Time passes as time always does…

Entry 07/05/2014 11:54:18 AM – Mentat 705

Summer Solstice has come and gone.

Emancipation Day has come and gone… And a lot quieter than I thought possible. More on that in a little bit.

Stonewall Day has come and gone.

Yes, Independence Day has even come and gone.

It’s not as though I’ve been completely uninspired; just mostly for the last couple of weeks. While some of it has to do with the exorcising of demons as part of my Emancipation Day tradition, most of it had to do with the outrageously annoying and extremely draining moderate heat coupled with unbearable humidity that we had been getting through the last couple of days. Now that tropical-storm-turned-weak-hurricane-turned-tropical-storm-again Arthur has come and gone… Well, let’s just say it’s marvelous, the right sort of warm, breezy and the last week’s oppressive, Southern Humidity in the North is totally gone, I’m sitting here with the windows open, fans blowing (with and without the breeziness) and Moe expectedly torn between wanting to chase the little red light and getting up on the desk for some one-on-one attention. Looks like the attention won out, as he’s currently plopped on my shoulder with his tail wagging away (between happy and aggravating). Not that this is going to make typing easy as this is just the usual prelude to, “I don’t like your shoulder, let me casually slide down into the crook of your arm and whack your face with my tail…”

Ha! That’s not going to happen for as long as my notebook’s open…

Starting with last night (and working backwards instead of all over the place), I had my first nightmare in a long while. While the dream itself was only moderately scary — dealing with some sort of infection turned zombie apocalypse — I found myself practically screaming in the night-terrors sort of way as I was waking up. Sure, lucid dreaming was easy enough… During the part in the dream where someone’s son was infected by the virus and only had minutes before turning into some sort of brain-eating monster, I woke myself rather calmly. It was during the wake up process that I had scared myself. It seems that while I was waking up, my semi-conscious mind tried to bring to the conscious one of the zombies and it was crawling up into the bed (and over the covers), to pin me down and eat my face off.

That in itself kept me up for about 2 to 2½ hours as I tried to work through the fear and the hyper-attention I had going for that scary moment. I was rather surprised that it was the semi-conscious part of the brain that suffered from the fright instead of the subconscious/unconscious; particularly when you realize just how psychotic my dream states can be. But after watching some distracting videos (as I wasn’t quite able to listen to ambient music of DI.FM’s Space Dreams), I passed out like I normally would, only to wake up much later than I expected.

I’m not quite sure why or what caused that bad dream turned nightmare. I haven’t been watching anything about zombies or strange mutant-altering viruses; hell most of my television or diversions have been either science-fiction or actions… I’m sure that if I think about it enough, I might have a little luck finding the trigger. Either-or… it’s a first in a long time.

Then earlier in the night (like around an hour before closing time for Tammany Hall), someone was firing off fireworks in Piedmont Street. Between the sounds and the lights, I remember waking up to the noise and thinking, “if that shit continues, I swear I’ll call the police for the cunt that was disturbing the peace.” No, I didn’t do it, couldn’t actually as my phone was in the office on the other side of the wall. Fortunately for me and the rest of the people in the neighborhood, it was a culmination to the various firework noises that have been going on in the neighborhood. Between the neighbor across the street firing off fireworks (and we think getting chastised by the neighbor next door), to the kids over on Knight Street firing them off later in the evening (read: past midnight, early morning), it’s been more noisy than I’m used to during this time of year than when I used to live in the Valley.

In the last couple of years, whenever there was fireworks going off for this time of year it always sounded so… distant. Like it wasn’t part of the neighborhood at all. This year? Ugh, it feels like it’s going on just outside of my house (in spite of the fact that some of it’s 2 streets over on one side, and halfway downtown on the other.

Moe on the other hand, I think has developed a nervous tic. Seems he has a hot spot on his left foreleg. I’m not sure whether it’s from the move, it’s been there for a while and I’ve only just started noticing. Or whether it’s really recent with all the noise and all the windows being opened. It’s not too bad — he hasn’t developed any sores in the process. It’s just been made bald from his cleaning (I’ve finally seen him going to town on the area). While he was good in not running off of the bed and hiding for hours when the folk were firing off firecrackers and various noisemakers…. He has through the last week. So much so, that there have been times when I’ve come home from walking my mother’s monster child, that I’ve found him in the portable closet, hiding for his life. So in the meantime, as I continue to make sure it’s the other possible cause for that bald spot (boredom), I’ve been playing with him more and giving him the treat of napping with me when I take a quick lie-down. Seems all right, but hell during the hotter days, just what I need on my crotch — a sprawled out, legs in the air, purring, fur belt.

