Prone to Fits of Insanity

"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit they are crazy." ~Nora Ephron (American Writer, Screenwriter, Producer, Director)

Quit smoking.
Broke up with boyfriend, who has lost his damn mind as a result and is freaking the fuck out all the time through various means such as phone calls and irate emails.
Leaving in 9 days.
On-call for work until next Tuesday, which equates to basically working 24-hours/day for seven days straight.
Can't sleep.

I'm on the verge....and not of something brilliant.
Leaving now would be nice.
Fuck it.

Asshole, Part Deux

"The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest." ~ Henry David Thoreau (American Poet & Philosopher)

You go away for the weekend and your Asshole squirrel moves right in and parties his ass off. This morning, as I was once again pulled out of my slumber (albeit a little later than the usual 5am wake up call) to Asshole tap dancing on the air conditioner, I discovered this little nest-delight fully formed in my window. Oh wait....he's back! Yes, at this exact moment, Asshole just crawled back into his snuggley little home and he brought a MacDonald's bag with him. Every good home needs a MacDonald's bag as part of it's integral structure.

As I fully realized Asshole's intent of becoming a tenant, a room mate, an obnoxious pal....I thought to myself: I'm not living with an Asshole. This thought was followed by thinking: my good friend Donna needs to come over here and deal with this because I certainly can't. I don't know why I have this irrational fear of Asshole, but I do. I'm not afraid of other squirrels; however, in my defense, they are not trying to shack up with me. Upon more reflection, I thought to myself: if you cannot manage evicting an Asshole, how the fuck are you going to deal with pretty much anything in Africa? You know, like lions, tigers and bears. So, I mustered up my courage and a broom and evicted the Asshole. All of this occurred before 6:30am; his timing is impeccable, I'll give him that.

He'll be back.

It's 5 O'Clock in the Morning....

"You can't be friends with a squirrel. A squirrel is just a rat in a cuter outfit." ~ Sarah Jessica Parker (American Film/TV Actress)

I am being mocked by a fucking rodent. A rodent that looks exactly like the fucker in the adjacent picture. In my home town (in a different part of Canada) squirrels are small, cute woodland creatures that look like something from the movie Bambi. Where I presently live, they are huge black rats with bushy tails who apparently enjoy mocking humans. I remember when I first moved up here and saw one of these things, I almost had a heart attack. I was like, what the fuck is that? A squirrel. Yeah right.

I live in a ghetto apartment with no central air conditioning. To keep with the overall ghetto ambiance of the place, I have ghetto window beaters that do little to cool it down in the +40 summer heat. Because I am a ghetto tenant, my window beaters are not securely and properly fastened in the window and are merely hanging on by a tread by the cheap, plastic accordion like things that protrude from either side. For the past couple weeks one of these black squirrels, who I've unaffectionately named Asshole, has been attempting to break into my apartment via my bedroom air conditioner. And not only is Asshole trying to break in, he's doing it at the ungodly hour of 5:00am. Here's how the scenario plays out:

I am asleep.
I wake up due to hearing a disturbing scratching noise.
I wonder what the hell the noise is because, while I slumber, I seemingly forget that this occurs every morning.
I realize it's Asshole.
I get out of bed and try to shoo Asshole away from the cheap, plastic accordion things that he is eventually and undoubtedly going to get through.
He looks at me, totally unafraid, and continues to tap dance all over the air conditioner while laughing. Yes, he is laughing.
I start to freak out, thinking of the meltdown I will have should Asshole successfully make it into my apartment.
I continue to make noise via hitting the window, turning the air conditioner on and off (which, by the way, sounds like a fucking diesel truck blaring through my bedroom), and yelling like a lunatic.
He continues to laugh while staring into my eyes. He is mocking me and enjoys this little interaction we have every morning.
I finally succumb to the fact that he is not afraid of my antics (and not only is he not afraid, he is amused) and get back into bed. I cannot, however, fall back asleep because I am too busy thinking through the scene that will happen when Asshole gets into my apartment.

