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This week's installment of insane neighbor drama

The do-it-yourself haircut turned out pretty good! The back ended up looking pretty bad so I had to fix it, and then asked BK to even it out when he got home from work. Now I am pretty pleased with the way I look, as well as my ability to cut my own hair instead of paying someone else to do it.

Today I called in sick because I woke up feeling like shit. I'm not actually sick, but I didn't get much sleep last night. I have been consistently falling asleep past 1:00. Last night I tried to go to bed earlier, but BK wouldn't shut up. Then I tried to go to sleep but he was not in bed yet, so I kept waking up every few minutes because I expected him to come to bed soon. And then at 2:30 a.m. some asshole was shooting off fireworks. So I woke up and decided that I'd rather have a black mark on my attendance than another day of low productivity keeping me from getting promoted.

Now I regret staying home, because I've been a nervous wreck all day. LJ was on the stairs muttering to herself as usual, but this time she was saying really scary things about cutting off someone's nose, beating someone's "pig face" to death. "Tell me to shut up and go to my room, how dare you?!" And "won't stop till they're all dead." And disturbingly, I think I heard her say after one of her creepy utterances, "Right, Cosmo?" As if someone named Cosmo were with her... And she was alone. So she apparently suffers from hallucinations as well as paranoid delusions.

I'm in a constant state of anxiety lately, and I haven't had a therapy appointment for over a month. I keep having to cancel and reschedule, and last week my therapist actually had to reschedule. I won't be able to get until more than a week from now. I've been cooped up in my apartment, afraid to go outside even to take out the trash or pick up the mail, because I don't want to have to interact with LJ.

Seriously, she's insane! A few days ago, CS called me and BK outside during a thunderstorm to look at a tree that was on fire. While we were watching, a branch hit a nearby transformer and the transformer blew, causing a power outage in our area. When we were walking back to the apartment, LJ was sitting in her car with the headlights on, watching us. I heard her yell, "You did that on purpose!" as if to imply that we (or at the very least, CS) had caused the power to go out!

I think she's more dangerous than people give her credit for. She sits on the steps and makes death threats to her imaginary friend! I can't get a moment's peace knowing she's around. But if I try to occupy my time in other places, like at my family's or at a friend's, I spend all my time worrying that she'll break into my apartment, like she tried to do to CS.

5:24 p.m. - 2011-07-18

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DIY haircut, insane neighbor drama

Today I cut my own hair, following instructions from a series of YouTube videos. I'm still waiting for it to dry to see how it turns out. It probably won't seem like a big deal to most people, but it is to me. I have struggled with learning to like my hair since early childhood. I stopped straightening it over a year ago (possibly two years?) and learned to accept its crazy, messy curls. But I put off getting my hair cut for probably about two years, because I've had so many bad haircuts that I don't trust anyone with it. This is an experiment in further letting go of my image consciousness and pressure to be pretty. It's a way for me to disconnect my identity and self esteeem from my aesthetic appearance. And a big middle finger to the beauty industry. If I get good at cutting my own hair, I'll never have to waste forty dollars on another haircut for as long as I live. It is a step in the right direction on the road to self-reliance.

So onto the insane neighbor drama. LJ had been mostly quiet for the last couple of weeks, until last night. I looked through my peephole and actually witnessed her trying to break into CS's apartment. She looked like she was frantically trying to jimmy the lock on the door. I was afraid she'd hear me and later seek revenge, but I had no choice but to call the cops and report the attempted break-in. I was shaking and trying very hard to keep level-headed. When I hung up, I immediately called BK, who had been outside working on his car, and asked him to come inside. He had actually been talking to LJ when the police showed up. I'm guessing that when he finished working on his car and came up to the front steps to smoke a cigarette, she must have heard him coming and stopped trying to break in, and went up to the front steps so as not to get caught.

So BK came in, and just a minute later, LJ was screaming at the cops, "I have a legal lease since MAY THIRD!" and "I haven't said two words to her!" and "I NEVER bothered her!" and "She calls the cops on me every other day! Check your files!" The police officer told her to go inside her apartment and that he was going to call his supervisor or something along those lines. I guess since they didn't catch her in the act, they can't arrest her.

So after LJ went inside, CS and her room mates and guests all came up to talk to the cops. Turned out they were actually inside the apartment while LJ was trying to break in! They told BK later that they were scared and were watching her through the peep hole.

