Booze was created for days like this.

I’m a big liar, of course, because my little eating disorder-bedeviled soul has always believed that days like these - days in which you are quite sure someone SOMEWHERE is pulling on your strings and having a fucking good laugh at your expense - were made with dessert in mind. Lots of dessert.

So, can we call it a step in recovery that I thought of a stiff drink before a slice of key lime pie? No, I didn’t think so either.

The day started and I felt completely off balance for no apparent reason whatsoever. That doesn’t often happen. Generally I know e.x.a.c.t.l.y what is bothering. Doesn’t mean I’m going to be a big brave girl and deal with it, but I do know what the IT is to begin with. Not so today, adventurous readers! Today I was driving the Canadian to work, tears running down my face, and my poor husband asking, “Are you SURE you don’t know what’s bothering you?” I was kind of a mess.

But here’s where the Canadian gets big props: he swooped in like a devoted mother hen and took control of things while I was floundering. He told me I was taking the day off from the world, and he stopped the car, put me in the passenger’s seat, and turned us around for home. The plan was to tuck me in to bed with some movies and a bottle of Diet Coke. I started to feel a bit better, just feeling cared for. I can tell you that one of my favorite parts of being married - besides having someone to clean out the catbox because I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than do it - are those days where I’ve just had enough and there is someone there to say, “You need a break. Whatever you’re carrying around right now, let me worry about it for a while and you just rest.”

I was nestled in the passenger’s seat, kind of glowing; we’re two blocks from the video store, and then….steam begins to pour from under the hood of the car, and I cannot open my eyes wide enough so great is the shock. “Pull over! Pull over! Pull over! Now! Now! NOW!”

We caught a ride with the tow truck and hauled my poor baby in to the garage. Kudos to the Canadian for dealing with a woman who is not only temporarily emotionally unhinged, but also completely pissed off because the car had been in for an 80,000 mile tune up just THREE WEEKS BEFORE!

After hearing more than I care to admit about the considerable marital problems of my mechanic, we headed over to the tattoo shop to kill some time while they checked on my car, affectionately know as Beast Jr. And the day just kept getting better:

1. One of the tattooers put too much water in the autoclave and it sounded like a steam engine horn going off periodically. At first I thought it was a damn pressure cooker. Are they cleaning tubes or canning jam in there?

2. One of my terminal charity cases called from an apt. building and wanted to make a deal about rent. The BEGGING! The PLEADING! The SOBBING & SNOTTING! And all I really want to say is, “Would you mind terribly just fucking off for awhile? Thanks ever so much.”

3. Got a hold of my mechanic. Turned out my radiator is full of goo! And in the pause after delivering the news, the only response I could think of is, “Dude, I did NOT put that in there!”

Reading: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Watching: Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel
Playing: Trivial Pursuit for PS3

I am cranky. So here is a list of crankiness.

My head’s about to explode due to a poverty-induced lack of anti-depressants (3 weeks and counting!), and I’ve warned everyone within a 10 foot radius of me that there is the possibility of verbal violence. I actually slipped and lost my temper with a resident today. And when I say “resident,” I actually mean a 19-year old first time renter with his head permanently lodged up his ass who was clearly not whooped on enough as a child. He had yet another excuse for his long list of fuck-ups, at which point I just said, “Dude, I hate you so hard right now. You are such a pain in my ass.” I don’t think Mr. Entitlement had ever been told that before because I could hear the very distinctive opening and closing of his wordless yap on the other end of the phone.

Anway, in an effort to try to do some mental dust-busting, I am going to lay out my list of crankiness in the hopes that I won’t be obsessing over these highly unimportant tidbits for, you know, eternity.

1. Robert Pattinson: Please, for the love of Heaven, shave! Ellie will disagree with me on this one but I thought you made a to-die-for disgustingly good looking vampire. For all future public appearances, I am asking that you please appear clean shaven.  Please. Pretty please. The scruff, it is killing me.

2. More Spock, less Kirk: I can’t even begin to understand the hulla-buh-howdy-dee-do over Chris Pine. I don’t get it. Kirk has never been my cup of tea, and I don’t care who plays that character, he will still be lamely Kirk. It’s unavoidable. Now let’s move on from that and focus on the oh-my-fucking-gawd deliciousness that is Zachary Quinto as Spock. You can roll your eyes at my nerdiness, but that’s only because you’re unwilling to admit how badly you are now interested in bedding a Vulcan.

