Finishing an awful chapter… (3-30-17)

You can’t start the next chapter until you finish the current one. You can quit the current one, put it off, even run from it but you need closure before you can begin the next one. Whatever that closure is, it’s necessary. It’s what frees you to explore, to keep moving. Have you ever run into a situation where you have to complete the chapter, even if it’s absolutely brutal and you want to move on? You have to finish every agonizing part of it. Then to make matters worse, you lose control of when and how you can complete it. You’re on someone else’s schedule now and they will force you to finish it. All you can do is wait and react for when you have permission. It kind of takes the fun out of it, right? That’s how I had been feeling lately. Like someone was forcing me to write a chapter of my own story that I objected to. It's a frustrating cake with angry icing. I have been choking it down for weeks.

If you follow my blogs, you’d know all about the girl down the hall at my old place. You’d know about the crazy incidents, the fights, the arrests and my misery around all of it. I hated my old apartment. I took a chance on a new neighborhood, tried something different and it didn’t work. I had crazy, violent neighbors, bar people in front of my place screaming every night and my bike got stripped down to its’ skeleton in broad daylight! I had daily anxiety and so much stress that I gained 35 pounds in 4 months! When the opportunity arose to get the hell out of there, I took it. Shortly after I made arrangements to leave the girl down the hall was evicted for not paying her rent. Go figure. She and her cast of live-in partygoers and domestic abusers were a major problem but they weren’t the only one. Plus who knows who or what would have moved in next. I mean, they allowed this idiot to move in. I had extremely low confidence in the management.

If I could do it all again I would have approached the management and told them everything that was happening and about my intention to leave instead of jumping the gun a bit, whether I felt I had a good reason or not. I thought that I could break my lease but in the end I discovered technically I could not and upon delivering my 30-day written notice to management I was immediately told of their intention to sue me for the duration of my lease, in fact they filed a lawsuit against me the very next day! I was surprised by this. If I tell you I want to leave, don’t you think you’d ask why? Prior to my leaving I didn’t tell them about all the crazy stuff that was going on, despite having kept a journal of events complete with dates and times. Since my apartment was the only one between the girl down the hall and the outside door and also due to the fact that many of the hallway incidents occurred literally right outside my door, I felt like if I snitched on them, they’d know it was me and I didn’t want to deal with that added stress, of constantly looking over my shoulder coming in and out of the building or having a specific reason to feel threatened. I’ve seen this happen in the past. These were people who had guns and no regard of the law, proven by the fact that there was more than one arrest over a few weeks and then pride afterwards at how many cops it took to restrain them, or how difficult they made their job. I didn’t want to get mixed up in that, nor did I want to live next to it anymore. So I made arrangements to leave. The management never showed any concern for my situation, never asked, never cared about anything other than the money. They are a business and that’s their right but the guy who owned the company is filthy rich already. He owns 20-something buildings locally including 400 rental units all over town and a hotel. He’s not hurting for money. Nor would it have been much trouble to re-rent my apartment, who for a different personality, might be a dream spot.

I did not want to go to court and lose a judgment to him because of the money but more so having that on my record. I’d get blacklisted by all the rental companies in the area. They’re all doing credit and background checks these days. So I studied what my rights were and began to prepare for court. I tried to get free legal assistance from a few community based legal groups who help lower income folks with their legal issues. Unfortunately or fortunately, I made a little too much money to qualify for these groups. I was on my own.

I was ready to present a narrative of someone who couldn’t bear to live in that apartment any longer. I was afraid of the neighbors, afraid I’d get sucked into some violent drama, annoyed at the constant noise from the bar people outside my window every night after midnight, dismayed at how unhappy I was that I gained 35 pounds in 4 months and had to leave for the sake of my mental health. This wasn’t an exaggeration.

