2 PM, voice mail left on my cell phone:
"Hey, G, it's me. Listen, call me when you get this message because I've been having a REALLY BAD past couple of days and I know it's not your problem but I really need somebody to speak to."
4 PM, same:
"G..." (to someone in background: "Shut the fuck up,") "Hey, G, call me as soon as you get this message, okay?"
Now, Tim knows what my cell-phone situation is, so it was my measured opinion that if it was REALLY important, he would call the HOUSE phone. But the second message, with its background argument, made me curious enough to call him.
He answered on the fourth ring: "G--hey. Listen, I'm on my way up there," he told me, "because I can't be around this crazy motherfucker ANY MORE." And then there ensued about fifteen minutes of that I'm-talking-to-the-person-on-the-phone-but-really-I'm-talking-to-the-person-in-the-room-with-me-who-is-the-real-target-of-what-I'm-saying kind of thing. In fact--once the practical outcome of the conversation had been achieved--I just took my ear away from the phone. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know already (Squeaky's dad is a semi-crazy, extremely-lazy, parasitical welfare-cheat) and frankly, I wasn't that interested. As I said, the main outcome had been arrived at; Tim's on his way over and will most likely be spending a couple of days--at least--on my floor.
This is going to be interesting.
Curiously, I'm not complaining. I'm learning things about myself, these past few months, and one of the things I've learned is: the neat and quiet life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I need a little messiness, a little (okay, a LOT) of stuff going on; not so much cleaning up after everyone around me, but at least having all their stuff play out in my vicinity. Otherwise I get lonely and bored and BORED and depressed, and grossly uncreative. (Speaking of which--I'm taking my REAL computer in this week, and once it's fixed I'm going to scan in a crapload of my artwork. I've been doing a lot of work in colored pencils, pastels, and conte crayons; I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, by any stretch, but it's surely fun, and some of it is quite pretty. In fact, my next step is to buy some mat-board and start decorating.)
I don't necessarily like this new development--and the minute Tim starts with "Squeaky has no place to stay," my attitude will change 180 degrees, to "And Out You Go Too!!"--but for the moment, hey, what the hell--I'll take care of the world for a while longer.
I mean, SOMEBODY's got to, right?
Showing posts with label ambivalent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ambivalent. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Everybody Goes Somewhere
Well, as you might have guessed from that last post (pissed-off as it was), my short-lived interlude is over; he went back home, having changed plans due to some personal stuff. I can't be angry about it; I'm angry at myself, though, for letting down the walls even a little bit. I won't do that again. It's a pretty clear measure of how lonely I've been, though.
And THAT is overshadowed by the OTHER news of the day: I got a text message from an unknown number this morning, but between the spelling and the content it was pretty easy to tell who'd written it:
i been locked up and everything and i been worried about u is u ok girl call me
To which I replied, in my own mind at least, "?!!!??!!"
You have to understand: LJ prided himself on never having been caught. He lives in Chicago all his adult life, running around surrounded by more weed than the average organic farmer, and flies free despite some of the dumbest moves imaginable-- then he moves to Podunk McNowhere and one of his friends snitches on him and he gets jailed in a midnight raid...not to mention losing his cell phone with all the numbers. He was only able to get my cell phone number by calling his friend whose phone I'd subsidized for a couple of years. And then, apparently for some time, he couldn't get me to answer THAT--apparently the cause of that oh-so-slightly-comforting "worried"--because, of course, it was sitting uncharged in the bottom of my Bag of Damnation, along with three ink pens, a half a pack of gum, and the receipt for a grilled chicken sandwich. Only bill collectors ever call that number anyway, so what's the point of keeping it charged? (Yes, yes--"for emergencies". I know. I don't have enough of a LIFE to have an "emergency". Lately, "emergency" in my life involves being out of orange juice, or having been attacked by a festering ex-food item from the back of my fridge. And for that, I have a REAL phone.)
