Overly Verbal

When last I wrote, I was fighting off a barrage of ants, and mildly concerned that I might never experience the pleasures of air conditioning in my own home again.

Basically, everything is just about the same, except where it’s actually worse.

There are ants everywhere I look, and I can’t write because I have to squoosh them. (And then wash my hands, oh, about 45 times a day.) I went outside and poured boiling water down several antholes on Saturday, and an exterminator-type person is allegedly coming to spray the outdoors on June 4th, so I hope this situation will be under control at some point in the near future, but I really don’t care if the exterminator were to drink a glass of whatever crap he sprays outside to kill things, I’m still not letting anyone spray those chemicals in my kitchen.

And I’m well aware that millions, if not billions, of people live their entire lives without ever being in an air-conditioned room, let alone having an air-conditioned home. I am not like those people. The high temperature in the apartment has only been 78 degrees, so I can turn on a fan, take off most of my clothes, no big deal. But the first air conditioning repairman has effectively disappeared.*

A second air conditioning repairman (the nice, nice man who came to fix my plumbing and install my new dishwasher (which has live ants in it, incidentally)), is coming this evening to assess the situation, but it looks pretty grim. This place is old, and they don’t make units like I have in my ceiling anymore, and that means some very creative installation of some other, bigger, expensive machinery will be required, and I will lose the use of the greater part of one of the closets, and closet space is already at a premium.* * (And it looks like no small part of the ceiling will have to have holes punched in it, so I’m really glad I haven’t painted the hallway yet.)

What else?

Oh, there’s some shopping carts. This one has been pressed into service for the Neighborhood Watch program, obviously.***

And this one just wants someone to let him in, I think, or take him home. I feel for the shopping carts. I really do.

Otherwise? Today I did some more looking for apartments, was subsequently entirely depressed that people are willing to pay twice as much money for half as much space, called someone I know to see whether he intended to vacate his affordable apartment anytime soon so I could have it, and eventually talked to someone who gave me a lead on an affordable place close to two Metro stops. Then I did some Googling, found a review of the complex in question which included the words, “Pretty ghetto overall,” and determined that a known ghetto is better than an unknown ghetto. (And you know what’s fun? Every time I say something about living in the ghetto to a particular person who lately comes to the ghetto a lot (not to hang out with me in my home so much as to pick me up and remove me from the ghetto, because he is kind, and also afraid of leaving his car parked near my home for any length of time), this particular person breaks out into song***.)

Otherwise, there’s nothing whatsoever preventing me from writing here. Well, except for the fact that I’m always scurrying around to meet service personnel. And attempting to hold down a full-time job when I have 45 other more pressing concerns. And it’s hot. Did I mention it’s hot? And the ants? If anyone knows a rich man who would like to whisk me (and my cat) away to a place of pleasant room temperature without bugs, let me know.

As always, thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.
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* As a matter of fact, I have thought to look for him at the 7-11. He’s probably hanging out with that one plumber guy. I can see them now, laughing about my housing situation, eating the Taquitos that seem to be made of SuperGlue and cardboard, dropping their 40s in my courtyard when they’re finished.

** Yeah, yeah, some people don’t have closets, and carry all their worldly possessions around with them in a sack made of animal skin, sharpening sticks to use as sewing needles when those sacks get holes, eating bugs and making fire by rubbing sticks against stones. I live in a ghetto, not the Serengeti, and my early life was so rich that I once had a walk-in closet all of my own. Closet space is important to me. No one ever said I wasn’t shallow.

*** I like Elvis Presley as much as the next person (okay, somewhat more than the next person), but “In the Ghetto” is not my favorite Elvis song. (Not surprisingly, the aforementioned person**** is not breaking out into the Busta Rhymes song entitled “In the Ghetto”. Mine is more a sad 1960s ghetto than one where “you always find a good chick to hold a brick for they dude”, thankfully, but I still find some solace in the idea that “you survivin’ in the ghetto, you can make it anywhere”.)