I fucking hate that squirrel.
Fuck you Asshole.

Being Dumb is Fun Sometimes

"Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid." ~ John Wayne (American Film Actor)

Sometimes, I like to do dumb things....particularly during the over consumption of alcohol. I don't know how to consume alcohol in any other way then what falls into the overly excessive category. It's not that I drink frequently but when I do, it can get messy - or rowdy, which is the adjective I prefer to use.

This past weekend, which also happened to be Canada Day, I traveled home for four days to see the man I am dating. I have briefly met his family once....and I mean brief, as it was a ten minute introduction. This weekend we decided to spend our Canada Day at his Dad's annual party, which involves a lot of alcohol and BBQ. Given that I don't eat meat, it only involved a lot of alcohol for me (dumb decision #1). After arriving and feeling out my environment for about five to six seconds, I started pounding what my boyfriend calls "Bloody Jamie's" (his name is Jamie) into me at a pace that would make most Olympic runners envious. After about seven of those, I was "dragged" into a shed full of women I did not know (which was weird but funny) where I was "forced" into doing numerous shots of some delicious but unknown liquor. As I stumbled out of the shed I noticed some people wandering off to a different part of the property and felt the need to investigate, only to stumble upon some peaceful potheads smoking a joint (something I gave up eight months ago). In a flash of brilliant decision making, I decided that smoking a joint was a fabulous idea (dumb decision #2) so I indulged. The drinks continued, a merry time ensued.

At some point, I found myself laying on the lawn. I'm not quite sure how this happened or what came right before laying on the lawn, but, that's where I was. My boyfriend's Dad came to join me on the lawn for what I'm sure he expected to be genius conversation and to be completely honest, I have absolutely zero idea what we talked about. None. I'm going to tell myself it was witty but we all know that's inaccurate. It was approximately 9pm when the lawn-laying debacle occurred. And between the merry time ensuing and the lawn-laying debacle, there was at least two more joints (dumb decision #3 & 4).

I then made the decision that my boyfriend and I should venture out to another party around 10pm. After three liquor runs back to his place to get more "Bloody Jamie" ingredients, it was time to go. I have absolutely no recollection of how we got from his Dad's place to his best friend's place (who I've also only met once) but I know neither of us was driving...so, that's a good thing. I brought a bottle of wine with me because wine is awesome to start drinking when you are already plowed from drinking vodka drinks all evening on a totally empty stomach. I believe it took me about an hour to drink 3/4 of the bottle of wine (dumb decision #5), which is when the idea of food popped into my hazy, liquor saturated, bad decision making brain. On the menu: hot dogs. Now, I don't eat meat and I don't eat bread (gluten) but the combination of these two things suddenly seemed very appealing to me. "I'll have two" (dumb decision #6 & 7). For some reason, I clearly recall not being able to get the ketchup from the bottle onto the hot dogs but rather got the ketchup over the entire bun of the hot dog instead (it's a mystery that shall never be solved). This did not stop me, although it should have served as a clear indication that hot dog eating was not in my best interests.

I have no idea how much time passed between the hot dog eating and the behind-a-hedge-barfing but I am guesstimating it was about 30 minutes. Was it the Blood Jamie's, the joints, the wine, the hot dogs....who the fuck knows? All I know is that I felt much better after it happened. And then my man had to drag my drunk ass home and put me to bed, which he did without complaining.

I woke up the next morning feeling like a hot dog truck had run me over and yet I thought to myself, I don't think I'm ever going to grow out of this "stage." Like, you know...mature past the point of doing these things. And I realized, I'm okay with that. Fuck it.