Apparently his mother and his girl bonded him out of jail (sure glad I'm not his girl at the moment!!) and he's got a lawyer, who says he's got a pretty good chance to beat the case--not enough vegetable matter, for one thing (barely enough to constitute "personal use", let alone "intent to deliver") and a bunch of irregularities in the warrant. Of course, EVERY defense lawyer says that. But since this IS his first arrest, he'll probably get off light.
But again--despite the "worried", which today was at least salve for my wounded pride--I'm certainly glad I'm not his girlfriend at the moment.
I was going to call him anyway, because (drum roll please): this Friday, as soon as the check clears, I will have made the FINAL payment on the Vehicle of the Damned, the Mighty 'Ho. Not to have that $445 a month hanging over my head every month, nor to ever again see the dreaded word "Nationwide" on my caller ID when my payment is eleven seconds late...I believe I have found on earth all I will ever need of heaven, really, when I think about those two conditions. (Seriously, if you're ever in Chicago or anywhere else, and you have crappy credit and someone tries to push you to a finance company called "Nationwide" with headquarters on North Cicero Avenue in Chicago? Don't walk away. Don't even run away. FLY away. Grab your children and your pocketbook and flee, flee the evil that is Nationwide. This isn't the same Nationwide that advertises on TV--they're an insurance company, and I'm sure they're a very nice one--but the Nationwide that finances loans in Chicago is a den of evil, and should be avoided at any and all costs. I've warned you, now; heed my counsel and save your mortal souls.)
So, to recap: LJ goes to jail, Really Hot Man goes home, and Gladys goes...quietly to bed, I guess, now that she doesn't have to keep the house clean and the bikini-area landscaped in anticipation of unannounced visitors. Sad, a little, but also liberating.
Mostly sad, I think....but I'll live. I always do.
And THAT is overshadowed by the OTHER news of the day: I got a text message from an unknown number this morning, but between the spelling and the content it was pretty easy to tell who'd written it:
i been locked up and everything and i been worried about u is u ok girl call me
To which I replied, in my own mind at least, "?!!!??!!"
You have to understand: LJ prided himself on never having been caught. He lives in Chicago all his adult life, running around surrounded by more weed than the average organic farmer, and flies free despite some of the dumbest moves imaginable-- then he moves to Podunk McNowhere and one of his friends snitches on him and he gets jailed in a midnight raid...not to mention losing his cell phone with all the numbers. He was only able to get my cell phone number by calling his friend whose phone I'd subsidized for a couple of years. And then, apparently for some time, he couldn't get me to answer THAT--apparently the cause of that oh-so-slightly-comforting "worried"--because, of course, it was sitting uncharged in the bottom of my Bag of Damnation, along with three ink pens, a half a pack of gum, and the receipt for a grilled chicken sandwich. Only bill collectors ever call that number anyway, so what's the point of keeping it charged? (Yes, yes--"for emergencies". I know. I don't have enough of a LIFE to have an "emergency". Lately, "emergency" in my life involves being out of orange juice, or having been attacked by a festering ex-food item from the back of my fridge. And for that, I have a REAL phone.)
Apparently his mother and his girl bonded him out of jail (sure glad I'm not his girl at the moment!!) and he's got a lawyer, who says he's got a pretty good chance to beat the case--not enough vegetable matter, for one thing (barely enough to constitute "personal use", let alone "intent to deliver") and a bunch of irregularities in the warrant. Of course, EVERY defense lawyer says that. But since this IS his first arrest, he'll probably get off light.
But again--despite the "worried", which today was at least salve for my wounded pride--I'm certainly glad I'm not his girlfriend at the moment.
I was going to call him anyway, because (drum roll please): this Friday, as soon as the check clears, I will have made the FINAL payment on the Vehicle of the Damned, the Mighty 'Ho. Not to have that $445 a month hanging over my head every month, nor to ever again see the dreaded word "Nationwide" on my caller ID when my payment is eleven seconds late...I believe I have found on earth all I will ever need of heaven, really, when I think about those two conditions. (Seriously, if you're ever in Chicago or anywhere else, and you have crappy credit and someone tries to push you to a finance company called "Nationwide" with headquarters on North Cicero Avenue in Chicago? Don't walk away. Don't even run away. FLY away. Grab your children and your pocketbook and flee, flee the evil that is Nationwide. This isn't the same Nationwide that advertises on TV--they're an insurance company, and I'm sure they're a very nice one--but the Nationwide that finances loans in Chicago is a den of evil, and should be avoided at any and all costs. I've warned you, now; heed my counsel and save your mortal souls.)
