He can hear fine
I always thought those self-help books were a bunch of baloney and that the buyers of those books were never going to “be that person” if they need a book to tell them what to do since self-motivation is kind of a key element. If you can’t take the time to sit down and figure out some ways to tackle a task, then why do you think a book will do it? Perhaps I’ve been a bit too hasty, or I was right but have not been able to practice what’s preached.
Fatness, clutter in an already small apartment, shitty job, muffler hanging from car, no money – are all gettin’ on my last nerves. I admire designed systems of organization and, due to the aforementioned situation, I have lately found myself taking the time to read people’s creative suggestions on such topics. I dunno, maybe I need a hip, cool website instead of an old, loser book before I start paying any mind.
The usual inspiration and excitement is ignited after I read such websites, but it’s unfortunate that I read them at 2 AM and have to get up in a few hours for work. Hmm, methinks that’s problem #1. I need to get rid of my responsibilities so I have time to learn how to manage responsibilities and then go back in time and reinstall responsibilities to their default settings and then jump back into the future with my new responsibility-management mindset and go from there!
See how difficult it is, though!?
How was your respective, omnipotent-deity/miracle driven holiday? Mine was.
As I was coming home to my apartment building where I, monthly, mail cheques to property owners so as to secure my keyhole for my key, I noticed a warm familiar sight: 3 cop cars nestled close to my building, as if trying to keep warm.
I thought these fine up-proppers of the law were here because my nextdoor neighbor is probably fighting with her boyfriend and, once again, screaming, breaking windows, throwing strereo components down the hall, stabbing him, etc… but I was in the wrong (assumption-wise). The cop-abouts were here for—oh! my neighbor across the hall from me! Yes, by all means, lets keep the rowdys clustered around me. Come along rowdys, I think there’s some space over here!
Truth be told, truthfully, I arrived at my door just as the fuzz were filing out of across-the-hall-neighbor’s door. So in all truthfulnecessity, I don’t know what happened at all. He could have simply misplaced the torso of his latest victim, panicked, and called the police himself, truethin’.
As I set down my items to unlock my door (oh shit! now you know how to unlock my door!), a police asked me if I knew the guy across the hallway and I said, “No.” But not like that—I was all like, “No.”
Pausing for a moment, I looked at the door that faces my own. I then brought my things into my apartment, and somberly closed my door and the view of my poor, helpless neighbor… then I fired up NFL.com and checked Brett Favre’s stats, cuz I need to OWN my fantasy football league, y’all! ChicksNBeer, you’re going down my friend!!! Wooooo! Wooooo! Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Happy Turn On The Radiators Day… to me! It seems feels that the building manager has deemed it cold enough outside to fire-up the ol’ furnace and send some circa 1907 heated water through our radiators! Oh joy… I can’t wait til I have to crack the windows open.
I suppose while radiators were en vogue, there were incremental advances in how you control the temperature—like say, “a little” and “a lot” of heat. Well, my radiator pre-dates that. I turn the knob a smidgen and I’ve got the Sun God, Ra, sitting in the corner of my studio apartment in all his dry-heat glory.
“Oh mighty Ra, I bow down to your thermal conductivity. Please forgive me as I slowly reach for the window and crack ‘er open.”
When I came home this evening, my apartment smelled like Kool Aid powder. Or Red Bull. Maybe Lindsay Lohan snuck in here and puked up some Red Bull before racing off to her next club.
But I think the more probable scenario is that terrorists who’ve been monitoring my apartment for 8 months now, broke in while I was away, said mean things about me and my country, ripped open a packet of Cherry Kool Aid and ceremoniously sprinkled it into my carpet (deep, deep in the shag) while praising Allah. That’s the only logical thing I can think of that explains this scent. Save me Dubya!
It seems to me that the population of crazy alcoholics in my building, specifically, in the apartments completely surrounding my own, has risen in the past couple of months. The worst offender is Crazy Mary.
You know that mom character on That 70’s Show? You know her voice? Take that voice and put it into a person who seems to be the pinnacle of selfish, annoying, mean, inconsiderate, hostile, unstable, door slamming, and tantrum throwing, and you have Crazy Mary. Crazy lives two doors down from me but affects me via next door because there is where her boyfriend/drinking buddy/enabler lives.
Mary will often exert her annoying-ness by going over to my next door neighbor (in the later hours of the evening), pound on his door and yell, “Hey! Wake up,” or (in manipulative, innocent voice) “Hi sweetie, it’s just me. Come over and see my cats,” or (in a panicked tone) “Come over, quick! I need you to look at something!” The something is usually nothing and then the boyfriend/drinking buddy/next door neighbor starts reprimanding her for waking him up and making all sorts of noise and for bothering the other tenants. So he seems to be pretty considerate—I don’t understand how he puts up with her antics. But she never learns, and my annoyance continues.
So, while walking last night, I window-shopped at a few apartments in the area. I’d hate to flee my building and let it get taken over by the seemingly increasing number of drunks or “substance abusers”, but the occurrences of Crazy Mary Antics and of slurring drunks refusing to pay for their pizzas is getting a bit high (no pun intended).
So last night I woke up to this:
Neighbor 1: *hack* *hack* (repeat for half an hour)
Then, after the dry coughing, I heard this:
(Sound of a door opening, and a knock on another door)
Neighbor 2: “Oh, that’s cool. (Apparently Neighbor 1 refused to come to the door.) Hey, I’m your neighbor across from you. Yeah, you’re 211, I’m 210… right across from you. Do you have any smoke I can buy? Sounds like you do (chuckle). No? Alright, that’s cool.”
The time was 2 AM, by the way.
Harley-Davidson is celebrating their 100th anniversary in Milwaukee starting this weekend. For the sake of my ears and sanity, I will be going out of town. I’ve heard those damn things set off car alarms with their tweeked, noisy mufflers, or lack thereof. I guess I’m a square. Buy a Goldwing.
And, I just heard in an interview with Jean Davidson, granddaughter of Walter Davidson, that the first bikes actually were made to be quiet, as not to scare horses back in the day.