**** Pick a goddamned codename, already!

So I returned home this evening to find several dozen ants in my kitchen. I went on a murderous rampage, armed only with a paper towel, and then I sniffed around by the baseboards. I believe that my neighbors have ants, and therefore called an exterminator (or else simply sprayed toxic chemicals in their kitchen without the aid of professionals), and that all the ants strong enough to survive the initial onslaught have simply migrated to my kitchen, where the use of toxic chemicals is forbidden because Mouse walks around on the floor and then licks his paws.

There’s not a lot you can do about your neighbors if you live in anything other than a single-family home. Your neighbors’ conditions are your conditions, insofar as you share walls with them. When we lived in Harlem, for example, we had mice, because our neighbors had mice. Mouse thought that was fun, because he got to play with live mice. He’d catch them in the kitchen, then bring them wounded into the bedroom, in case I was hungry. When I didn’t want them, he’d simply play with them until he got bored, and then leave them to die. Somehow he knew not to eat them, but that didn’t stop me from worrying about whether he had shots against every disease a New York City mouse might carry. Surely he did not, but I think his immune system is probably stronger for the experience. As is mine, I’m sure.

And city mice are pretty gross, but ants are grosser, because there are more of them. Many, many more of them. I went into the kitchen again a while ago, and brought more death and destruction to this little colony, and while I realize that repeatedly killing only the ants I can see is clearly not a long-term solution, I really can’t muster up enough energy to do anything else.

Well, anything other than read the Wikipedia entry on ants. Get this:

The head of an ant has many important parts.

(Well, in that case, it’s probably wrong to kill them. Perhaps I’ll simply buy them a farm.)

Not surprisingly, slightly more rigorous sources of information are available on the Internet. For example, Classic Encyclopedia’s entry reads:

The head of an ant carries a pair of elbowed feelers, each consisting of a minute basal and an elongate second segment, forming the stalk or “scape,” while from eight to eleven short segments make up the terminal “flagellum.”

(My, that is a lot of important parts.)

Also, in the Bibliography section:

The literature on ants is so vast that it is only possible to refer the reader to a few of the most important works on the family.

Will someone please take responsibility for editing that last bit and fitting it into my eventual Wikipedia entry? (It can go right after the part that reads, “On May 24, 2007, Jennifer confronted a large number of ants in her kitchen. Already somewhat depressed and tired, and afraid her cat would suffer nerve damage if she killed the ants with chemicals, she simply and not particularly quietly went mad.”)

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter. I’m going to now vainly attempt to wield some sort of coping mechanism at this new problem. (But a different problem might be solved tomorrow, when the air conditioning repairman is to come with a part. Whether this part will render my air conditioning operable is yet to be seen - there’s still yet hope, but I also wouldn’t put any money on it.*)

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* Speaking of betting, I have half a mind to go to Atlantic City for the Memorial Day weekend. Maybe I could win a fortune playing nickel slots and retire somewhere quiet, where there are no bugs. Who’s with me?

I really was afraid that no one would give me an opportunity to use my favorite new phrase, and, well, no one actually has, but it’s my blog, and I like the imaginary conversations:

You: Hey, Jen, you know how you’re a plaything for the gods? Did the air conditioning repairman come to your house this evening yet fail to actually fix your air conditioning? Won’t this mean no fewer than three (and perhaps many, many more) visits in order to fix your air conditioning?

Me: Do chinchillas have rabbis?

You see, he was supposed to come back with a part. But all of the information he wrote down this morning about the piece of machinery that makes my apartment cool was not enough to allow someone to locate the part in question, so he had to come back and write more things down about the machinery. I didn’t lend him a pen or paper when he came earlier - he had those himself. But since I know a lot of clever people, I have at least been able to make a list of other things you might need to fix your air conditioning:

Silly Putty
Shrek*
Scrabble tiles
a spork

(Someone else suggested a flux capacitor, but that totally doesn’t start with S.)