So, to recap: LJ goes to jail, Really Hot Man goes home, and Gladys goes...quietly to bed, I guess, now that she doesn't have to keep the house clean and the bikini-area landscaped in anticipation of unannounced visitors. Sad, a little, but also liberating.
Mostly sad, I think....but I'll live. I always do.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Captain Cranky's Bitch-O-Rama
I am really, really conflicted.
After all the go-around with Countrywide Bastard People (my former mortgage company and the current owner of the former Chez Gladys), it became evident that I needed to get my portly butt in gear--getting an apartment, packing, and moving--as soon as possible. So I started squeezing in apartment visits at every available moment--before work, after work, lunch. I went to look at a studio with my old landlord, in the building where Tim and I lived with CR; not only did the building itself give me the screaming heebie-jeebies, thanks to its CR memories, but the apartment itself was a)beyond teeny, and b)just barely north of squalid. Not dirty-squalid, but please-strangle-your-decorator squalid. I would have died a trillion deaths trying to live with that kitchen for a year.
The same night, I had an appointment to look at what sounded like an AWESOME place. One bedroom, garden apartment, sunny, good area...I get to the appointment (which required juggling my schedule, leaving work an hour early, and driving to the entirely opposite end of the city during rush hour) only to be informed by the assclown owner that "oh, THAT apartment has been gone for MONTHS...All we have is this two-bedroom." Which was nice, but: no. Too much opportunity for unwanted guests. I was really, REALLY disappointed--more than I thought I'd be, and definitely more than strictly necessary--and so I walked around the neighborhood, which I liked very much, taking down numbers. There was one place that had a "for rent" sign out, so on a whim I called the number and asked if there was anyone who could show me the apartment; it turned out to be a tinier-than-tiny studio in a building with a WHOLE lot of problems, including exposed electrical wires ("Enrique is an electrician!" the custodian enthused. "We do ALL our own wiring!") and an alley view containing one of the largest rats I've ever seen. I went home with a headache.
The next day, I started looking, just for fun, at the area around my job.
(Here's where I get ambivalent, part one. See, to go into more detail about the neighborhood will pretty much be to reveal where I work; it's one of those neighborhoods defined by something within it. It's like, if I say "Evanston", everybody thinks "Northwestern"; if I say "Northfield", everybody thinks "Jewel" or "Dominicks"...well, if I say the neighborhood, every Chicagoan will instantly know the institution for which I work. But if I DON'T mention the neighborhood, it's gonna be really hard talking about WHY, exactly, I'm conflicted. )
I found a building (one of those managed things, with the move-in incentives and the elevator and the fitness center and the nice video presentation on its website and all that) walking distance from work.
WALKING distance.
As in, "I need to be at work at 10 AM and it's now 9:05 and I can hit snooze three more times before I even have to THINK about getting up."
So I went to look at it. It was a one-bedroom, fourth floor, pretty nice place. It was about $80 a month more than I'd hoped to pay, but again: WALKING distance. No need to burn gas driving to work, no need to keep my bus-pass deduction, no need for ANY transportation-related expense, really, over and above......
And here's where I get REALLY ambivalent.
See, this neighborhood has no grocery stores.