Thanks, Beautiful Gay Man

"The belly rules the mind." ~ Spanish Proverb

As I visited my local Second Cup Coffee shop this evening to purchase my gourmet organic coffee beans, a tasty treat in the display case caught my eye. A lemon meringue tart that looked divine but definitely was not gluten nor calorie/fat free. As I eyed it up carefully, thinking of both the consequences to my belly (gluten aspect) and my ass (calorie/fat aspect), I thought to myself....I should buy that...no, no I shouldn't...yes, yes, I should. I decided that the beautiful gay man who often works behind the counter should help me out in making this life or death decision; therefore, I asked him, is that tart ass-getting-bigger worth it or just okay? He responded saying, I had one earlier and it was pretty fantastic - besides guys like big asses. Hmm, I thought...it would have to be damn terrific for me to justify eating that...and I told him this. He contemplated this quickly and replied...you should definitely buy it.

Sold.

And as I sit here having just finished eating that fantastic, totally worth it lemon meringue tart, I think to myself....thanks beautiful gay man; you were right.

Fifty Shades of I Don't Give a Fuck

"The 'not-giving-a-fuck' meter is as far into the red-zone as ever before." ~ Lars Ulrich (Drummer for Metallica)

I'd apologize now for my overuse of the word 'fuck' in this post (one of my favorite words ever), but I don't really care about that at the present moment either.

I returned to work this week after the tragic loss of one of my clients (kids). It's my first week back in the office and resuming my normal work duties, including providing therapy to the kids. I'm noticing some startling and anxiety provoking reactions to my being back at work that are disturbing to me on many levels. Most prominent is my profound lack of caring (or, better said, giving a fuck). As a clinician, I have (of course) analyzed my reactions to re-engaging with the kids and my colleagues and have developed some preliminary hypotheses:

• I don't give a fuck because I cannot sleep since returning to work and am therefore far too tired.
• I don't give a fuck because it has become too scary to give a fuck.
• I don't give a fuck because Africa is so close and I am totally bought out of work.
• I don't give a fuck because the kids I am currently working with are pretty irritating, even on a good day.
• I don't give a fuck because I feel like I cannot elicit any positive change or shifts within my current client load.

I think there is merit behind each and every one of these thoughts and assume that my present state of not giving a fuck is likely a combination of all of these things. My concern: regardless of how burnt out I've felt doing this extremely difficult job over the past five years, I've never not given a fuck about what the kids have to say. Have I returned to work too early? Have a run my course at this particular job with this particular agency? Have I become ineffective, jaded, insensitive, detached? I have no fucking clue. What I do know is that this feeling is uncomfortable and I hope it passes quickly. 

That said, 59 days.

Adult Summer Camp

"Sometimes too much drink is barely enough." ~ Mark Twain (American Author & Humorist)

On this long weekend in May, I celebrated the third anniversary date of my good friend Sue's passing. The previous two anniversaries I mourned her loss and felt sad; therefore, I decided to switch it up this year and pay tribute to her in a manner she would have actually appreciated. I got piss ass drunk for two days in a row on margarita's and wine, sitting in sunny 30 degree weather in a lawn chair, while intermittently "throwing" around a football and cooking delicious food. I'm using the word "throwing" fairly liberally here, as in reality it was closer to "hucking" or "bifting" the football due to my level of intoxication on the two occasions I engaged in this activity.

I spent this weekend with a friend who gets me on a fundamental level. We share a lot of silence very comfortably; we do not need to fill the air with bullshit. We laugh when it's funny. I adore her and our friendship. Despite not feeling as enthusiastic about "throwing" the football around with me as I was her (as she was the one running her ass off, chasing the football that was zinging by too far to the left and/or right), she still played with me. And it was hot and there was mosquito's. That's a good friend.

This weekend felt like an adult, drunken version of summer camp. Good times.

Here's to good friends of the past and present.
Cheers.

Misguided Nostalgia

"It's never safe to be nostalgic about something until you're absolutely certain there's no chance of it coming back." ~ Bill Vaughn (American Columnist & Author).