Otherwise, I’ve got nothin’. Hopefully something actually good will happen to me this weekend. It is a three day weekend after all.

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* Today I went to McDonald’s for lunch. And they have a new menu item, which is really the only reason I get out of bed some mornings - maybe there will be a new menu item at McDonald’s. Shrek, in addition to his new gig at the United States Department of Health and Human Services**, is also peddling products at McDonald’s. So I had a Minty Mudbath Shake. Minty things make me happy, and the shakes at McDonald’s don’t actually contain enough dairy products to give me a stomachache,*** but the picture of the mint shake on the menu did not portray this shake as being the actual color of Shrek. Although it tasted lovely, it was sort of gross to look at, so I don’t think I’ll be having another mint shake at McDonald’s. About this I am somewhat disappointed, but since nothing is going my way lately, I’m sort of taking it in stride.

** Please don’t get me started on that topic. It’s enough to make me, well, I can’t even think of an appropriately severe response to the federal government using animated movie characters to encourage children to exercise. Sure, they’ve pulled the public service announcements for something like the first six weeks the movie is in theaters, but if you send your kids to a government website to have a fat ogre show them how to fit more activity in their days, and then take them to the grocery store or McDonald’s, where they see the same fat ogre all over the labels of foodstuffs that are nothing if not bad for you, well . . . crap, I wasn’t going to get started on this. All I know is that it’s (almost) never a bad idea to ask “What Would Mr. Rogers Do?” And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t condone this particular collaboration.

*** I’ve always said that none of my beliefs are simple enough to fit on a placard, which is why you won’t find me at protests or rallies or any other events at which people are holding signs to declare their positions on important topics. But one of my beliefs is actually that simple: human milk is for human babies, cow milk is for cow babies.

So I stayed home from work this morning to interact with more service personnel hired by my landlord. It was 66 degrees outside when I left, and 72 degrees in my apartment, which is pleasant enough, but the air conditioning is broken, and it’s going to be 87 on Friday, so time is of the essence. What an interesting air conditioning repairman I have.

While looking at the circuit breaker:
Him: Uh-oh. Huh?

While standing on a ladder with his head in a hole in my ceiling:

Him: Do you have any alcohol?
Me: Like rubbing alcohol?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Would a swab work?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Here you go.

Later . . .

Him: Do you happen to have a sewing needle?
Me: Would a straight pin work?
Him: Pin, needle, either one.
Me: Here you go.

Still later . . .

Him: Do you have any Scotch tape?
Me: Here you go.

Needless to say, neither staring quizzically at the circuit breaker nor applying rubbing alcohol, a sewing needle, or Scotch tape has fixed my air conditioning. He’s allegedly coming back later tonight, assuming he can find a “metering device”, and I’m going to stock up on rubber cement and twine in the meantime, in case he needs anything else if he does return. (And if I have to empty a can of Pepsi so he can borrow my scissors and make a shim, I figure I can split the Pepsi with him. He’s probably thirsty after all the high tech work he did this morning.)

So I can’t say for sure that my air conditioning will be repaired any time soon. According to the repairman, if it’s not the metering device, we’ve got a problem. But I can say this for sure - if your air conditioning is broken, before you call in a professional, first check your circuit breaker, and then try using a hot glue gun on it. You can borrow mine if you want.

So this morning I captured a photograph of the bunny that lives out back. There were actually two of them, and I hope they are a boy and a girl, so that they can have little baby bunnies.* But it’s enormously difficult to photograph a bunny through a window screen in bad light. (Particularly when one’s cat is hogging the majority of the windowsill. He likes the bunnies, Mouse does.)

Anyway, here’s that:

And then I walked past the Dumpster, and found these shopping carts. Again, not a fantastic picture, but doesn’t it kind of look like they’re doing it?

And then when I got home, I walked past the Dumpster again, hoping to find some cigarette butts by the shopping carts, so I could wrap this up all neatly, and have the alternate text on the photo with the shopping carts and cigarette butts read, “Aha. I thought so.”