That's not an exaggeration--that's a fact. There is the This Neighborhood Co-Op, which has had a monopoly on groceries in This Neighborhood since approximately forever; from everything I've read and heard, it's apparently very pricey and very understocked, and it's also fairly distant for a quick grocery walk. But there's no Jewel, no Dominicks, no Food-4-Less; no Treasure Island or Meijers or ANYTHING, for at least a twenty-block radius on all sides. (This is due to the political activism of the denizens of This Neighborhood; they're a pack of rabid liberals, which is all well and good since I'm one of those myself, but my liberalism ends when my inability to buy groceries cheaply begins. They don't want Big EEEEEVil Capitalists encroaching on their happy little Utopia, and apparently they're willing to forego groceries in favor of this principle. (Or at least, they'd have you believe they would. Actually that's 100% bullshit--either they shop at the Co-Op and pay extra for a smaller selection because they can afford to support their principles, or they subscribe to Peapod and get their expensive groceries delivered because they can afford the convenience, or they drive their Volvos and their minivans to Whole Foods or wherever they go. So the only people inconvenienced by this piece of liberal quixotism are the students (oops!) and/or the disadvantaged of the neighborhood. Gee, THANKS, wealthy liberal folks! I'm beginning to see why we're not well-liked...))
Politics aside, though, one of the reasons I'm actually almost GLAD to leave my current 'hood is just exactly that: no grocery stores for miles. So for the new neighborhood to have EXACTLY the same deficiency, albeit for a totally different reason...disappointing.
But that can be surmounted. There are two car-sharing services I can subscribe to, where I can rent a car for a couple of hours to go to the store on a Sunday or whatever, and not have to worry about keeping a car for myself. So the grocery thing: irritating beyond belief, but not the end of the world.
However, there's the OTHER thing: the thing I'm totally not proud of, the thing that's got me questioning "Who are you, and what have you done with Gladys?"
I don't know all that much about This Neighborhood. I mean, in terms of the important stuff--like, what is there to do for fun? Where do I go on the fourteenth boring afternoon, when I've exhausted all the very obvious stuff and don't feel like making the trip downtown? (There's plenty of that--but eventually you can't GO to the same bookstore for another day. Eventually you exhaust the museums.) What, other than Place Where I Work and the politics and the architecture and the landscape...other than that, what makes this place special? And what about the other considerations. For example: where is it safe to walk after dark, and where isn't it? (Of course, there are those who would have me believe that NOWHERE is safe after dark. I'm definitely not one of those, but I AM aware that around my potential new abode, there are some pretty rough spots. I'm just not sure exactly where they are.) Up in Edgewater and Rogers Park and Andersonville, I KNEW where all those places were. I even knew it where I am now, although the answer was a very simple blanket statement: "I wouldn't." But in my new neighborhood, I don't know the boundaries as well. I've been told to avoid Stony Island south of 60th; anything near the Green Line tracks after 55th; stuff like that. (Yeah, that's right. I'm moving to Hyde Park. Which means you now know where I work, if you're a Chicagoan, or know Chicago very well. I'm associating with, shall we say, People of the Maroon Persuasion. This is the closest-together that I've ever allowed my "real life" identity to get to my Gladys-ness, and it's scaring the crap out of me; I feel like Clark Kent would feel if he mistakenly walked out in tights and a cape one morning on the way to work at the Daily Planet.) But safety's generally something I'm good at--I've lived HERE for four years, after all! But as far as FUN--Okay, there's the Museum of Science and Industry--that should be good for the first six months of weekends!--and the DuSable, and I know the University has a lot of movie fests and whatnot--but other than that, I know JACK about Hyde Park, really, and it makes me nervous. That's the point I'm making here.
Normally--and by "normally" I mean "several years ago"--the element of surprise and new adventure would have been exciting. Now? It's just...daunting. And that scares me. When did I get old and scary about new experiences?? What the hell? When did that happen, and more importantly: WHY? And even more importantly than THAT: How do I make it stop happening???