A while after the cops left, CS and her friends were sitting on the front steps of the building next door and LJ came out to yell at them. She is truly insane, I tell you. She accused CS of stealing three hundred dollars worth of food from her apartment. She said, "Your cat hairs are all over my apartment! I have cameras in my apartment, so HA, HA." Obviously CS has never entered LJ's apartment. She and most of the other neighbors are afraid to even come within LJ's view. If LJ is outside when they arrive home after being out, several of them will stay in their cars or circle the block until she goes back inside. Once, I saw her out on the lawn when I was coming home from work. Instead of turning in to the parking lot, I kept going and went to the store for a while. I'm not giving her any reason to fuck with me. It's really sad that none of us feel safe anymore.

BK has sworn not to tell the neighbors that it was me who called the cops. LJ thinks that CS called the cops (she blames everything on CS), so as long as she doesn't suspect me, she probably won't fuck with me. Still, I am becoming even more hyper-vigilant than ever before. When I hear her on the steps, I feel like I can't step away from the peephole. I feel like I have to try to catch her in the act if she tries to fuck with CS's apartment again. Luckily, BK said that she made mention that she was moving soon. I'm thinking that she must have gotten evicted like my landlord was telling me would happen. Actually, I suspect that the eviction, if it did indeed take place, was what led her to try to break into CS's place. I will be so glad when she leaves. These past few months have been unbelievably stressful.

Because of my heightened anxiety, and because I think it would just be good for me, I decided last night that I'm going to give up weed for a while. If the trial period is successful, maybe I'll stop smoking for good. I think it's holding me back. I admit that a large part of the reason it's taken me so long to make this decision is because of BK. Smoking together is a bonding experience for us, however sad that may be. And it serves as a means for me to protect him against making responsible financial decisions. He's convinced that weed is the only thing holding him back from becoming suicidal, and he uses this notion against me when I put pressure on him to make sure he has enough money to cover bills and regular expenses before he buys weed. So I've continued to smoke it, and therefore pay for half of it, so that he will continue to have enough money to pay his half of the rent and utilities. But it's not my responsibility to make sure he's got enough money, it's his. He's four years older than me, shouldn't he have learned how to spend and save responsibly by now? So this will be an interesting experiment, and I predict a lot of fighting within the next month or so.

4:14 p.m. - 2011-07-09

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Crap, it's June.

Bah. Another couple of months gone by without updating. I used to blog so faithfully. Sometimes I feel weird about this blog being public, and maybe that's why I don't update often anymore. Maybe I'm growing out of exhibitionism that is blogging. I don't know.

So things are weird lately. This crazy woman, LJ, has moved into my building, under section 8 (subsidized housing). Prior to moving in, she was homeless, and fully lives up to the stereotype. She actually squatted in the apartment after the previous tenant moved out, until the landlord locked her out because she wasn't supposed to be able to move in until mid June, after the apartment passed inspection. Then she squatted on the front steps, where she reportedly vomited at least twice. She had the cops called on her for sitting in her car and blasting music, and was convinced that my neighbor CS was the one who made the call (she wasn't). Since then, she has continuously harassed CS and her room mates.

The day that the noise complaint was filed, she told the cops that CS was dealing narcotics, especially coke, from her apartment. Which of course, she is not doing. Oh, and one day she was trying to get a mattress and box springs up the stairs to her apartment, and asked a different neighbor in the building next door for help. He was on his way to work and couldn't help, so she parked her car outside his door and waited for him to return. She then blasted her music to ensure that he couldn't sleep. Meanwhile, she had left the mattress and box springs propped up against the front steps, partially blocking the door. CS and her room mate AC moved it, because it was a "fire hazard" according to their story. Although I'm pretty convinced it was just to fuck with LJ. Well, then it rained on her mattress, and the cops were called again. A few days later, LJ called the cops to report that three guys who were hanging out at CS's place had broken into her apartment (obviously, they hadn't). And she has also accused CS of stealing food.

I was going to move, but then my landlord told me he was going to evict LJ. It's not finalized, so I'm not sure if it was a good idea for me to agree to stay. Still, I can't afford to move, and with two cats and BK's credit history, it's almost impossible to find an apartment in this town within my price range. So far, I think I'm on LJ's good side, so I try to tell myself that I have nothing to worry about. Still, the other day, she rang my doorbell, and I just can't imagine what she'd want from me, considering we've only made small talk once and I'm not even sure she knows my name. I didn't answer because I didn't want her to drag me into all the drama. I kept all the lights off until BK returned home, so she'd think I wasn't home. This woman scares the piss out of me, and I don't want to interact with her unless I'm absolutely forced to. I don't need her calling the cops on me too!