But the shopping carts were seemingly gone. “The shopping carts are gone,” I thought, “returned to their rightful home, parked neatly with the other shopping carts in their respective shopping cart corrals! Yippee!”

Nope. They’re in the creek:

So that’s all the nature photography I’ve got for you today.

“Wait, Jen, that’s not nature photography, aside from the bunny in his natural habitat.”

Yes it is. It perfectly illustrates the nature of my neighbors. Some of them are the kind of people that take shopping carts home and leave them by the Dumpsters, others of them are the kind of people who later see those shopping carts and then push them into the creek. It’s just their nature.

Some people** think it’s horribly amusing that I claim to be both in denial and mildly depressed about the fact that I have to move. I understand that denial is a coping mechanism. I’m familiar with coping mechanisms: humor, writing about every single stupid thing that happens to you and publishing it on the Internet so all 12 of your friends can read it, alcohol. I’ve got those down.

I also understand that it’s really rather ridiculous to be both in denial and mildly depressed about something at the same time. All I have to say about that at the moment is that coping mechanisms do not always work. If they did, my sticking my fingers in my ears, covering my eyes, and singing “La la, la la, I can’t hear you, la, la, la, I can’t see you, la la la la la.” would have already made my neighbors change into suitable people to be neighbors with, no?

In other news, this weekend I had the pleasure of experiencing the very most exciting ice hockey game I had ever seen. Later in the weekend, I saw my second ice hockey game, which was, coincidentally, the most boring ice hockey game I had ever seen. And in the first game, someone broke his ankle, so I’m revising my ideas about falling down:

“What’s the worst thing that could happen? Oh, well, I could fall down, and break my ankle. But given that I’ve been to ice rinks an entire five times in my life, and on only one of those visits did I actually WATCH SOMEONE BREAK HIS ANKLE, I’m going to go with the odds. There’s only a 20 percent chance that I will break my ankle, so, sure, I’ll try that. Worse thing that could happen is I break my ankle. But here’s something: if I do break my ankle, a) call an ambulance immediately, before you take off my skate so the EMTs won’t have to cut it off - they’re rentals!, and b) my health insurance card is in my wallet.”

I wish there was more to say about the ice hockey, but that would require my having actually understood a single thing that I saw. And I didn’t. I mean, yeah, I know all sorts of different ice hockey-related things. It’s cold near the ice, but that means you get to wear cute sweaters. Power plays are when one team experiences a penalty, and one of their players has to sit in the penalty box, such that one team has more players on the ice. It’s better to have more players on the ice. And penalties last for an amount of time that differs depending upon what type of penalty it was, whether it’s a post-season or regular season game, whether it’s an NHL game or an adult rec league game, and, if I’m not mistaken, what the player ate for breakfast and whether or not he’s Catholic. Also, it seems you’re automatically better at ice hockey if your last name is French, if you’re as big as a horse, or if your vocabulary is especially rich with words one might use to insult a referee.

I hope to someday be able to talk intelligently about ice hockey. Right about the time I move to Canada. No, seriously, I’ve got Hockey for Dummies on my coffeetable, and I am going to read it. Really. At the rink where the games I watched took place, there was a giant sign that said, among other things, “Head, back, and neck injuries, broken bones, abrasions and cuts have all occurred at the ice arena” and “Eating is not allowed while ice skating.” So now I’m determined to become so adept at ice skating that I could eat while doing so, because I would like to be able to add to my regular vocabulary the phrase: “That’s so easy it’s like eating while ice skating.” A girl can dream, can’t she?

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* Which is not to say that baby bunnies could not have two mommies, or two daddies. That would be fine too, but I think it’s more likely that these bunnies will become parents without the aid of artificial insemination or liberal adoption laws. (They’ll probably, um, fuck. Like bunnies.)