That fear, though, may just be an indicator of how godawful stressful this situation is for me right now. I have just--in putting down the deposit on this apartment, which I did (at the rental agent's behest--"I have a lot of people looking at it," he warned me)--in putting down that deposit, I have accepted the necessity of taking the contents of a seven-room house with basement and garage, and deciding which of my entire collection of personal belongings are important enough to merit squeezing them into three tiny rooms, and which can be exiled to my mom's basement. I am coming face-to-face with the fact that this is all actually HAPPENING, and it's happening NOW, and I have anywhere from twelve to nineteen days to get my shit together and haul it out of there. I am not happy about this. I have coordinated moves before---many, many, many times!--but never quite this fast, and definitely nowhere NEAR this big. Really, the two parts of the process which are giving me the most anxiety are: one, the contents of the basement and the garage; and two, dividing and marking everything according to its eventual destination. And the speed at which this needs to happen is not in any way helping.
"But you have roommates to help you!" you say. And I laugh.
To be fair, Tim offered to help. But his "offer" seemed to be a blatant attempt to use helping me as a completely transparent excuse for why he couldn't go looking for a job, which could later be used as a very good reason for why I would have to help him after the move. "If I hadn't been doing YOUR packing...." I can just see it now. So I told him "Worry about your own well-being first: go get a job. If I need help packing, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, take care of yourself."
Well, THAT possibility evaporated anyway, because ever since I said that, he's been ministering to Squeaky, who we took to the emergency room last week. Again. This time, it was for seven large boils on her butt and legs, which at one point had been ONE boil, a few weeks back when I told her she needed to get that looked at and get some antibiotics before it got worse. Nobody listens to me. Anyway, she ended up with stitches and packing and multiple doctor appointments and Vicodin, which she and Tim fought over non-stop til it was gone, because HE has a sore shoulder and he can't do anything because it keeps him awake.
(If there are two things I hate, they're these: hypochondriasis, for one; and for the other, people who talk and talk and talk about their infirmities, real or imagined, but then never actually do anything to take care of them until the situation is so bad it requires an E.R. visit. I have had so many of BOTH kinds of people in my life that it makes me nuts. I recognize that I have been blessedly healthy, especially considering the amount of crap I've done to my body, but the one time I required an E.R. visit for a non-drug-related reason, it was because the actual PROBLEM--my gallbladder--had been previously misdiagnosed, not because I didn't TRY to get it dealt with! Tim won't go NEAR a doctor; he just crabs about this pain and won't get it looked at. And Squeaky, had she gone to the E.R. back when it was ONE boil, could have avoided a WHOLE LOT of pain...but she didn't want to go by herself, and she didn't want to wake Tim up to make him take her, and... I am SO GLAD to be getting away from their relationship!!! I may be a low-self-esteem-having, low-maintenance woman, but I don't think I ever neglected my own medical needs to avoid pissing off a GUY!)
Anyway, Tim HAS managed to put out a few job applications, and so has Squeaky--but neither of them has any promising leads. I worry about them--but I would worry more if I wasn't so mad at Tim for the way he's been treating me. For the first time in our friendship, I actually FEEL taken-advantage-of. Not because of anything financial, but because he's treating me like an irritant, whereas with Squeaky (when he's not pissed at her) he's fun and chatty and enjoyable to be around--the Tim I know. I try to talk to him, I get monosyllables and eye-rolls. (Unless he needs something.) And forGET trying to actually spend any time with him. The other night, he was watching TV in the living room while I was playing on the computer. We were actually having a conversation for the first time in a while--nothing important, just chatting. Squeaky was in their room, watching something else. She comes out and starts wheedling him to come into the room to watch TV (because she cannot STAND to be alone, even just in a separate room, for even a short time--last week, when Tim went out to put out applications and she was stuck at home healing, she IMed me at work repeatedly, about nothing, even though I told her I was busy). He follows her, and for the rest of the night I can hear them laughing and giggling and talking. Hey, whatever, you know? But it's like that all the time now. I am the least high-maintenance person I know, but one of my unwritten rules is: if you're living in a house with me, be prepared to at least have conversations. I don't require entertainment or company, but I cannot STAND being actively ignored for a long period of time. And this is a person who is supposedly my friend. Well, the past couple of months--since Squeaky appeared--have really injured this friendship, from my standpoint. I'm sure we'll talk it out, eventually, but right now I'm pissed and hurt and can't wait for this move to be over, so I can get some peace and quiet.