Then at the end of last week, Stonewall Day (which sort of is a hop, skip and a jump to the weekend before), I got the usual questions about, “will you be going down to Pride?”

No…

Just no…

Of course I recounted the story to family mostly but a couple of friends that I was chatting with online, about the last pride I went to a couple of years ago (when I was living with that douchebag, drunken artist wannabe)… You know, the one where I felt like I was one of the tallest (and oldest) queerfolk in the land of the Lilliputians. Oh and the only taller person had the hair of Chewbacca… And no I don’t mean he was a walking carpet, but instead hair on his head slicked back and long like Chewbacca.

My attitude hasn’t changed about folk here in this state and with that in mind, I saw no need or want to mingle with the attitude I’ve encountered since coming back to the state. And while that entry was only a couple of weeks ago, it remains a sort of anchor/milestone to my continued approach to the folk and people in the area.

Though for a moment it did raise the question in my mind, “why is it that I truly stay in the state?” Well, other than the obvious answer of my family in all it’s bizarre and sometimes dysfunctionally warring sort of way… I have to say I think I’m finally settled.. The oats have been sown… The mad cow has finally been hit with the right tranquilizer. Mother’s Little Helper has finally helped mother…

[Last Edited: 07/05/2014 07:41:23 PM]

Before Stonewall Day was Emancipation Day… While I didn’t do anything completely dramatic or… well over-dramatic about releasing the left over demons, I can say without a shadow of a doubt declare that I can now think about the douchebag ex-landlord and not think about punching him in the throat repeatedly. That doesn’t exclude the thought of throwing rocks at his SUV if he tries being “nice” in my direction, but at least it’s not the threat of strong physical violence at the sight of the two-faced, delusional bastard. And no… I won’t stop with the names… Even 35 years later, I still refer to my first ex-boyfriend as either “the asshole” or “my first asshole”.

Hell, I can even get through the thought of the ex-roommate douchebag without wanting to give the man two black eyes in the process. Sure, I might be resigning myself to the thought that with the amount of cheap drinking and cheaper cigarettes the only way he’s going to keel over either through lung cancer (or any other cancers associated to smoking) and/or cirrhosis of the liver. It’s a slow way, yes I know. And that silly, petty stealing douche will not only leave the world penniless but also unknown, but hopefully in doing so his kids will completely hate his existence… Evil I know… but at least I’m resigned to karma paying back as karma always pays back. Instead of wanting to take a completely active role in his (and the douchey ex-landlord’s) demise. And again, no… I won’t stop with the names. They dissed me and were disrespectful, they don’t deserve any respect from me.

It took me over 4 months, several attempts at facing it and then letting it go, more times with denial than I would like to admit, and having to say it aloud enough to realize the amount of vehemence and anger that I was containing. While I might not be able to shake the scorn — something I know that I can hang on to no matter what — the anger and rage is finally spent.

And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. I’m still not quite as creative as I should be, but at least I’m a bit more at peace with myself than usual. Now I’m off for the night… Until the next time.

Free at Last

Entry 07/30/2012 09:01:59 AM – Mentat 661

As I sit here and realize that it’s been more than 3 weeks since I’ve last sat down to write a journal entry, I know in my heart and mind that I’m not really all that surprised that it’s been that long. Particularly when you consider that the primary reason why it’s been that long has been my fighting the rage of betrayal, being used and stolen from and the want to lash out at the culprit with my bare hands instead of taking the long, arduous (and tedious) route of going through the judicial system for restitution and compensation. Especially when you consider the saying, “you can’t get blood from a stone…” when it comes to the Waste of Human Flesh that I’ve been living with. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself on this. Let’s continue then where I had last left off.

So I had a countdown going for the 15th of July, where I had given the deadbeat an ultimatum about moving out given that he didn’t pay rent for the month of July. I had even offered to him that I would hold his things and watch the cats if he were to take the route of checking into Butler Hospital for their alcohol rehab program given that it was apparent that he had a drinking problem as he seemed to always have beer (and sometimes harder stuff) in spite of the lack of food for him in the house. While I had given him a couple of days to consider this, in that time I had spoken with the landlord who had offered his services as a mediator to the escalating conflict that was going on with him in the apartment and freeloading off of everything. The date that he offered for the mediation was the day after the Waste of Human Flesh was supposed to have been moved out — July 16th.