So other than scary neighbor drama, very little has happened. My female cat ate a six inch length of hemp twine, and I'm beside myself with worry. If a cat eats a string, it could cut up her intestines, or cause a blockage. I'm waiting to see if she passes it or starts showing symptoms. So far, she hasn't gone to the bathroom all day... Not a good sign. The vet gave me this stupid laxative gel that she is supposed to eat willingly because it's tuna flavored. But I had to resort to rubbing it onto her nose, chin, and paws so that she would lick it off. And now she hates me, and still hasn't attempted to use the litterbox (or floor, which she seems to prefer).

I feel pretty stressed out and depressed lately. Haven't had the motivation for sex and I think BK's starting to feel left out. Fuck, we only really have Wednesdays now. Every other day of the week, our schedules don't overlap. Wednesdays are his day off so I changed my work schedule so that I leave at noon on Wednesdays. It gives us five or six hours together, before he leaves for band practice. Friday is his other day off, but by the time I get home from work, he's already left for practice. So if I don't feel up to sex on Wednesday, we have to wait another week before we can have sex. And the pressure of knowing that on Wednesday we're expected to attempt to have sex, well that usually just shuts me down so that I can't go through with it. Scheduling sex feels like I'm locked into a contract. And being the feminist that I am, and having read books about not doing things just to please someone else (Harriet Lerner calls it "deselfing"), I feel weird about trying to force myself to "get into it" when I'm not immediately aroused.

It's getting to be a real problem for me. To make matters worse, he never showers. Maybe once a week, if I'm lucky. He doesn't have time, with his insane work schedule, commuting back and forth an hour each way, and then having band practice at least two nights a week. So on his days off, I find myself hoping that he's bothered to shower so that we can maybe fool around. And he still doesn't! Don't get me wrong. I'm not a daily showerer myself. I do it every other day, or every three days, depending on how much I've sweated and how oily my hair is. When we find ourselves wanting to have sex, we usually just do a "whore's bath" and wash off our genitals by the sink. But shit, if he's only showering once a week, that's not good enough. I don't want to kiss his neck and taste his nasty week-old sweat. And it breaks up the foreplay when we spontaneously start teasing each other and then have to stop to clean up.

And then there's also the matter that he doesn't have time to eat during the day (his boss is an asshole and doesn't allow him a lunch break or even fifteen minute breaks, which he is entitled to BY LAW), so he comes home after work and spends HOURS preparing and eating food. He binges, cramming more food in his stomach than would seem humanly possible. He eats until he's uncomfortably full because he feels that he needs to make up for lost meals. By the time he's done eating, I'm too sleepy for sex. Or even if I'm still wanting to have sex, he's too full to be into it.

I really wish he'd look for work elsewhere. I was happy when he found employment, but this wasn't what either of us had in mind. We never get to see each other, and the precious few hours a night that we DO get some time together are spent with him eating, and me waiting for him to finish eating, then getting tired and giving up to go to bed. On the plus side, our anniversary is next month and we'll probably go camping? So we'll at least be able to relax for a few days together.

6:48 p.m. - 2011-06-25

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Stagnating

Well, I haven't updated this since January. A few events have occurred, but for the most part, things are largely unchanged.

My great grandma died in February and I never bothered to record it because I was to depressed to want to write about it. My family reacted predictably. When she was still alive and in the hospital, my mom called me every couple of days because the doctors were sure she'd go any minute. Every time the doctors declared that she was about to die, the family rushed down to the hospital to be there. She wasn't herself anymore, and I couldn't handle being there with the whole family trying so hard not to get upset. Then she died, and then we went to the funeral, and about a week or two later, people stopped acknowledging it. Every once in a while, someone will mention her, or tell a cute story about her, but nobody says that they miss her. Nobody says anything about being sad.

I don't know, it weirds me out. I was sad, but I wasn't very close to her so it was fairly easy to move on. My mom and aunts, and my grandparents, however, were very close with her and they don't say anything about it. When she was dying, my mom would mention that she'd have to separate herself from the rest of the family to go break down in the car or in the hospital parking lot. My aunts and grandma B would say the same thing about themselves. They tried so hard not to be upset in front of each other. As if it would be inappropriate to cry.

So anyway, that happened. Other than that, not much has changed. BK and I are getting along very well. We have minor disputes, mostly about chores, but lately instead of seeing each other as adversaries like we used to, we see each other as a refuge from all the other emotionally draining people and pressures in our lives. It's been really nice. He doesn't try to talk me out of my emotions anymore (although, who knows if he'd start that back up again if I got really mad at him for whatever reason). He tells me how much he appreciates me. We've been very affectionate. We barely ever have sex anymore, though. Our work schedules don't overlap very much. We pretty much only have time for sex on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and possibly weekend evenings. And that's if he doesn't have band practice or his various social events to attend. It's not bugging me much, because a lot of the time I just don't have much energy for sex anyway.