As for my fear of a new neighborhood, I keep reminding myself: this is NOT Scientology; I'm not signing a billion-year contract on this apartment. (Actually, I don't think I'm even signing a one-year lease; I think it's a month-to-month thing, given that they cater to so many students.) If I hate hate hate it, I can move. And then I think about going through all THIS again, albeit on a smaller scale...
I really hope I like it. But anything's better than THIS.
After all the go-around with Countrywide Bastard People (my former mortgage company and the current owner of the former Chez Gladys), it became evident that I needed to get my portly butt in gear--getting an apartment, packing, and moving--as soon as possible. So I started squeezing in apartment visits at every available moment--before work, after work, lunch. I went to look at a studio with my old landlord, in the building where Tim and I lived with CR; not only did the building itself give me the screaming heebie-jeebies, thanks to its CR memories, but the apartment itself was a)beyond teeny, and b)just barely north of squalid. Not dirty-squalid, but please-strangle-your-decorator squalid. I would have died a trillion deaths trying to live with that kitchen for a year.
The same night, I had an appointment to look at what sounded like an AWESOME place. One bedroom, garden apartment, sunny, good area...I get to the appointment (which required juggling my schedule, leaving work an hour early, and driving to the entirely opposite end of the city during rush hour) only to be informed by the assclown owner that "oh, THAT apartment has been gone for MONTHS...All we have is this two-bedroom." Which was nice, but: no. Too much opportunity for unwanted guests. I was really, REALLY disappointed--more than I thought I'd be, and definitely more than strictly necessary--and so I walked around the neighborhood, which I liked very much, taking down numbers. There was one place that had a "for rent" sign out, so on a whim I called the number and asked if there was anyone who could show me the apartment; it turned out to be a tinier-than-tiny studio in a building with a WHOLE lot of problems, including exposed electrical wires ("Enrique is an electrician!" the custodian enthused. "We do ALL our own wiring!") and an alley view containing one of the largest rats I've ever seen. I went home with a headache.
The next day, I started looking, just for fun, at the area around my job.
(Here's where I get ambivalent, part one. See, to go into more detail about the neighborhood will pretty much be to reveal where I work; it's one of those neighborhoods defined by something within it. It's like, if I say "Evanston", everybody thinks "Northwestern"; if I say "Northfield", everybody thinks "Jewel" or "Dominicks"...well, if I say the neighborhood, every Chicagoan will instantly know the institution for which I work. But if I DON'T mention the neighborhood, it's gonna be really hard talking about WHY, exactly, I'm conflicted. )
I found a building (one of those managed things, with the move-in incentives and the elevator and the fitness center and the nice video presentation on its website and all that) walking distance from work.
WALKING distance.
As in, "I need to be at work at 10 AM and it's now 9:05 and I can hit snooze three more times before I even have to THINK about getting up."
So I went to look at it. It was a one-bedroom, fourth floor, pretty nice place. It was about $80 a month more than I'd hoped to pay, but again: WALKING distance. No need to burn gas driving to work, no need to keep my bus-pass deduction, no need for ANY transportation-related expense, really, over and above......
And here's where I get REALLY ambivalent.
See, this neighborhood has no grocery stores.
That's not an exaggeration--that's a fact. There is the This Neighborhood Co-Op, which has had a monopoly on groceries in This Neighborhood since approximately forever; from everything I've read and heard, it's apparently very pricey and very understocked, and it's also fairly distant for a quick grocery walk. But there's no Jewel, no Dominicks, no Food-4-Less; no Treasure Island or Meijers or ANYTHING, for at least a twenty-block radius on all sides. (This is due to the political activism of the denizens of This Neighborhood; they're a pack of rabid liberals, which is all well and good since I'm one of those myself, but my liberalism ends when my inability to buy groceries cheaply begins. They don't want Big EEEEEVil Capitalists encroaching on their happy little Utopia, and apparently they're willing to forego groceries in favor of this principle. (Or at least, they'd have you believe they would. Actually that's 100% bullshit--either they shop at the Co-Op and pay extra for a smaller selection because they can afford to support their principles, or they subscribe to Peapod and get their expensive groceries delivered because they can afford the convenience, or they drive their Volvos and their minivans to Whole Foods or wherever they go. So the only people inconvenienced by this piece of liberal quixotism are the students (oops!) and/or the disadvantaged of the neighborhood. Gee, THANKS, wealthy liberal folks! I'm beginning to see why we're not well-liked...))