Like any meeting when there’s a witness involved, the Waste of Human Flesh made the appearance of being “moderate” and even “cooperative” and “willing” to set things right. However, when it was time to “put your money where your mouth is”, it turned into another round of broken and empty promises. The thing was I was going into this meeting with the cards sort of stacked in my favor. During the fiasco toward the end of the month that I had talked about in my last journal entry was that the deadbeat was waiting for a check to come in from the PA work that he had done at the Dunkin Donuts Center for X-Factor when they were auditioning for new contestants in the area. I had the luck of being able to intercept it before he could get his hands on it. For about four days I simply held onto it as a means of leveraging payment out of him when I handed it over.

Then I started to mull over the history he’s had with me. The constant broken promises. The way money would evaporate the instant he had received any for whatever work that he had done and how it always ended up being transformed into beer or cigarettes. It’s not as though he had to worry about food — in the times that the fridge did get stocked with food, it was almost always at the hands of his ex-wife using her food stamps and welfare to feed him (a point that he had boasted about on a couple of occasions even though she had helped him carry up the groceries that had been bought). Any other times, it had been demonstrated that he would freeload off of friends who would bring food over to have a meal with them. So I opened it to verify his constant stories about how child support was bleeding money off of him.

When I saw the check, I saw no mention of garnishments being taken out. Which meant one of two things: he lied about it to me, or more likely he lied to his employer about not giving them the garnishment case number. In either case, he lied.

I was furious and disgusted.

Instead of confronting him with the evidence, instead of running to Family Courts with this, I held onto it to see whether he was going to be honest about it and pay up the money that he owed me. Particularly given that during the meeting with the landlord, I had renegotiated the deal the deadbeat and the landlord had offered about giving me half of the security deposit as waiver for the month’s rent that he owed for July. The reason for this was simple: the deadbeat has never once lifted a finger to clean the apartment and given the sad state of affairs in the two rooms that he squatted in here positively filthy (as you get a small taste of the squalor here):

And if he were to waive the security deposit for the rent, he’s get the better deal out of it… That was something I wouldn’t have. At the end of the meeting and mediation with the landlord, it had been decided that he was going to owe me a grand total of $945 ($550 as stated around the middle of June, $350 for the rent for July, and $45 for the month’s utilities that came in just prior to the mediation). I also gave the deadbeat 24 more hours to solidify how much he was going to be willing to pay when that check for his work came in.

The next day when he woke up, I told him it was time to make up his mind on how much he was willing to pay me from the check he was waiting for — he continued to waffle to set a promised amount. Fifteen minutes later he finally said he’s pay at least $100. I handed him the check and told him that I had intercepted it and was waiting to hear him commit to an amount.

He went outside to smoke a cigarette at that point. What he didn’t know is that the landlord had left the apartment across from ours unlocked and I watched him smoking the cigarette and open the envelope to see how much he had received from the work that he had done. When he came upstairs he tried to pull that he hadn’t looked at the check and that he’ll deal with paying me after he takes a look at it.

That’s when I tore into the living room as he was laying down after his smoke and “relaxing” as though he were ready to fall asleep again and hit him.

He’s damn lucky I lead with my right instead of my left as all I did was hit him with a glancing blow to the shoulder. If it were my left I could’ve easily knocked his lying ass out with one punch.

I told him flat out that I looked at his mail and that I was justified in my action given that he had continuously lied to me about payment. I didn’t trust that he was going to lie to me about something that wasn’t taken out of that check and told him that it would’ve been in his best interest to sign over the whole check as that would cover at least more than half of the $550).

Of course he refused.

I confronted him about selling the car for money which was a scrap heap and out of registration as well.

Of course, he refused that as well, saying that at the end of the month that he wouldn’t have anywhere to live and it was possible that he was going to be living out of his car (I didn’t believe that, but I’ll get to that a couple of times shortly).

In the end, he promised to pay half of a $347 check of which I told him that was unacceptable and wanted $200 — paid in cash — and wanted to see the money when I got home from a moment to get out of the house, which of course he said he would do.