** Okay, just one person. You know who you are, and you should really just go ahead and pick a suitable code name now.

So Mouse is sixteen today. There were a variety of different approaches I could take to commemorating this event, but I decided the most appropriate would be to simply freak out with my geek out.

I’m not a gal who so much goes for the science fiction. But I have a thing for Data. Not just data with a capital D, although I do enjoy factual information. Instead, Data the android. Did I once spend way too much time watching Star Trek: The Next Generation? Well, it wasn’t really by choice, it was more my roommates. But I can’t help but love an android who has a cat. Really, who could? And if that android writes a poem to his cat? Although I like Data quite a bit, I like my cat more, so I’m going to take issue with just one part of the poem.

But first you have to go read it: Ode to Spot.

Back? Good. “. . . though you are not sentient”? Data’s an android, so I’m giving him a bye on this one. Of course my cat is sentient. He might not be sapient, but he’s at least smarter than most of my neighbors. So there’s that.

And I bought Mouse some presents. Freeze-dried shrimp, flavored with catnip, which he will not even deign to taste, and some fuzzy balls with feathers on top - he thinks those are interesting for about fifteen seconds before he decides to look out the window instead. So I emptied a box and let him sit in it, and next year, if Mouse is still with us, I’ll try to remember not to give him any toys or treats, and instead just let him sit in a box. Because he likes sitting in boxes. I’d show you a picture, but all the birthday excitement has worn him out, and he’s napping in an unphotogenic spot right now. No fair waking him - it’s his birthday, and he’s old. So here’s a picture of him that is lovely and has somehow never appeared here before:

In other news, nope, still no other news, except that it looks like there will be yet another Friday night where I do not stay home and vacuum. I better vacuum now, come to think of it.

I sure would have accomplished more last night if ESPN2 had not been re-airing a classic Scripps National Spelling Bee. I don’t generally stop on any of the numerous channels on my TV that are devoted to sports, but if there’s spelling, well, I gotta be me. (I still can’t figure out why it was on ESPN2 - aren’t sporting events that have already occurred supposed to be shown on ESPN Classic or something? Sports is hard.)

The Bee this year is May 30 and 31 - it seems there will be ample opportunity between now and then to watch the Bees that have already taken place, and, as it happens, I haven’t really had cable for most of my life, so this is a whole new way to spend time. The totally awesome thing about it is that this year I can record live TV, so that I don’t have to miss spelling events simply because I happen to be at work at the time they’re broadcast, as I have in the past.

Thank goodness for modern technology - if I didn’t have the capability to watch spelling bees when I wanted to, instead of when they happen to take place, I honestly don’t think I’d be as happy as I am now.

I think I’ll watch the finals live, though, because that would be more exciting, no? It’s May 31 from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern.* (Please make a note of it, so that you don’t accidentally call me or stop by** when I’m totally, totally busy.)

In other news, I went ice-skating again. The first time was super fun, and I didn’t fall down once, and I was rather impressed with myself, even though my ice-skating teacher told me that most people don’t actually fall down. I had only been ice-skating once before, years ago, right after I moved to New York, which was at the beginning of my almost ten years of not having a car. When I had a car, the furthest I used to walk was out to my car, so when I moved to New York, my legs weren’t very strong - after the ice-skating my legs hurt. After Sunday’s ice-skating, my legs did not hurt. Because my legs are pretty strong now.

Today, however, my left leg hurts. Because I fell down! At first I thought I’d get an awesome bruise, and be able to post pictures of my gnarly sports injury here, but it looks like that’s not going to play out. But I learned two things, and that’s pretty good, so falling down was great.

First, I’m sometimes cocky, but now that I’ve fallen down I’m less so (about ice-skating, at least). You see, I only know how to move forward. I think I need to know how to stop, and I wanted to learn how to stop, but my ice-skating teacher told me I wasn’t ready yet, had to practice balancing, build strength, etc., and I at first thought he was full of it. I have a sense of balance, and how hard could it be to stop? (He does it all the time, in fact, and does other neat things too, like turning around, going backward, moving forward without looking like an ass, some mysterious thing I will some day learn called a “crossover”, and, also, not falling down.)