Politics aside, though, one of the reasons I'm actually almost GLAD to leave my current 'hood is just exactly that: no grocery stores for miles. So for the new neighborhood to have EXACTLY the same deficiency, albeit for a totally different reason...disappointing.
But that can be surmounted. There are two car-sharing services I can subscribe to, where I can rent a car for a couple of hours to go to the store on a Sunday or whatever, and not have to worry about keeping a car for myself. So the grocery thing: irritating beyond belief, but not the end of the world.
However, there's the OTHER thing: the thing I'm totally not proud of, the thing that's got me questioning "Who are you, and what have you done with Gladys?"
I don't know all that much about This Neighborhood. I mean, in terms of the important stuff--like, what is there to do for fun? Where do I go on the fourteenth boring afternoon, when I've exhausted all the very obvious stuff and don't feel like making the trip downtown? (There's plenty of that--but eventually you can't GO to the same bookstore for another day. Eventually you exhaust the museums.) What, other than Place Where I Work and the politics and the architecture and the landscape...other than that, what makes this place special? And what about the other considerations. For example: where is it safe to walk after dark, and where isn't it? (Of course, there are those who would have me believe that NOWHERE is safe after dark. I'm definitely not one of those, but I AM aware that around my potential new abode, there are some pretty rough spots. I'm just not sure exactly where they are.) Up in Edgewater and Rogers Park and Andersonville, I KNEW where all those places were. I even knew it where I am now, although the answer was a very simple blanket statement: "I wouldn't." But in my new neighborhood, I don't know the boundaries as well. I've been told to avoid Stony Island south of 60th; anything near the Green Line tracks after 55th; stuff like that. (Yeah, that's right. I'm moving to Hyde Park. Which means you now know where I work, if you're a Chicagoan, or know Chicago very well. I'm associating with, shall we say, People of the Maroon Persuasion. This is the closest-together that I've ever allowed my "real life" identity to get to my Gladys-ness, and it's scaring the crap out of me; I feel like Clark Kent would feel if he mistakenly walked out in tights and a cape one morning on the way to work at the Daily Planet.) But safety's generally something I'm good at--I've lived HERE for four years, after all! But as far as FUN--Okay, there's the Museum of Science and Industry--that should be good for the first six months of weekends!--and the DuSable, and I know the University has a lot of movie fests and whatnot--but other than that, I know JACK about Hyde Park, really, and it makes me nervous. That's the point I'm making here.
Normally--and by "normally" I mean "several years ago"--the element of surprise and new adventure would have been exciting. Now? It's just...daunting. And that scares me. When did I get old and scary about new experiences?? What the hell? When did that happen, and more importantly: WHY? And even more importantly than THAT: How do I make it stop happening???
That fear, though, may just be an indicator of how godawful stressful this situation is for me right now. I have just--in putting down the deposit on this apartment, which I did (at the rental agent's behest--"I have a lot of people looking at it," he warned me)--in putting down that deposit, I have accepted the necessity of taking the contents of a seven-room house with basement and garage, and deciding which of my entire collection of personal belongings are important enough to merit squeezing them into three tiny rooms, and which can be exiled to my mom's basement. I am coming face-to-face with the fact that this is all actually HAPPENING, and it's happening NOW, and I have anywhere from twelve to nineteen days to get my shit together and haul it out of there. I am not happy about this. I have coordinated moves before---many, many, many times!--but never quite this fast, and definitely nowhere NEAR this big. Really, the two parts of the process which are giving me the most anxiety are: one, the contents of the basement and the garage; and two, dividing and marking everything according to its eventual destination. And the speed at which this needs to happen is not in any way helping.