And he did not. I got home two and a half hours later and found him in the same state I left the house: smoking a cigarette outside and wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he woke up from sleeping. He did take a shower though; the shower was wet when I got home. No sooner that I got home he changed his clothes and off he went. By the end of the night when he didn’t show up by the end of the night, I decided it was high time to put the chain lock back into play.

The deadbeat didn’t come home for another three days. In fact, he didn’t even try to show up at a respectable time: somewhere between 2 and 3 in the morning is when I heard him struggling with the door. I almost opened the door, but when I heard that he wasn’t alone — he brought a woman along to “protect” him from my fury — I decided to leave it locked. That’s when he threatened to call the police and have them demand to let him into the house.

Yes, the police showed up in about 20 minutes. While the police convinced me that this was the wrong decision, when I explained the amount of money that he owed and the fact that he had made a promise to pay that didn’t come through as he was gone for the last three days; one of the two officers turned around and said to him, “If you were my roommate and owed that much money, being locked out of the house would have been the least of your concerns.”

I had promised them that he was safe in the house until the morning and that the issue would be addressed with the landlord when he could be contacted.

I did get in contact with the landlord. I decided from the discussions that we had at the beginning of the month that I would be taking the apartment next door, as it was becoming painfully obvious that the deadbeat was going to be digging in and squatting at the apartment thinking that he could buy himself some time by delaying his eviction. Part of the reason why he thought this was because if I were to stay in that apartment, the landlord would feel a bit conflicted in having to evict the two of us. After all, when it came to paying rent, I had always done it on time. Without me there, then he knew his time days would be numbered.

The rest of the story was ugly, and not something I feel the want to write about. While there had been no violence, the fury that I felt in dealing with this deadbeat was a test of my patience and my limits. While I didn’t hit him again — the want is still there. Particularly given my reliving these feelings as I’ve been writing this journal entry.

I was able to move out by last Thursday.

I was able to transfer the utilities from one apartment to the other. Based on the call between the utility company and the landlord — the utilities for the apartment were shut off and locked down in the same way they did when the heroin addict was living here. In this apartment. As of right now — they remain off.

The landlord and I had a brief discussion regarding the deadbeat’s want to meet with the landlord. I did warn the landlord this is the sort of thing that the deadbeat’s well known for doing and that at the last minute he’ll change his promise about moving out and instead will continue to procrastinate about leaving. While the landlord didn’t want to believe what I said (as it was hearsay to him), I suspect that the landlord did listen.

I contacted my mother who used to work for Family Services in the Rhode Island Court System regarding the deadbeat’s habits. She in turn handed the information over to her husband who was still active within the court systems and he is being investigated for fraud and evasion of child support payments (according to my mother’s husband, it is over $20,000 in order for his federal taxes to be withheld from him when he mentioned this back in May). His wife will subsequently be investigated for Welfare and Food Stamps fraud for allowing the use of those monies to paying for his groceries.

Today, a Rhode Island Constable came to the house and knocking on my door, thought that this was Apartment 2L. As I explained to him that it’s based on the front of the building and that my name is Michael and not the deadbeat’s, he began knocking on the correct door. Before shutting the door on the Constable, I explained that the deadbeat usually stays up all hours of the night, doesn’t get to bed until 7 AM and that he’s never answered the door in the 9 months he’s lived there; the constable tried anyway before leaving a sticker on the door to call his office. Doing a little research on the Constable’s office, either the deadbeat’s been served for Child Support Evasion or Eviction papers by the landlord. Either way, I’ll know in a couple of days.

Tomorrow, once I’ve finally rid myself of the anger, impatience and fury by being played by the deadbeat; I’ll be calling a couple of numbers that had been given to me to see if I can’t arrange for a little help legally for filing this civil case against the deadbeat. More on that in the days to come.

Well, that’s about it for the time being. While I feel good to have finally gotten this all off my chest, I have to say that I hope to never revisit this again. Every time I recalled the way that he lied and used me, and ultimately stole from me the more I found myself getting up away from my desk, going outside to find him at the first opportunity and turn this civil case into a criminal case because I believed that was the only way this would be resolved.

I’m off for the time being. I have a couple of episodes I want to watch and then head to bed early. Tomorrow, I need to look into selling a few things to make rent money. Until the next time.