstep was Midnight Man with ten cases of Cherry Coke.

"Sorry bout the delay. I'm a little mad at Melissa, but I felt bad about taking the last of your Coke. She tells me you pretty much live off the stuff. Hope you enjoy this. Oh, and don't tell Melissa I said Hi."

I wanted to fuck him right there on the doorstep. Instead I said thank you and began stocking the refrigerator and the pantry.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/28575.html

Melissaphobia (Part 1: Hell Hound)

A couple of years before I met her, Melissa got dumped hardcore by a boyfriend who must have woken up one morning and gone "Woah, I'm dating a total dependent bitch with no personality of her own, and she's not even that good looking."

She didn't take that well. She apparently spent months crying in bed, leaving only for work and the occasional Ben & Jerry's run (the one aspect of her personality I respected). To get her out of her slump, her grandfather bought her a new puppy: Gussy. Gussy was named after Melissa's dead grandmother. This was my first clue that she was somewhat unbalanced.

The first three months that Gussy was in Melissa's possession, the two did everything together, including sleeping in the same bed. Those of you who know anything about dogs know that sleeping with the dog on a regular basis is a big nono. You must establish that you are the alpha, or you run the risk of having your new companion turn into Frankenpuppy.

Even obedience school couldn't save Gussy from being a horrid little shitstain. Maybe it's because, as a miniature dachsund, she had a Napoleonic complex (sometimes known as a Devito complex). I imagine that it had more to do with Melissa's intimacy issues.

The first day I moved in, Melissa and I were talking in the hallway when Gussy wandered in from the kitchen and took a shit next to Melissa's foot. Melissa's response: "Gussy, I can't believe you're doing this right in front of me." Then, to me: "She usually waits until I'm in the other room before she does her business on the floor."

Ummm...she usually shits on the floor?

"I take her out for walks all the time" (this was true) "but for some reason she likes to do her business in the house." She did. Every night. Every day. Whenever Melissa was home, Gussy was pissing and shitting on the floor. I locked my bedroom door and always watched my feet when I walked around the house.

Melissa was forever stepping in piss puddles (which she referred to as widdle water) and saying "Gussy, bad dog." Then she would give her a treat.

The true victims of the frequent floods of widdle water were the Midnight Men. None of whom ever learned from previous experience to watch their feet when they entered the house. Unless of course none of the Midnight Men were repeat customers. I couldn't tell any of them apart. And when even a gay whore can't keep track of all the random dick that comes into the house to fuck his roommate, you know there's a problem.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/27816.html

Slow Flashes (Part 7: Roommate Scavenger Hunt)

Contrary to rumor, Jeremy Burdick didn't beat me up. I didn't move to Arizona to join the priesthood. I didn't drown, trying to save one of my campers at Camp Davis. I was not institutionalized because of my schizophrenia. I just went away to boarding school. I didn't tell anyone, because I hadn't planned on going. Ninth grade hadn't been a hardship, I'd made a number of popular friends, and discovered that I was really good at American Sign Language, and working with kids. I had every intention of returning to Cranberry Lake High, and yawning my way through another year's worth of classes. My grandfather had other ideas. And my grandfather's ideas were always more important than my own.

My first real memory of him was when I was three or four. I was watching The Smurfs or The Snorks or some tirelessly friendly cartoon inspired by a Scandinavian comic book. My grandfather walked into the room, changed the TV to the news, and then walked out of the room. I turned the cartoon back on. He walked into the room, changed to the news, and walked out. I changed back to the cartoons. When he came back in, I asked "You want to watch the news?"

"No." He said. "I read the paper this morning. I want you to watch the news." And he turned the channel back to the news, and pulled the dial off the TV.

During the summer between ninth and tenth grades, I was a summer camp counselor in training. I helped run the sports program, and taught swimming lessons (and nobody drowned during them). I had planned on being there all ten weeks, but during the fifth week, my grandfather stopped by. He was captaining a boat from Jacksonville, Florida to Portland, Maine. I'd gone with him for the southern part of the journey when I was twelve. This summer, he wanted me to help out with the Cranberry Lake to Portland leg. I agreed, because I had no choice. I figured, it was a three day trip, max. And I was technically correct. We arrived in Portland the next day, spent one day at my uncle's house, eating lobster and catching up with relatives, and the next day, he rented a car, and we began driving, I assumed, home. I assumed wrong.