Could I have handled things better? Of course but I was not going to allow this dude to win a judgment of over $4,000 against me. I was going to fight. So I read everything I could about small claims court; presentation, how to prepare and what things I should focus on in my argument. I wasn’t trying to get out of my lease scot free but I was trying to keep the damage fair and as mild as possible. In my mind, I could pay him one additional month’s rent and maybe he could keep my deposit which he already had. I thought that was fair. In the weeks leading up to the court date I had to pack, move and had so much on my plate while all the while I knew in the back of my mind that this day in court hung over me almost as heavily as actually living there during the circus that drove me out. Did I want to leave it up to a judge to decide? The fact of the matter was I was breaking a lease that still had 7 months on it. I had my reasons and to me they were vital but in court they could be debatable. What if he was awarded 3 months rent? That would be too much to bear and I would be livid just on principle. I get why leases have to be so strict because there are a lot of deadbeats out there, people who would try to screw over property owners and disappear into the abyss. I wasn’t one of those people so after reading any and all information I could find over 2 weeks I decided to introduce a new tactic; humbling up.

I sent the landlord a text, apologizing for how screwed up things had become. I also told him I would be willing to do whatever I could to help him find a new tenant. I also laid on pretty thick how poor I am for three reasons: 1- to see if I could generate any sympathy from the guy, 2- to remind him that I would be very difficult to collect from in the case of a large financial judgment and 3- to get him to accept a smaller amount as a settlement. I wasn’t lying to the guy, I’m not made of money but I still painted a picture of a poor, scared tenant that panicked who really isn’t a bad guy nor is trying to hide from the problem. I made sure all our communications were through text so that anything that was said, I’d have a record of and could use in court if necessary.

By re-opening the lines of communication my mind was put a little at ease as he replied that he would like me to have the place as clean as possible so he could start showing the apartment in order to mitigate both our damages. This gave me some optimism as I knew if he put an ad up on Craigslist and put forth an effort he might even have a new tenant by the time I left at the end of March. After all, there was still 3 weeks left in March at the time it was discussed. He said he’d put an ad in. In an effort to make things easier all around I actually moved out on March 22^nd instead of the end of the month. I came the next morning and cleaned the heck out of the place. The apartment actually looked better than it did when I moved in 5 months earlier, plus the cigarette stench was gone. When I saw the place the first time, the previous tenant still lived there and knew we were coming so he had some incense burning to hide it but when I started arriving with boxes the day after this guy moved out the smell was suffocating. The carpet, the ceiling tiles, everything reeked of cigarettes. It took weeks and a whole lot of effort to finally get that smell out of there. I was now leaving an apartment that smelled of scrubbing bubbles and pine sol.

As the court date was fast approaching a funny thing happened, he didn’t put up an ad. He wasn’t making any attempt to fill the place, even after I left. I took note of this in case I had to use this information in court. Here’s a studio in one of the most vibrant areas of the city. Yeah it was a small place and it surely wasn’t for me, but for someone else it might be perfect. I didn’t think it would be empty for long.

I decided for my last act before our court date to make an offer for settlement. If he accepts it, great and if he doesn’t I would have it on record that I was trying to work out something reasonable with the guy. So I texted him and told him I could probably scrape together one month’s rent for him. He responded that he would accept that, cancel our lease and the court proceedings if I also would forfeit/surrender my security deposit as well. I thought about it. He already had my deposit so what he was asking for wasn’t any “new” money. The lease stated that upon moving I was going to be charged $75 for a cleaning fee regardless and I believe there were a few other small charges as well. Do I accept his counter offer, do I counter back myself or do I take my chances in court? After considering what would be best I decided to accept his counter offer of one month’s rent and he keeps my deposit. That was what I would have been looking for in court anyway, besides, I thought it was more than fair for him, all things considered.