But then when my simply balancing on one skate for just one second longer than I should have made me fall down, I realized he’s exactly right. Ice-skating will take a long time to master, and my legs, while strong, aren’t anywhere near strong enough. So that was good.

I also learned that I can fall down without actually breaking my neck. Manuelo used to get really frustrated with me when I was learning how to climb up fake rocks indoors because I was so afraid to fall down. I was sure I would break my neck, and while falling off two inches of ice-skate blade is significantly less dangerous than falling off a ten-foot wall, I’m sure he will be pleased to know that my thinking has changed about falling down. I used to say,

“What’s the worst thing that could happen? I could fall down! And break my neck! Or be otherwise fatally injured! My retinas might detach! So, yeah, I could try to do that, but then I’d be paralyzed, and blind, and who would take care of Mouse? I’m not going to do that, no matter how hard you try to make me.”

Now I say,

“What’s the worst thing that could happen? I could fall down. Big whoop. It’s not like I’m going to break my neck or have my retinas detach or something. Sure, I might get a bruise, but I’m gonna try it - if I fall down, I’ll just pick myself right back up again.”

That’s a pretty big step in my remarkably slow journey toward being a person who finds exercise amusing and fulfilling.

So I should have more ice-skating triumphs to announce as time goes on, assuming my ice-skating teacher will continue to take me ice-skating after having been forced to listen to me rattle on about how exciting it is to fall down. I think he will, if only because I’m pretty amusing when I’m rattling on about things. (And I hope he will, because although indoor rockclimbing is fun and all, you can’t wear sweaters in July when you’re rockclimbing. If you’re ice-skating, you have to. Wardrobe generally isn’t all that important to me, but what other sport is going to allow me to wear my favorite sweaters year-round?)

In other news, Mouse is turning sixteen tomorrow - more on that in the morning, I hope, but he did want me to let you know that he has enough treats and toys, and would appreciate your making a donation to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in lieu of gifts.

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*Does anybody know if the World Cup will be decided by then? That’s the hockey one, right?

** Yeah, because I have all sorts of random visitors lately. I paint my neighborhood as a lovely place to take a Sunday drive, don’t I? I actually took a picture out by the Dumpster the other day, because it seemed as if the entire contents of at least two households had been left out there under cover of darkness. But I can’t post that picture here until I figure out how to create a panorama out of more than one snapshot - the mess wouldn’t even fit all in one frame.

Just so you know, all mammals are susceptible to rabies. I think bunnies are mammals, but I don’t have time to find out for sure, because while trying to find out whether bunnies can get rabies, I came across this very earnest question from a young pet owner looking for information on the Internet: “Do chinchillas have rabbis?”

You know how sometimes when you’re asked a question that needn’t have been asked, because the response is so obvious, you say, “Is the Pope Catholic?”, or “Does a bear shit in the woods?”* Well, from now on, it’s gonna be “Do chinchillas have rabbis?” And because I know my words here have a reach beyond what they would have if I didn’t publish every stupid thing that happened to me on the World Wide Web, I fully expect this to take off like wildfire. Soon everyone will be saying it, and someday I will be famous. I just know it.

In other news, well, there is no other news. Who needs news when there’s a new catchphrase to use?
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* Okay, admit it. Sometimes you say, “Does the Pope [utilize as a restroom facility] the woods?” or “Is a bear Catholic?” We all do. No need to be shy around here. (Actually, just to make sure that some people do actually say that, because I do not, being sure that it is somehow wrong to use the word shit and the word Pope in the same sentence**, I Googled it. I think I’m a little behind the cool kids as it is, but did everyone but me already know about Uncyclopedia? I’m gonna be mad if you did and you just didn’t tell me. I was initially hardpressed to find an entry funny in its entirety, but the one about Scrabble pretty well does the job.)