I also finally took my car to the shop last week. Should cost me about $2,000.00. I've had the money for a pretty long time now, but I kept making excuses and procrastinating. I told my mom that I couldn't get ahold of the guy at the shop who said he'd fix it for cheap, but really, I was just too nervous and overwhelmed to call. I finally got over it, and hopefully that means I can have my car back soon.

Oh, and my job is still stupid. Stupider, even. Oh wow, spellcheck didn't try to correct "stupider". It's a scary world that we live in. Anyway. My job. I was doing really well for a while, until they promoted this complete waste of space named MW. I mentioned him in a couple of older entries, the awkward Christian guy who thought we were BFFs because we both like Starflyer 59. The guy who ogles the pictures of my underage sisters and makes comments comparing my appearance to theirs. The guy who makes a million mistakes and costs the company money, and asks me a bunch of questions because he has no fucking clue what he's doing. Now he brags about being a senior, as if that were something worth bragging about. Meanwhile, they won't promote me, because my productivity is low, because my processing time is spent babysitting idiots like MW who need their hand held through every transaction that they process.

So now I have to try to get my productivity up, which is impossible with all the other shit they expect me to do around the office on a daily basis. I've managed to raise it, but I haven't reached the goal they set for me. I'm running myself ragged, forcing myself to process faster than my natural speed. I have to put my instant message status on "Do Not Disturb" in order to get anything done, so now I'm unavailable to my coworkers. I don't like shutting everyone out and spending the day processing silently. I don't like resenting my coworkers every time they ask me a question. I'm pretty miserable.

Also, I've got another coworker, DT, who is actually from my hometown, and graduated high school a year after I did. Apparently he thinks we're buddies due to some kind of Stockholm Syndrome issue related to being from the same shitty town as me. Apparently he thinks that gives him permission to touch me. Once, actually bumped his ass against me. Deliberately. I didn't even know what to make of it. Was it some kind of second grade, girls-have-cooties approach to flirting? Is he just completely socially inept? What makes a person think it's appropriate to bump his ass against a coworker? After he did that, I told him that I expected him to respect my need for personal space. So then maybe a week or two later, I went over to his desk to answer a question, and he sort of half patted, half rubbed my back. The way a really close friend might do, or a boyfriend, but NOT a work acquaintance. I told him to respect my personal space again. If he tries any shit like that again, I'm not letting it slide. He's also made creepy comments, like the time he said "You should quit this job, and become a massage therapist!" and then made some comment that I could give him cheap massages. So, yeah, I'm basically being sexually harrassed. And if I try to report it, he's just going to deny it, and then I'm going to look like the crazy "feminazi" at the office.

I decided a week or so ago that in a year, I'm quitting. By then, I'll be fully vested in the 401K plan, meaning I can transfer it elsewhere. Then I'll be able to quit, and still keep my retirement money. Hopefully I'll be able to find a job in a different town, and move there, maybe even rent a house. Until then, I'll probably suck it up and work a job that I hate for another year.

So like I said, not much has changed other than my great grandma dying. Other than the few minor changes I've made, I'm stagnating. I haven't even been knitting or crocheting anymore (Oh yeah, I finally got the hang of knitting a month or two ago, so I guess that's news). I still haven't tried sewing, haven't tried drawing, haven't tried any of those shrink plastic art ideas that I wrote down. Mostly I just smoke pot and then drift around in a daze when I'm not at work or with my family. I watch a lot of DVDs and play stupid Popcap cames online. Oh, and I waste a shit-ton of time on word searches now. I'm not accomlishing anything, I'm not growing. Just kind of floating, and I feel disgusted with myself.

Actually, I take that back. I have managed to gradually lose a lot of weight. I went from a size 12 to a size 8. I'm still trying to lose a bit more so I can fit into my old skirts and some of my old pants, but now I'm mostly focusing on getting stronger. I have decided that I don't want my body to be some decorative thing, sculpted to cater to someone else's beauty ideal. I want it to be functional. It just happens to be a bonus that BK is extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of my gaining more muscle mass. But I'm not doing it for him. I'm doing it because I don't want to be some dainty little womanchild. I want to be strong enough to lift heavy things on my own and to defend myself if I need to. I'm thinking about taking a self defense class, but I'm not feeling confident enough yet.

So yeah, I guess I'm proud of that, at least. But otherwise, I've been feeling pretty low lately. I say this all the time, but I need to get back into therapy. Now that I've got my car in the shop, and my taxes paid, I can probably make that happen very soon. Then maybe I can start moving forward again. Or moving at all.

10:32 p.m. - 2011-04-19

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