I told him I needed to see our agreement in writing. He said he’d have it in writing the next morning and I could come down and pay the rent, sign it and we’d be good so the next morning I went down, paid, signed, got receipts and copies of everything and left feeling lighter. I had just moved into my new place and there were issues and projects I wanted to tackle there. I didn’t want to worry or dwell on this past chapter any longer and I had been doing nothing but for nearly a month. The settlement agreement had only one provision, he would cancel our lease and court date if I paid and after he inspected the place to make sure I didn’t cause any damage.

Well as I mentioned, I cleaned the hell out of the place so I expected that this was over. But before I could turn the page we still had the matter of a court date 6 days away. We had a settlement and I had proof I met my end of it but as the days drew nearer to the big day, I received no communication that my case was canceled, dismissed or that I shouldn’t go. While I knew that any decision by the court could be appealed I was not about to miss court unless I received some official word that I didn’t have to go.

This morning I got up far earlier than I’d prefer, hopped on the bus and made my way there, ready for anything, whether that meant showing copies of the settlement paperwork, arguing my case, proving I left the place in good shape, whatever it could be I was ready. I arrived ten minutes early and the bell in the elevator dinged signaling my floor. I walked out of the elevator to a very empty place. There were 2 people on the entire floor and when I saw who it was, I smirked and thought, of course it’s them.

Sitting right outside the courtroom I needed to report to was the girl from down the hall and her mother. That same mother who introduced herself to me the day I was moving in and assured me that my new home was a “great place” with “really nice people, and so quiet”. That was why I smirked. I walked past them like I didn’t know them and sat down further down the long hall. It’s not like I didn’t have my choice of seats. The girl looked at me and she knew who I was. She probably didn’t know I moved considering she got evicted a few weeks after I gave notice but a few weeks before I left. She might have even wondered what I was doing there. Since she showed up she planned to fight as well and not just let the guy win a default judgment against her. I heard her and her mother talking about how management didn’t fix her bathtub or how some light in the hallway didn’t work. She was going to try to say she didn’t pay rent and was evicted because she was withholding money over the landlord not performing their duties as they should have. Right. I wondered if she thought I was there to help the management testify against her and what she did to ruin the place; all the parties, the noise, the endless fights, arrests, etc. Oh the stories I could tell…

The judge was 45 minutes late so I had plenty of time to go over every scenario, rehearse all my answers and rebuttals if necessary. I felt like I was prepared for every possible scenario. When the judge finally arrived something else occurred to me… conspicuous by his absence was my former landlord. He didn’t show. I know he and I had a settlement but from what I could tell, he didn’t have a settlement with the girl down the hall. Since no one representing the management’s side showed up, within a few minutes both her case and my case were dismissed because the other party, the plantiff, wasn't there. A thought crossed my mind, was this his play the whole time? Was he never planning on showing up or did he not show up because he and I settled and he got paid already? That’s something I’ll wonder about for a little while. I paid one month’s rent to get out of seven, so I’m not crying but I do wonder. Also, if he wasn’t gonna show and he and I are cool, I wish the mofo would have told me so I wouldn’t have had to drag my tired ass down to court at 9am for no reason.

I left the courthouse mildly annoyed but greatly relieved. This nightmare was finally over. After 5 of the worst months I’ve ever known I feel like I can finally move on with my life. I’ve been reunited with people and cats that I missed terribly for those 5 difficult months and I feel a sense of peace I haven’t felt in quite a while. My mind is drifting to thinking creatively about what can happen for me rather than obsessively about what could happen to me. That means getting back to my poetry, performing and writing again. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory says; once the basic and psychological needs are met, then self fulfillment can be addressed. Now that I’m not stressing every second about crazy neighbors, worrying about what’s going to happen, wondering what I should do, then worrying about moving and being sued, it will be nice to have my overactive mind at ease, able to dream again, able to throw myself into my work again.