** Oops. Damn.

What you might have heard if you had come to my place on Sunday evening to play Scrabble with me, and I had had one of my living room windows open (because it’s safe to open a window in your living room if you’re playing Scrabble with a big, strong man):

My neighbor the dog-thrower, to his dog (who was barking): Be quiet, or the fucking bitch downstairs will call the cops again.

The dog-thrower, to an unseen party: I want to choke her. [Neither I nor my guest was sure whether the “her” in question was the dog or myself.]

And I didn’t get the next part verbatim, because I was so shocked by the content I couldn’t focus on the form. Seems that if animal control comes to your home to investigate a report of animal abuse, and they find your two dogs unlicensed, you will receive a ticket. One $500 ticket per dog, for a grand total of $1,000.

A law-abiding dog-owning neighbor: I told you you had to have them licensed! It’s on the website.

The dog-thrower: But they can’t be licensed unless they have their shots.

Well that’s the issue, then. They can’t be licensed because they haven’t had their shots. But you see, the thing is, a dog license is $5.00 annually, and rabies shots cost $10.00, and they come in two types: one-year vaccinations, and three-year vaccinations. So, in order to actually do what you’re supposed to, if you have two dogs, you’re out at most $90 for three years, and as little as $50. (But I’d go with the one-year vaccination, because Mouse’s vet last year recommended against the three-year vaccines. I can’t remember why, but if a vet tells me something about what rabies shot is best for my cat, I’m liable to believe them, even if they might just be trying to cheat me out of an extra $20.)

Seems to me that the dogs must also be unaltered, because best I can figure, the fine for having an unlicensed dog is only $250. So that’s even better, since the dogs are often running around unleashed. Not only can they catch rabies from wild animals (like the cute little bunny who lives under a bush - do bunnies have rabies?), they can also be impregnated by stray dogs they might encounter.

At any rate, my neighbor doesn’t like me anymore, and I really am sort of afraid to do my laundry, but I also really have to do my laundry. I put it off all weekend, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that it has, I suppose I’m not actually concerned that my neighbor would actually try to choke me. I mean, I’d take him if he started anything with me - a key to the eye, a knee to the balls, I’m not sure exactly how it would play out, but he wouldn’t actually succeed in choking me. So I don’t actually fear for my safety. (Too much.) But I do worry he might pee in my laundry, and the only thing worse than worrying that your neighbor might pee in your laundry is actually staying in the laundry room long enough to make sure he doesn’t.

So there’s that.

And there’s one other thing: Saturday I went ice-skating. And it was fun. But I can’t sully the delightful ice-skating story by including it with details about my neighbor wanting to choke me, so I’ll tell you about that after I’ve gone again. On Wednesday! (I’m deliberately and repeatedly engaging in what one might call “exercising” - you’d better stock up on canned goods, because it might be a sign of the coming apocalypse.)

You know, the one that broke the camel’s back.*

The other day I was telling someone that it would not take very much for me to go over the edge and decide to move out of my current apartment, against the wishes of my landlord, who will likely starve to death if he does not have a tenant, and against my better fiscal judgment, because if there’s one thing this place has going for it, it’s that it’s cheap.** This conversation took place as we emerged from my apartment to find a car in the parking lot, without an occupant, parked perpendicularly to the other cars, and loudly blaring some music of a Hispanic persuasion. Tejano? Norteno? I don’t give a good goddamn, it was annoying. And loud. And where was the occupant of this car? Sitting on the stoop of a building across the way, with some of his friends. Near an overturned shopping cart. (I’m not kidding. I have a witness.) (But no pictures, because I used to be mildly afraid of my neighbors, and therefore only photographed shopping carts that were not near my neighbors.)

So today it happened. An event so ridiculous that I can no longer live here, and am eagerly looking for a new place.