Once in an extremely blue moon I miss the irresponsibility of my youth. This is a seldom occurrence that only happens after a night out drinking (which happens may be once a year) when I have experienced the loud tribal beats of an excellent DJ that have reverberated through my chest. I don't know that the average person experiences music the way I do; may be everyone does, I have no idea. I do know that the experiences I had in my young 20's, which included a lot of pill popping and electronic beats, changed my experience with music drastically and, apparently, forever. 

In the year 2000, the electronic music scene in Halifax exploded; perhaps it happened prior to then, but it happened to me and everyone I associated with during that particular year. It was the birth of a new scene that lead to the death of more than a few young people who danced a little too hard with a variety of chemicals coursing through their young bodies. We were ignorant and immature; therefore, people dropping dead had very little impact on our behavior. Everyone thought they "had it under control" regardless of the fact that none of us did, which was heavily evidenced by the obvious lack of any sort of normal human functioning. Little to no sleep, food, and profoundly entrenched in chaos, it was an experience to remember but never to be replayed or revisited. 

I clearly remember dancing to anything and everything....even sounds coming from a dishwasher or laundry machine could catch my otherwise depleted attention span. Music appeared in everything. Don't get me wrong, this was heavily influenced by drugs and a lack of connection to reality, but, it seemed fun at the time. The aftermath of these experiences, when everything was said and done, were anything but fun and I know of many people today that never quite fully recovered. They are still talking in riddles or trying to recapture what was then, which wasn't even real at the time it was happening. 

I don't miss dancing to dishwashers, or the drugs, or the scene, or the people. I just miss, once in an extremely blue moon, the youthfulness of total and absolute abandon. So today, as my lazy 34 year old ass lays around doing nothing, I find my thoughts drifting towards me standing in a field with the sun coming up, covered in dirt (for any number of totally ridiculous reasons), dancing my ass off as the DJ spins a perfect set. 

Like A Fine Wine

"There is still no cure for the common birthday." ~ John Glenn (Former NASA Astronaut)

Tomorrow is my 34th birthday and, although I've known since I could count past 50 that 34 comes after 33, I am still in shock that this is occurring. Age is only a number....I've always hated that saying. If I could pick a number to represent my age, it certainly wouldn't be steadily creeping towards the mid-30's. My sister is turning 39 next month and there is some solace in the fact that I am still years from 40. Years ago, my sister diagnosed me with what she calls Peter Pan Syndrome (PPS for short), meaning that I never wanted to grow up (an accurate diagnosis). Now she laughs at me as she happily sings, Peter Pan is gettin' old, as evidenced by my gray hair and thoughts around possibly being too "mature" to continue having a belly button piercing.

So far, I have no plans to celebrate this glorious event. In fact, I feel that a day of quiet reflection while sitting by the nearby river seems most appealing to me. As for today, the final day of my 33rd year, here are my reflections:

• I am thankful that I have evolved to a place where falling down drunk and puking doesn't have to be part of my life celebration.
• I am grateful that I find peace in quiet solitude.
• It makes me really happy that I still listen to music with base really loud and car-dance constantly.
• I look better now (physically) than I did when I was younger and frequently get asked for identification when purchasing liquor. 
• I take great pleasure from doing and experiencing the simple things, like cooking a beautiful meal or drinking a glass of wine (although my "glass" is generally a bottle). 
• I like me.

Hmmmmmm

The Catholic Church, in all of its infinite wisdom, is attempting to protect the world from the Evils of Gays. In fact, in the states a Catholic Church recently closed down an adoption/fostering program for children in making a statement that gay people should not be allowed to adopt/foster children. So basically, the Catholic Church feels it is their duty to protect children from the gay people in this world, yet apparently feels no duty to protect children from pedophile priests. How interesting.

The Secret to Life According to Me.

"I think I've discovered the secret to life - you just hang around until you get used to it."

~ Charles Schulz (American Cartoonist)

This morning I woke up at 4:30am for absolutely no reason. I laid in bed until 5am and then got up, totally pissed off that I wasn't still asleep. I did a couple chores around the house and eventually left to grab some Tim Horton's...what else can you do at that time of day?? As I was driving to Tim's, the streets were quiet, no one was around, everyone was still asleep from their turkey dinner the evening before. The only person on the road was a female teenager, riding a skateboard on the sidewalk. As I saw her, I thought to myself, she hasn't even been to bed yet; I remember those days.