"It's Reunion Weekend at my old highschool." He said. And I knew I was doomed to spend the next two days with his fellow septuagenarians, listening to dull stories about their childhood, and how I looked just like my grandfather, which was a lie, as I was adopted, and shared none of his body or facial design. I also knew I'd have to take some sort of tour, where a smiling admissions officer would tell me how much fun I'd have there, what a great drama department they had, how I could volunteer to work with kids, and how I would yadda yadda smile love it there.

I knew that if my grandfather wanted me to go there, odds were I was going to go there no matter what I wanted. Plus, it meant I wouldn't have to watch my parents fumble toward their inevitable divorce. So when I got home, I told my parents how much I'd loved the school, and, sure, I'd really apply myself there, and could I please go back to my summer at Camp Davis now?

Three days after camp ended, my parents drove me back to Torpor Heights, carried a bunch of my clothes and belongings up the four flights of stairs to my room, and took me out to lunch. My mother cried. My father was proud of me. Back in Florida, my grandfather was proud of me. The only thing I was excited about was meeting my new roommate.

Through a fluke in the admissions process (or maybe a donation from my grandfather), I'd been booked into the biggest room in the dorm, a triple. But there would only be two of us. Whereas all the other rooms had a single, cumbersome wardrobe, our room had two walk-in closets AND two cumbersome wardrobes. We also had a bunkbed AND a non-bunkbed. My roommate, though absent when I had moved in, had already been in the room, and claimed a closet and the non bunkbed, which was totally fine with me.

It was a few minutes after my parents left when one of the student leaders knocked on my door. "Hey. My name is Daveed. I'll be living across the hall. You met your roommate yet?"

"Not yet."

"Oh, man." He made Oh, man sound precisely like I'm so sorry that your puppy got murdered, but don't worry, you're going to get a chance to see him real soon, because you're about to get hit by a very big truck with very spikey tires.

"Oh, man?" I asked.

My very first roommate at Torpor Heights was a twenty-one year old sophomore named Yao Wen Handsome. A Chinese student, whose mother had recently married a very inaccurately named banker named Sean Handsome. Their marriage was some sort of business arrangement that, for some reason, meant that Yao Wen had to change his last name to his American stepfather's. Yao Wen had been in America for two weeks when school started, and the only English he spoke was "Yes", "No", and "I want fuck yo'r ice", which had been taught to him by one of the very unscrupulous hockey jocks who lived down the hall from us.

I hoped that his English would improve quickly, as THA had one of the premier English as a Second Language programs in the country. Alas, instead of teaching him things he could use like "How do I get to the Science Building?", "Do you mind if I use your stereo to blast my shitty Chinese pop music while you're trying to sleep?", or "Excuse me. I had some really spicy food for dinner.", they taught him annoying phrases like "Need you help now." and "Giant bresteses." Two things he liked to say almost as much as he liked to announce that he wanted to fuck my rice. No matter how many times I explained that I didn't like my rice fucked, he insisted that he would be really good at it.

After the third night in a row that he'd slapped me awake at three in the morning to ask for help with his homework, I started setting up a line of tennis balls in the little dip between my bunk and the wall. Every time I caught him walking in my direction, I'd chuck one at his head.

I wasn't the only person in the school who was less than pleased with the existence of Yao Wen Handsome. Next door to David (pronounced Daveed)'s room were two juniors. A shaved-headed punk fan named Jack Marple, and a purple headed goth rocker, who voluntarily went by the name of Roadkill. I wasn't present when Roadkill and Yao Wen began their war. I don't know who first insulted who, but I do know that I came home from dinner during the third week of school to find Roadkill running down the hall. Yao Wen was chasing him, with three of my tennis balls in his hands, chucking them at Roadkill, yelling "No shoes on bed! No shoes on bed!"

After the fourth time the dormhead was called to settle a dispute between Yao Wen and one of our floormates, I made a request that he be moved out of my room. I was assured that I'd have permission to request a change of roommates by the end of the week. Three weeks, and a dozen or so excuses later, I decided to take matters into my own hands. One of the other sophomores, who lived on the third floor, had the unfortunate pleasure of sharing a room with a kleptomaniac named Charlie Denton. Barely a month into the school year, and Charlie had been caught stealing two jackets, a dozen or so CDs, and Roadkill's favorite hairbrush.