"But you have roommates to help you!" you say. And I laugh.
To be fair, Tim offered to help. But his "offer" seemed to be a blatant attempt to use helping me as a completely transparent excuse for why he couldn't go looking for a job, which could later be used as a very good reason for why I would have to help him after the move. "If I hadn't been doing YOUR packing...." I can just see it now. So I told him "Worry about your own well-being first: go get a job. If I need help packing, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, take care of yourself."
Well, THAT possibility evaporated anyway, because ever since I said that, he's been ministering to Squeaky, who we took to the emergency room last week. Again. This time, it was for seven large boils on her butt and legs, which at one point had been ONE boil, a few weeks back when I told her she needed to get that looked at and get some antibiotics before it got worse. Nobody listens to me. Anyway, she ended up with stitches and packing and multiple doctor appointments and Vicodin, which she and Tim fought over non-stop til it was gone, because HE has a sore shoulder and he can't do anything because it keeps him awake.
(If there are two things I hate, they're these: hypochondriasis, for one; and for the other, people who talk and talk and talk about their infirmities, real or imagined, but then never actually do anything to take care of them until the situation is so bad it requires an E.R. visit. I have had so many of BOTH kinds of people in my life that it makes me nuts. I recognize that I have been blessedly healthy, especially considering the amount of crap I've done to my body, but the one time I required an E.R. visit for a non-drug-related reason, it was because the actual PROBLEM--my gallbladder--had been previously misdiagnosed, not because I didn't TRY to get it dealt with! Tim won't go NEAR a doctor; he just crabs about this pain and won't get it looked at. And Squeaky, had she gone to the E.R. back when it was ONE boil, could have avoided a WHOLE LOT of pain...but she didn't want to go by herself, and she didn't want to wake Tim up to make him take her, and... I am SO GLAD to be getting away from their relationship!!! I may be a low-self-esteem-having, low-maintenance woman, but I don't think I ever neglected my own medical needs to avoid pissing off a GUY!)
Anyway, Tim HAS managed to put out a few job applications, and so has Squeaky--but neither of them has any promising leads. I worry about them--but I would worry more if I wasn't so mad at Tim for the way he's been treating me. For the first time in our friendship, I actually FEEL taken-advantage-of. Not because of anything financial, but because he's treating me like an irritant, whereas with Squeaky (when he's not pissed at her) he's fun and chatty and enjoyable to be around--the Tim I know. I try to talk to him, I get monosyllables and eye-rolls. (Unless he needs something.) And forGET trying to actually spend any time with him. The other night, he was watching TV in the living room while I was playing on the computer. We were actually having a conversation for the first time in a while--nothing important, just chatting. Squeaky was in their room, watching something else. She comes out and starts wheedling him to come into the room to watch TV (because she cannot STAND to be alone, even just in a separate room, for even a short time--last week, when Tim went out to put out applications and she was stuck at home healing, she IMed me at work repeatedly, about nothing, even though I told her I was busy). He follows her, and for the rest of the night I can hear them laughing and giggling and talking. Hey, whatever, you know? But it's like that all the time now. I am the least high-maintenance person I know, but one of my unwritten rules is: if you're living in a house with me, be prepared to at least have conversations. I don't require entertainment or company, but I cannot STAND being actively ignored for a long period of time. And this is a person who is supposedly my friend. Well, the past couple of months--since Squeaky appeared--have really injured this friendship, from my standpoint. I'm sure we'll talk it out, eventually, but right now I'm pissed and hurt and can't wait for this move to be over, so I can get some peace and quiet.
As for my fear of a new neighborhood, I keep reminding myself: this is NOT Scientology; I'm not signing a billion-year contract on this apartment. (Actually, I don't think I'm even signing a one-year lease; I think it's a month-to-month thing, given that they cater to so many students.) If I hate hate hate it, I can move. And then I think about going through all THIS again, albeit on a smaller scale...
I really hope I like it. But anything's better than THIS.
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