I started reflecting back to my early twenties, when I could work three night shifts, not sleep during the day and still had the energy to go out to the bars at night to drink and dance until 3am. I remembered the mornings, walking to work so hungover I was throwing up on the street, and then getting to work where some blessed staff person allowed me to sleep for a couple hours before starting my shift. I remembered the days of attending my first university, where I would pass out in class due to being intoxicated and still would do fine on the exams....and that was when I even made it to class. More than anything, I remember not having a care in the world; the feeling of not being responsible for anything other than myself and my tiny world. Where my biggest worry was coming up with a $1.75 for draft in the university pub and making sure I had a cute outfit to go along with the beer. Those were the days.

Today, creeping towards my mid-thirties, life looks a little different. That doesn't mean that I've stopped having fun, it's just that now - fun looks a lot different and has an earlier bedtime. I can't say I've drank enough recently to attempt to scale an eight foot fence, only to get my jeans caught up and have to hang there until some other drunk person got me down. And, I can't say I'm totally comfortable crashing at some random person's apartment anymore, waking up having no idea where I am. No, I am much more civilized now.....civilized and somewhat boring. My priorities are different, as they should be, and I am now more into eating healthy and getting a good night's sleep, while also having fun and living socially. Like I said, it just looks different now.

After all this reflection on my early morning drive, I came up with the secret to life, as I see it anyway. Again, what in the hell else was I going to do at that time of day, other than solve one of  life's greatest mysteries. Here it is:

When "they" say youth is wasted on the young, "they" are very accurate. When we are young, in what we have no idea is the prime of our life, there is hardly anything better than that. We look the best that we are ever going to look, we have the most energy we are ever going to have, our brains are still sponges that rapidly absorb information, and we are free from most responsibility. The friendships we have are the most important of our lives and the ignorant relationship we have with ourselves isn't yet jaded or too critical. Time passes slowly as there is literally all the time in the world to do what we want. Essentially, these are our glory days, of which we have no idea of.

We spend these years thinking that there is more out there, thinking that when we're just a little bit older we'll be able to experience everything that life has to offer us. What we are astoundingly unaware of is how fabulous we really are and how life has actually started and that it only goes relatively downhill from there. We have no idea how good we look, how much energy we have, how intelligent we are, and how boundless our future really is. Basically, we are clueless and it takes getting older to gain perspective and, well, a clue. Once you are old enough to realize all of this, you're likely past that prime and have entered into a totally different place in life, wishing that you had the good looks, energy, intelligence and potential that you once had in your earlier years.

And that, my friends, is the secret to life. We are never happy with where we are; rather, we focus our energy on moving forward or backwards to what we perceive as being an easier, happier time. We spend our life time engaged in this, all the while time is flying by and suddenly - you are in your mid-thirties and time feels like it's running out. Not running out as in nearing death, running out in the sense that you are moving further away from the age and mentality that allowed you to do all of those crazy things in your youth. You become more cautious, more aware of your mortality. You start thinking of things like, if I do this, I might actually die, something you would have never even considered in your younger years. 

I guess the only way to combat this is to get it earlier on in life, which is unlikely to occur. Therefore, once we get it  later on in life, we better do something about it. Like appreciate the life we have right now. Because, at this moment, similarly to when we were young, we look the best that we ever will again, we have less energy than before but the most we're going to have from now on, and are less intelligent from frying our brain cells but more intelligent than we will be in the future when our brain starts to slowly degenerate.

This is it people. Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is the only one we have.