3. Bristol Palin and her Abstinence Only Tour: Hasn’t the Palin clan left enough destruction in its wake? Do we really need to hear more about abstinence only sex education? ESPECIALLY coming from a girl who either 1) misread the pictorial directions on the box of condoms, 2) actually believed him when he said that if she really loved him, she would let him ride bareback, or 3) simply lacked the commonsense to advocate for her own reproductive health by investing time to understand the consequences of sex and how best to enjoy it while simultaneously protecting herself against disease and UNWANTED PREGNANCY. Earth to Bristol! You can still have sex without his pee-pee going into your hoo-hoo!

4. Upper Middleclass Jerks that Bitch About Their Taxes: When you have to sell your summer home and your boat to buy groceries, then you have permission to talk to me about poverty. 

5. Jon & Kate Gosselin - OMG! Open Marriage!: I saw a recent tabloid that described their “twisted” marriage. Bullshit. An open marriage is not a twisted marriage, at least, no more twisted than any other marriage out there. Once again, American loves snooping in other people’s bedrooms! Have we really learned nothing from the decades of the LGBT community fighting for civil rights otherwise denied to them because of their bedroom activities?? Jon and Kate: I think you’re pretty lame, but I’ve come to that conclusion for a whole other set of reasons. I don’t give a damn who you’re doing in your off time.

6. Camera Obscura: CCG, I swear, if you put that Camera Obscura CD on one more time I am going to put a pair of scissors through my eyeball. And then through yours.

7. Ray Charles the Cat: I am not a cat person right now. Why, Ray Charles, WHY do you have to destroy the blinds? And my beautiful tall green glass that I like to put lilacs in. You knocked it off the window sill and shattered it, you evil motherfucker.  My purpose in life is not to make all your dreams come true so why should I rearrange the whole house so you can do whatever you want without destroying everything?  The world certainly isn’t rearranging itself for me!  I don’t like you very much right now, Ray Charles.

God, I need a nap. A long, long, looooong nap.

Ouchies. I has them.

A few weeks ago I made the unfortunate decision to shovel the walkway and parking lot for my building. How unfortunate? Three weeks of unfortunate back spasms. Three weeks of an unfortunate hobble. Three weeks of unfortunately sore leg muscles and knees as they try to take the workload off my back. Three weeks of asking the Canadian to tie my shoes for me. And three weeks of questionable looks from the dog, because even she has noticed that I don’t lean over to set down her food bowl quite as fast as I used to.

I think what has sucked the most is the pestering little thought that keeps popping up: If I go to the doctor, maybe they will tell me that I have to lose weight if I want to save my back. Then there’s no choice. My doctor said so!

Alas.

Reading: Celebrity gossip. Yum.
Listening: Someone in the office left the classical music station on. Some kind of choral work….
Playing: Mario Party 8 for Wii

Like all good diets, I do my best work on the first day.

Today has been an endless succession of apartment showings. One person called to complain about the muddy snow that got tracked in to her apartment, and a maintenance man made a pointed remark about a sidewalk that wasn’t as clear of snow as everyone else’s sidewalk. More than once today I resisted the urge to tell someone to stick it Right. Up. Their. Ass.

And then I would think of the many, many times Ellie has told one of my numerous annoyances to “eat a bowl of dicks” and it’s hard not to smile. (By the way, Ellie, I got your Christmas card, and  your kids are fucking adorable. You should be ashamed of yourself!)

“Scandinavian Sensibilities” is the key phrase around the house these days as Jeff the Canadian and I try to pare down our belongings from Massive Pile of Crap to Minimal Pile of Interesting Crap. One of the first things we did was pull out a set of dishes (service for 8) that I’ve had for six years. Dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, cereal bowls, coffee mugs. We thought, Wouldn’t it be more cozy to have a few really interesting pieces for 2 people, then piles of generic white porcelain for 8? And the answer was, yes! We’ve been hitting up the estate sales lately in the richie-rich suburbs of Minneapolis and I’ve found some really lovely things. It’s like a daily warm-fuzzy reaching in to my cabinet and seeing a small set of mismatched, yet charmingly cohesive, dishes.

I like the warm-fuzzies.

Reading: The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Watching: Law & Order, Season 6
Listening: Placebo mix tapes
Doing: Filing paperwork and vanquishing financial goblins.

A milestone in my caretaking career.

I made my first citizen’s arrest on Saturday!

Our little caretaker is becoming a woman. Aww…..

Things have been pretty quiet on the Apartment Caretaking front lately. Don’t get me wrong - that’s the way I prefer it. I’ve spent over three years whipping that place in to shape and filling it with residents that are respectful and responsible. I’ve got good people in there. But in case you’ve been missing all the craziness of my early years as a building manager, this should tide you over for a bit.