"It's bullshit." JBob (Denton's unfortunate roommate) said. "He's stolen two of my Guns and Roses bootlegs, sharpied out my name, and wrote his own. And my favorite jacket disappeared my first day here. I asked the dormhead to transfer rooms, and he told me he'd get it done by the end of the week. That was two weeks ago. Fuck, dood, there's an empty room on your floor. I don't get why one of us can't move into it."

"I have a better idea." I said.

That afternoon, while Yao Wen was in class, JBob and I moved all of his furniture and clothes into the empty room, and moved all of JBob's furniture into my room. "This way," I said, "we can claim that you didn't know I didn't have permission to move Yao Wen's shit out, and, with any luck, the dormhead will feel sorry for you, and let things stay the way we want them." Which is pretty much what happened. Yao Wen came back from class, flipped out that all his stuff had been moved, and found the nearest Chinese interpreter to take his case to the dormhead who, initially, flipped out, then shook his head after Yao Wen left, and said "Well played. You guys can be roommates, but don't pull any shit like that or again, or I'll put you on disciplinary probation."

Little did he know, JBob and I had one more game to play before we felt we were even.

Every Wednesday morning, there was a mandatory all campus meeting at our Chapel. The student leaders checked each of us in at the beginning of the meeting, and we'd sit in our assigned pews, listening to the deans or the headmaster or a guest speaker fill our minds with morality or mortality or whatever opinion they were determined to inflict on us. JBob and I had loyally attended each one, but we knew that Denton liked to sneak out and take a cab into town and shoplift, since he had the two post-meeting periods open.

On this particular morning, I checked in with David, and JBob checked in with his student leader, then we excused ourselves to go to the bathroom. While our dormmates listened to our Headmaster explain how important cultural diversity was to a school like ours, JBob and I broke into their rooms and began playing a game of Kleptomaniac Scavenger Hunt Bingo. I took Roadkill's brush, and Jack's New York Dolls CD. JBob took David's drumsticks, and one of his roommate's Argentinean porno magazines. I took our resident Republican's U2 poster, and his roommate's favorite sweatshirt. And together, we went up and down all floors, taking one or two things from each room (including our own), and scattering them all throughout Denton's room. Then we went to our fourth period classes.

Neither of us were there to witness the beginning of the chaos. Seeing as he'd already caught Denton stealing his hairbrush once, Roadkill knew where to go when he discovered it missing a second time. And, of course, he saw Jonathan Fletcher Tork the Fourth's U2 poster, and told him about it. JFT4 saw David's drumsticks, and one of the other student leader's guitar, and on and on and on. When Denton came back, he was pulled into the dormhead's apartment. He was completely befuddled, and swore he was innocent. But he was wearing JBob's favorite jacket, and had the inside pockets stuffed with CDs that were stolen from the local music store. He was kicked out at the end of the week.

For the remainder of the first trimester, JBob and I got along famously. Despite his justifiable concern over my taste in music (I had just grown out of a pop phase, and had a Mariah Carey CD and some Paula Abdul tapes scattered throughout my U2 and Nirvana), we found we had a lot in common. Our honeymoon period was brief but enjoyable.

Both of us had work jobs (the most redundantly named program at the school) in the dining hall. He served lunch. I helped prepare dinner. One night, while squeezing whipped cream onto the lime jello, one of the salad ladies approached me with a petition. "Do you know that Yao Wen kid?" She asked.

I told her that we'd been roommates.

"Well, the faculty and students that work here have been having problems with the way he talks to people. And the way he touches them."

I relayed the story about my walk back to the dorm, after my first tennis class, when Yao Wen had touched my ass. How I'd firmly shook my head and said "Don't touch me." And how he'd touched me again, anyway. And how I'd cracked him over the head with my tennis racket and ran like hell to the dining hall.

"So you'll sign this?"

"What will it do?"

That week, it got him banned from the back of the line in the dining hall. He could still eat there, but he wasn't allowed to even talk to the cooks or the students serving the food. The next week, he was told he was no longer welcome at the farm. It wasn't too long before I came back from French class to find his new room empty. Some months later, my guidance counselor told me he'd been sent to "an institution better suited to his needs".

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/229891.html