Neighbours (Part II)

"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." ~ Theodore Rubin (American Psychiatrist & Author)

One of the distinct problems to solving this problem was a language barrier as my downstairs neighbours speak Spanish and know very little English. Although I tried to communicate with them about the noise, it was always a very broken conversation that I knew wasn't being fully understood. At one point, I actually attempted to write them a short note in Spanish (thanks Google translate) that I left outside their door - only to find it thrown down the hallway later in the day. Apparently, my attempt at communicating with them in their own language was offensive. Yeah, that was offensive - and their flying monkey children were not? I appreciated the fact that they were new to the country and, as a social worker, considered the fact that I did not know where they were living before and what might have been an acceptable noise level in their previous environment. I also encouraged the landlord to get a translator to make communication with them more successful, thinking that we could explain what would be acceptable noise in our small apartment environment. Another resounding NO came from that request. So, then it started. The all-out noise war where I sunk to levels I never thought possible.

I started thinking about classical conditioning, you know, the Pavlov’s Dogs theory. My thought was: could I condition my downstairs neighbours to understand that, when they reached a certain level of noise level, I would be putting on my music extremely loud to encourage them to shut the hell up. Could they take that cue and respond accordingly. No is the short answer. No they could not. However, what was successful in this experiment was my overwhelming feelings of revenge when I would do this exercise, which eventually creeped into more than my music being up extremely loud. It came to involve what I termed “stompy dancing” to go along with the stompy beats of my blaring techno. It all went to hell the day that they pounded back on the ceiling, in retort to the overall stompiness going on above. I honestly wish that I could have taken my blood pressure at that exact moment because I had to be nearing a critical level of “going to lose my mind-ness.” I was lucky that I had a friend over, who cleverly stepped between me and my apartment door as I attempted to go downstairs to do hell only knows what. I might add that I did not reach this point for about a year, meaning I had been living with the incessant noise (that often times rattled the pictures on my walls) for quite some time. Not that this excuses my would-have-been murderous rampage, but it does provide some context.

My landlords, a 75 year old Italian man and his two useless, grown sons, had been hearing about these problems for awhile. Of course, they weren’t doing anything about, but, they were well aware of the situation. Earlier in the year, I had already dealt with the fact that they had let some crackhead looking guy move into the building across the way, who stole my brand new winter tires out of my garage. May be dealing with one issue per year was their limit. This went on for 16 months in total.


I could have moved, yes, I am well aware of this fact. I could have moved from the only home I had built in a decade, where life had been so quietly awesome for so long. But, I felt this sense of entitlement (which I know is not good), a sense that I had done the right thing in inquiring as to whether or not they rented to people with children, in attempting to approach my neighbours – in English and bad Spanish, in encouraging my landlords to get a translator. I had done things right. I pay my rent on time, every time. I keep my crack-partment clean. I never have more than 2 people over at a time because I am kind of a weirdo and like my place/space to just be mine. I am friendly, cordial, and steadily employed. I present no issues, what so ever, as a tenant.

Eventually, the kicker was that I finally got one of the sons (the one I like the most because the 75 year old father is a bastard and the other son creeps me out) to attempt to talk to the family downstairs again. He called me after he met with them to tell me that they had complaints about me, so “now what was he supposed to do.” Again, a blood pressure monitor would have been nothing less than interesting. I told him that I could guarantee that they had complaints about me, that I had turned into a lunatic from having to manage the situation for so long. I told him about my stompy parties and other generally poor behaviour and, frankly, I think he was more surprised at my honestly regarding the situation than my behaviour. And then, I did something that I could not control....something I hate. I started to cry, out of pure frustration, on the phone. Damnit. I hate that. Who would have known that this was to be a turning point in the situation?

Although the “old man” is a bastard, he has always had a soft spot for me. I am a good tenant, which he respects and despite the fact that I have broken the “no dog” rule (which drives him insane, but he can’t do anything about it because of Buffy’s Law), he genuinely likes me. When the son told him about my honesty and my tears, the old man apparently performed some magical miracle with the downstairs neighbours. A couple months later, when I asked him what he had done, he said in his thick Italian accent that he told them that he was going to “kick their asses out immediately” if they did not stop the noise. May be he was scary (although I can’t picture it) or threatening or who the hell knows. All I know is that things changed after that. Things got better, things got quieter.