Saturday evening. Kiba and I head down to our basement studio to enjoy a tasty glazed bacon-flavor rawhide (Kiba) and to work on a never-ending hoodie sewing project for the Canadian’s upcoming birthday (Morgan). On the way I spy a group of guys drinkin’ and laughin’ on the front stoop. I pop my head out and remind them about open container laws in Minneapolis, and ask them to be mindful of residents coming in and out of the building. Since I didn’t recognize any of them, I asked which of them lived in the building. No one makes the claim but four guys are quick to point at one dude slouched over. I made a guess that he was the new “roommate” for one of my residents on the third floor. Check, and check. I hadn’t officially approved his roommate application yet, but I hadn’t expected problems either.

Not twenty minutes later I’m getting a call from Wonder-Lily (one of my new fav residents) and she’s pissed as hell - apparently there was a party in progress and they were stomping and falling around upstairs and it was driving her nuts. I head on up there to find the new “roommate” Bombed. Out. Of. His. Mind. At 8:30pm. (Awesome.) I tell everyone they need to quiet it down or move the party and after many solemn nods, I retreated back to my sewing machine. But not for long. Five minutes later Wonder-Lily is calling me back up to her place so I can hear the kind of banging she’s listening to. Now I’m mad.

I charge up the stairs - and believe me, in a 1930’s brownstone building with old stairs, there is no way to disguise the charge of a six foot tall fat woman. This was evidenced by the quick succession of men I see running out of the place as I’m running in. Most of them have their hands raised and are muttering things like, “I’m outta here. Don’t want none of this.” Damn straight. I make it in to the room and promptly scream, “What the FUCK did I just tell you?!?” The “roommate” is too bombed to even register. (Awesome.)

A quick call to my resident to let her know that her “roommate” has been evicted as of Right. Fucking. Now, and then a call in to Minneapolis’ finest to help me deal with a drunk and disorderly. They arrived much faster than I thought and went up to deal with The Bomber. I was happy to stand aside and listen to them lay down the law.

But wait! There’s a surprise! As I was standing on the third floor landing, waiting for the police to resolve my little situation, I heard the distinct tinkle of handcuffs and out walks one of the squirrely little bastards I’d seen earlier on the porch! He was hiding in the apartment! I follow the cops down the stairs to a chorus of “Please take these off. Please. You’re hurting me. Ow. I’m hurt. Please, please take these off,” and outside where I’m asked to fill out paperwork for a citizen’s arrest. Whee! As that’s going down, my resident shows up to deal with her “roommate” but instead of going upstairs she asks the cops to arrest him. No problem! Back up we go and a few minutes later they are escorting The Bomber to the drunk tank.

The following day I got a cute thank you note from Wonder-Lily thanking me for my attention to the previous night’s “situation.”

A love note from the boy downstairs.

Merry Christmas, my darling!

My heart skipped a beat when I saw you this morning out walking your human, Morgan. Oh, how I wished we could go out running together sometime, then I could truly show you how you make me feel. Until then, take this small token of my love for you.

All my wuv,
Oliver

Kiba’s got a boyfriend! And he brings her gifts. =^_^=

Very funny, people. Ha. Ha.

I found this in my mailbox today. At first I was certain it must have been a mix-up by the mail system and the magazine actually belonged to one of my (less-than-classy) residents. But, oh no. My address was on the label!! I’m actually really embarrassed that Emy the Mail Carrier might think that I would subscribe to something like this. My fingers are crossed that she has spent enough time shoving copies of BUST, Bitch, SPiN and ReadyMade in to my mail box that she would know something like Complex simply doesn’t belong.

Because I had nothing better to do, I flipped through the magazine and found about what I had expected: tennis shoes, snowboards, video games, hip hop, booze, and boobs.

Thrilling. Really.

This was either really bad target marketing, or a prank. Though if it was a prank, they could have done much better. In college I once signed up a particularly noxious ex-roommate for a dozen hardcore porn magazines. I figured that any girl hanging Winnie the Pooh and Garth Brooks posters in her room was in dire need of some hot anal action, and who was I to stand in the way of that?

Notice to Vacate

Dear Morgan,

I, Richard Lee Smith*, of sound mind and body, hereby am giving my 60 days of vacate notice. I, as of January 1st, will exit apt. 307.

*Name changed to protect those who make a conscious effort to ensure soundness of body and mind before submitting Notice to Vacate.

Outed

An e-mail from one of my residents:

Found your blog….now you can’t write anything mean about me being your tenant. :)

I knew it would happen sooner or later, but I’m not too worried. I always change names to protect the stupid. (I’m talking about YOU, oh, (Barely) Functioning Alcoholic!). Besides, the resident that found this site is one of my favorites. She rules.

A shocking display of decency.

Remember her? Well, tonight I got a shocking surprise: an apology note attached to a package of Ghiradelli chocolate squares.

I’ll be damned….