I’m at home, sitting at my computer, shopping for books, because I’m quiet and polite like that. And I can’t help but notice (when I look out the window after hearing some obnoxious shouting) that one of my neighbors is newly returned from his Florida vacation, a vacation I only learned about because I am sometimes friendly with my neighbors. This young man in particular seems pleasant enough, although he has a tendency to loudly sing in the stairwell, and to talk to my other neighbors while leaning through their living room windows, instead of entering their apartments or using the telephone. Also, he has a really obnoxious toy dog that, while cute, is always barking.

So I’m looking out my ground floor window, as this young man starts walking toward it, with arms outstretched, calling the name of his dog. The next thing I see is the small dog landing in his arms. I’m not sure whether the dog jumped from the second story window or was thrown, but either way, that’s not how one cares for a dog.

So I’ve just learned that in Fairfax County, Virginia, animal abuse is handled by animal control officers, not the police (although the police officer I spoke with was awfully nice). I am currently waiting for an animal control officer to phone me or stop by. The landlord (who I called before I called the police, to assure him that I would continue to pay my rent through our agreed upon date but was not promising to actually continue to live here) is going to call whoever is in charge of a complex of condominiums that either sells or rents to people who abuse their animals. In the morning I will report this event to the Humane Society and the local shelters, in hopes that my neighbors, who I am able to identify only by address, will not be allowed to adopt any other animals.

So I’m looking for a new place, because in addition to not wanting to go outside because my neighbors are not even really people, but instead some sort of unfeeling bastards, I am now afraid to open my windows so that my cat can get fresh air. Sometimes I leave the bedroom windows open while I am in the living room, but no longer. People who throw and/or encourage dogs to jump out of windows cannot be trusted not to slash my window screens and steal my cat, who will turn sixteen next week and really doesn’t need any more stress in his life. I have already endured once hearing one of my neighbors hiss at my cat as he walked past my open window. That was not enough to make me throw my world topsy-turvy by moving, but only because no animal was physically harmed. A window screen is not enough of a barrier between these people and my cat.

So I need a new apartment. Tomorrow I’ll send an e-mail to every single person I know in the metropolitan DC area detailing my requirements, which are few. Actually, I think I’ll include everyone I know in that missive, since even those of you who don’t live near me might have friends who live here and know of available living spaces that don’t include animal abusing neighbors. You’re all cosmopolitan like that.

And although at least one person I know thinks I’m overreacting, I have half a mind now to put everything I own in storage and find a safe couch for my cat and I to sleep on until I find a suitable place to live. Granted, that safe couch would have to be in a household without any dogs, or children, or other cats that would be mean to my cat, so at least 50% of the people I know will not be subjected to my wanting to sleep on their couch. (No, that’s not true. A dog would be fine, but only if that dog is Mighty. Mighty is nice. Manuelo, can Mouse and I come live on your couch? Sure, it’s a long haul from there to work, but you wouldn’t have to vacuum before I came over - I’d do that when I got there.)

They say that networking is important. I think it’s never more important than when one is trying to find affordable housing in a major metropolitan area. But if there’s one thing I really suck at, it’s networking. Really, I don’t like people at all, but I know that some of you like people, and have many friends who own property, or manage property, or are simply more connected to local real estate markets than I am. Many a plea I make here goes unanswered, but I know you’ll all come through for me now. Isn’t that what friends are for?

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

_____

* You know one thing I like about me? Even when I’m so enraged I can barely type, I can still anticipate the cheesy jokes you all are going to make. I realize that my small bladder, which fits perfectly in my small frame but requires me to pee at a frequency that some people find alarming, invalidates any comparison between me and a camel, so you don’t have to say it.

** But not that cheap. I’ve recently learned that for only $100 more a month I could live within easy walking distance of the Metro station that I currently take a bus to each morning. I could technically walk to a Metro station now - if walking 1.7 miles to arrive at a Metro station (further away from my work than is the Metro station that I currently take a bus to) was something I wanted to do each morning and evening, but it’s not.