Honestly, during the first couple months of the quiet, I thought the two parents murdered the children as I did not hear them at all. I’m still not convinced that they didn’t bring them to grandparents or other relatives to live for awhile because it was deafeningly quiet (although, not too quiet, just deafeningly quiet in comparison to the last year and a half). My home is finally my home again, and you know what...I think I’ll stay for awhile.

Neighbours (Part I)

"A book may be compared to your neighbour: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early." ~ Rupert Brooke (Poet)

Let's chat about my downstairs neighbours, as they are an endless source of entertainment and irritation. I have been renting at my current place for over 3 years now. When I moved in, the place was a dump and was commonly referred to as my "crack-partment." With the help of some good friends, I've done a lot of work here over the past few years to be able to call this place my home. I haven't had a lot of homes, despite my tendency to move all over the place, causing me to have many different dwellings over the years. I certainly haven't had many places that I felt were my home. Rather, they were just places I was renting. For a period of time, I didn't even decorate these dwellings, as I knew I would likely not be there long. Part of this was a function of being a student and attending 3 different universities in 3 different cities (3 different provinces to be more accurate). But, this started long before university.

Although I won't get into the entire story because it is long - albeit interesting - my tendency to apartment jump started at a young age. At age 15, or somewhere around there, I became what I now know is called "a runner" (meaning I ran away from home a lot, sometimes for substantial periods of time). When I was 15, I contextualized my behaviour as "leaving" because my parents were assholes. I wasn't running away, I was leaving, and there was a distinct difference between these two things in my mind. Now, working as a clinician in children's mental health, I understand I was "a runner" because I work with runners every day. Regardless, at 15 I started running/leaving, which eventually transitioned into moving in with friends around 16 - 17, who were also colossal idiots like myself. Basically, we rented an apartment until we could no longer afford it, got kicked out, and rented another one. At times, we would have 6-8 teenagers living in one place (ranging from 16 - 20). Our phone would be cut off, the power would be cut off, there was no food, it was dirty - idiots. We felt that we had good reasons, as we could no longer tolerate living in our actual homes with our families because we were so "misunderstood." In reality, most of our parents weren't doing an awesome job with us; however, we were a pretty difficult group to reign in. We didn't have it that bad.

Over the span of, let's say age 16 to 22, I think I moved around 19 times. At 22, I moved in with a then-boyfriend and lived in one place for almost 4 years before moving away to go to school. Since moving away, I've moved another 5 times, including where I am presently living at. My guess - around 24 times since the age of 16, and that's not counting couch-surfing and living at a very "rustic" cabin with no electricity, water, heat or plumbing for an extended amount of time when I was 17-ish. All this to say:  I haven't had many homes, rather, I've had a lot of places. So, when I moved into my place now and decided to make it into my home, it was a significant decision.

The first year here was bliss. It was quiet, despite the fact that the insulation was terrible and that only 2x10's separated me from my downstairs neighbour, who was a single professional woman. I loved it here. Close to work, close to everything else I needed, and quiet. Perfecto. I didn't even care that it was a crack-partment, that my fridge and stove were horrendous, that the finish was off the tub, that the stove was so dirty my buddy had to take it apart to clean it, or that I kept injuring my brand new car trying to park in the impossible parking structure. Did not care. Until that woman moved out and the new neighbours moved in, that is. Then, the caring started.

Prior to living at this place, I lived in another apartment that I considered to be fairly "fancy." Now, it likely wouldn't be considered "fancy" to anyone else, but, it was a definite step up from what I typically lived in. It was a traumatizing experience, as my next door neighbours were literally insane. INSANE. They were a very young couple that consisted of the girlfriend who hated the boyfriend and the boyfriend who was obsessed with the girlfriend. At one point I had to sleep in my living room on the pull out for months because they apparently thought it was reasonable to yell and scream at each other at 1am. It was awesome. Needless to say, I appreciated that quiet and calm atmosphere where I presently live A LOT.