Right before I posted this, I decided to check craigslist one last time, to see if he finally listed my old apartment yet and wouldn’t you know, at that moment, it was the first ad I saw at the top of the page. He’s even asking for more rent now too. It may be petty but I'm hoping the prick doesn’t get someone to rent it until next month so he doesn’t get double rent for April. With that I clicked to a different webpage and it was like I changed the channel on the remote, except this was a channel I was never going to watch again. Now that I’m finished with it, I can just turn it off and move on. That’s the last time I ever look at that chapter of my life again. Good luck and goodbye.

The girl down the hall – part 2 (2-5-17)

Almost 2 weeks ago I told the story of the girl down the hall from me. The mid-20 something year old girl who has a 5 year old who doesn’t live with her and who I’ve never seen or heard in the building despite her facebook page listing her as a “stay at home mommy”. Since my apartment is the first one after the door and stairway, everyone who comes in and out passes by me. I hear conversations I don’t want to hear. I get subjected to all kinds of disturbances and annoyances that I would rather do without. In the first story, I talked about how she’s 3 months or so pregnant and how her boyfriend, who I think is the father, is a complete psychopath with no regard for anyone or anybody. I told you about his arrest for trying to fight and rob people in front of the building on Hertel Avenue. What I’ve learned since then is that his “job” appears to be trying to sell phones, jewelry and electronics to people. Kind of a travelling salesman of the shady kind because who knows where he gets these things. He pulled a guy off the street, brought him into the hallway and sold him a “brand new” iphone right outside my door. He’s very violent, belligerent and he’s so incredibly loud. I hear him screaming all the time, whether he’s happy or upset. He’s unbalanced and lives every moment like it’s his last… but in a bad way.

Now as for me I’ve been trying really hard to not get involved, AT ALL. I’m not talking to anybody, I don’t want to see anybody and I’m not going to go out in the hallway to politely ask a guy who was bragging on the phone about his arrest to a friend, how he spit on all the police officers and told them repeatedly to suck his dick. I’m not asking a guy who was so proud that he had to be restrained in a special chair at the police station, to please be considerate of other people in the building. After listening to this guy for a few weeks, I have a pretty good idea of how that conversation would go. He’d be defiant, insulting and probably try to fight me, because how dare I step up to him like that, and then in a face to face, disrespectful situation like that I’m afraid of what I might do. I don’t want anyone to die, not me, not someone else. I just want to be a tenant in a building occupied by rational, respectful ADULTS, not a target, or someone who has to buy a gun so I can leave my apartment. I’m not going there. I have enough darkness in my life.

So I’ve been compiling every incident in a journal with dates and times. When I paid my rent earlier this week I thought about handing it in to the management but something told me it wasn’t quite time yet. Frankly, part of me was concerned that they’d knew it was me who blew them in and you know the code of the streets, snitches get stitches. Again, I don’t want to be a target. I’ve been having these internal arguments where I want to report on all of it, the owners should know what’s going on in their building and I shouldn’t have to deal this shit but at the same time, I’m waiting for the right time to do it, you now, trying to pick my spot.

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine and when she asked me about the building situation I told her I’m trying to stay out of it and be patient because these people are too volatile, the situation is too crazy to last long term. You’ve got essentially a very stupid girl renting the apartment who doesn’t have a job and whose child doesn’t live with her. Then you have another female staying there, and their 2 boyfriends who appear to know each other. The psycho guy comes and goes. I heard him talking in the hallway on the phone to one of his “bitches” so I think he has other girls to party with and other places to stay but the other guy, who dates apartment girl’s friend, well he’s been living here, pretty much since the disturbances started 3 weeks ago. He’s the asshole who smokes in the hallway and is the reason I sealed my doors so that the smoke couldn’t get in my place.

Last night, that guy might have taken himself out of the equation. Around 10:30 last night, the girl who’s been staying in apartment 9 the last few weeks ran out into the hallway. She was basically right outside my door and she screamed; “That’s it! You put your hands on me and now I’m calling the cops!” the guy followed out into the hallway and this started basically a literally half hour screaming match up and down the stairs and out in front of the building where the guy was basically telling her to “suck his dick”, calling her a “crazy bitch” and making sure she understood that “I’m not fucking with you anymore anyway”. She kept screaming about how she was going to call the police and how he was going to pay for putting his hands on her. So yes, for half an hour they just went back and forth, up and down the steps and not only was I not going to get involved but I had a smirk on my face. I couldn’t wait for the police to arrive. Yes, I had some compassion for the female, but these people have been making my life a hell for weeks, waking me up constantly, partying every night, making it hard for me to get to sleep, making me feel unsafe in my own place, so my satisfaction that this drama was unfolding was a guiltless satisfaction. It’s hard for me to feel sympathy for people who treat me with disrespect and who continue to make terrible choices. I’d help anyone in a normal situation but this wasn’t a normal situation. These people need help beyond the means of which I can provide… and they were about to get it.

When 2 vehicles pulled up to the house I was surprised. It wasn’t the police but the parents/relatives of the girl who was assaulted. By this time, the argument had moved back inside of apartment 9. Two people, who didn’t actually “live” in apartment 9 were trying to tell the other to move out and leave. I thought, well this is going to get interesting. Within a minute I heard a man screaming that he was going to knock the attacker out, but the abuser was defiant. He wouldn’t let go of the girl’s arm. From what I can tell there was some pushing and shoving, many threats back and forth and I heard a little bit of wrestling or contact in the hall. Then I heard the father say something about the abuser having a gun. Oh boy. Yes, that’s when I decided it would be a good idea to grab my phone and lay flat on the floor. I’m not trying to get shot over some other’s people’s crazy shit. Before I could call the police, someone in the hall did. The father decided at this point not to try to throw the guy out but to instead get his daughter out of Dodge. They made it down to the downstairs door and the street and were trying to leave to wait for the police but the abuser would not release the girl’s arm. A tug of war was underway.

Suddenly a police car came flying up, stopped in the middle of the street and the abuser released her arm and ran up the driveway beside my building. The police gave chase. Perhaps if he had taken out the trash at all in the last 3 or so weeks he might have known that the driveway leads to a little parking lot behind the restaurant next door but there’s no way out, There were 5 foot concrete walls, with tall fences on top of them. A minute or so later the police emerged with him, shackled him up and threw him in the car; all the while he was screaming and freaking out, not unlike the other crazy guy who was arrested almost 2 weeks ago. Other police cars arrived on the scene and although there weren’t as many as there were last week (6), there were quite a few and once again, another crazy guy was being taken to jail. I couldn’t help but feel joy over this. I thought, wow not only did they get all their drama finished this time before midnight; also now it’s going to be sooo quiet tonight. Maybe I’ll even be able to enjoy the Super Bowl in peace this weekend. I went to bed relaxed and peaceful. Perhaps this situation is working itself out after all. But I also think it may be time to turn in my incident journal to management on Monday.

p.s. As I was getting ready to post this, the girl who was attacked last night showed up alone and collected all of her clothes and belongings, like 5 garbage bags full. I guess she’s moving out. This is a positive sign. Because if she’s moving out there a lot less chance that the attacker from last night will be moving back in when he gets out of jail. 

"Sex Dreams" (this blog is rated PG-13) 2-2-17

I don’t remember much from my dreams. Sometimes I go for weeks without remembering a single one. The only time I tend to really retain anything from them is when my sleep is choppy or if I oversleep and with my apartment building being an annoying and noisy place lately, going to sleep has been tough and getting 7-8 uninterrupted hours of sleep has been virtually impossible. The result is I’ve been getting to sleep late, oversleeping, shutting off my alarm and then waking up 1-2 hours later. It’s frustrating but if there was one silver lining, yes I always try to find one, it’s that I’ve been remembering my dreams during these oversleep and intermittent sleep sessions and now I have some questions. 