After living here in bliss between May 2008 to September 2009, the new neighbours from hell descended upon my wonderful, quiet apartment complex like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. There was/is 4 of them: a mother, father, and two small children. When they first moved in, the kids were around 3 and 5, and although there was only two children, the noise that came from below equated to what a herd of elephants might sound like while tearing through a small china shop. I had never EVER heard anything like this before and I lived in some pretty interesting situations. When I first came to look at my crack-partment, I asked the landlord very specific questions around the people he rented to, including as to whether he rented to people with children. The answer was a resounding NO. Hmm, funny, that went straight out the window when the apartment downstairs sat unrented for a period of time. Regardless, here I was living with a virtual zoo below me; however, it was worse than a zoo because, at least at a zoo you can pay your stupid admission and leave. It was like I moved into the zoo.

At one point, I made up a funny game to see if I could guess what they were actually doing downstairs that would create the level of noise I was being exposed to 24 hours a day. Some guesses included: the parents are successfully throwing the children at high velocity towards the walls, the children are throwing bowling balls threw the walls, the children have beds on wheels that they ride through the apartment like a surf board, the children are pyromaniacs who are making dynamite and testing it, the children are ripping up the flooring to install an ice skating rink, the children are shooting b.b.'s at the ceiling. The guesses were endless and fairly amusing. Nothing explained what I was hearing through the 2x10's separating me from the flying monkeys. It was insanity. My landlords were doing nothing about it, despite my constant complaints, and at one point I actually worried that it would be easier to kick me out (the complainer) than it would the downstairs neighbours who were a family with small children. But really, who allows their children behave that way??

Beep Beep, Glare Glare

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." ~ Brendan Gill (American Author & Preservationist)

This week has been tough for me for a myriad of reasons I won't get into here. Sometimes, I pull through tough times without incident; however, this week, I almost ran over a person and, outside of this, almost caused a major accident.....all in one day.

Shockingly, I am an excellent driver. No accidents, tickets, infractions in years. Insurance is low. No seeming cause for alarm when I hit the road in the morning. My car is sensible. Oh, and I live about 3 minutes from my workplace...so really, how much can go wrong in that little amount of time? There are two people in my city this week who would answer that with, A LOT.

The first person I almost killed was walking in a cross walk, at the appropriate time to be walking through a cross walk - when the hand was solid and white instead of flashing or solid red. I literally did not see her, which apparently makes me blind because she was clearly in plain view. She didn't even look scared to be almost plowed over by my Honda; she looked pissed. And then I got the glare. The "if I glare at you hard enough, you will feel badly about almost running me over" glare. I didn't need the glare, I already felt badly about almost killing her, which I demonstrated by mouthing the words I'm sorry over and over to her through my wind shield.

The second incident, later in the day, took place amidst this fucking construction madness that has been going on for the last 3 months that consumes my entire 3 - 4 minute drive to work - turning it into a 20 minute drive to work, which is clearly unacceptable. It's a catastrophe, this construction, as they keep switching the lanes you can be in (which is 1) so just when you know what you are doing, you become confused again. And none of the provided signage directs you in any meaningful sort of way so people are constantly cutting each off  accidentally. Anyway, there I was, driving along, checking my blind spot constantly - and probably more vigorously than I would have been otherwise due to the incident earlier in the day - and what I should have undeniably seen was some dude driving a black Mazda something or other, quickly approaching on my right side. I saw nothing, despite the fact that I was looking directly at him and his car, which was barreling towards mine because I drove through the confusingly placed yield sign. He had to slam on his breaks, I found myself at the receiving end of that exact same glare, and then immediately afterwards found myself profusely mouthing I'm sorry all over again. I was glad when other cars managed to pull in between us so that I didn't have to suffer the wrath of the glare all the way back to my workplace.