First understand, my dreams aren’t too far out and it's probably a direct result of who I am. There’s far more substance in my dreams, more conversations than flash. There are no plaid unicorns, flying cars or far-away worlds. My dreams are like independent films, sometimes even sit-coms, but generally they just seem like an extension of real life. They feature people I know, people I want to know and sometimes people I don’t want to know but have seen somewhere. They are probably pretty boring to anyone other than myself. Actually my daydreams are far more abstract, vivid and exciting but of course I have a little more conscious control over those.

In last night’s dream I was talking with a local performer who I’d never really had a conversation with but admired from afar. We met at an Allentown bar, hit it off immediately (gotta love dreams) and we had a lot in common. We talked politics, music, film, pop culture, philosophy… a wide range of topics. We talked for hours but it seemed like 20 minutes which is always a good sign. We became very flirty and playful. I noticed that something I said made her ever so gently lick her lips. There was a look in her eye and it was unmistakable. I can only imagine the vibe I was giving off. Sparks were in the air. I went in and we kissed, passionately, for a significant period of time like two long lost lovers who were recently reunited after an eternity apart. It was powerful. When we finally loosened our lips we both agreed that we wanted to continue our conversation elsewhere, somewhere more private.

We went back to my place and she started going through my things, my book, movie and poetry collections, all while being so devilishly sexy. Just when I thought I couldn’t be into her any more, she’d say insightful things about a film in my collection that raised the ceiling. She was amazing! Eventually we sat together on the bed and proceeded to make out again except this time, our hands began exploring. If the windows in my cozy place weren’t fogged up, I would have been surprised. In a very sultry manner she began to remove her shirt and before I knew it… we were both lying next to each other, a little sweaty, both pleased at what transpired. It was getting very late but we couldn’t even think about tomorrow because we were too busy living in that moment, in that room, in that bed. The passion was still palpable despite the fact that the explosions were over and the tide had settled down. It was like we had finished in one sense but at the same time, we were just beginning. As if a sudden itch struck me, I had the strangest feeling that something was missing…

This is what happens in every one of my “sex dreams”. There’s a pretty big lack of sex in them. I’ve never remembered a single dream where I’ve ever engaged in sex or experienced an orgasm. I find it hard to remember a dream where there was even any nudity. Even this last one, when we cut from making out to lying on the bed beside each other, the perspective was from the neck up but there was a first. For the first time in the dream itself, I wondered why I couldn't remember having sex. Maybe that's why I thought the same thing when I woke up. Is this normal? Sex without the sex? I’m wondering why this is. I dream about interactions with females constantly, or at least constantly in the dreams I can recall. We talk and talk and talk and if things progress to a romantic level the dream basically fades to black at the onset of skintimacy and then comes back from the commercial break edit with the aftermath. And when it comes to the aftermath, cue the intimate conversation. This begs the question; is my dream sex-life a made for TV movie? Why the lack of sex? I’m not religious. Do I think about sex enough during my waking hours that I filled my quota? Does this occur because I value the emotional or intellectual connection more than the physical one? I have a very high sex drive but an even higher standard of emotional connection. Does this play a role?

I’ve never thought about it until this morning. I woke up feeling like I spent the most incredible evening with this woman but I don’t remember a “lick” of it. When it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember the sex parts it strangely made sense... I NEVER remember the sex parts, the naked time, the sweaty Eddie and sexy lady time. Why is this? Is it me? I guess it has to be, right? But I want to know, does this happen to other people too or am I some subconsciously repressed weirdo? I’m looking at this now more from curiosity than fulfilling my lusty desires. Besides, it’s not like I’m actually getting sex out of this either way. But why does it seem like my conscious mind has a greater imagination than my subconscious one? Perhaps the really crazy, the really creative dreams are those ones I can never remember. So I pose this question to those of you who have a similar thing going on or those of you who have a better understanding of dreams than I do… why are my sex dreams PG-13?  

The girl down the hall... (1/24/17)

If I go by just the location and the space, I'm satisfied with my apartment. But unfortunately there’s more to it than that. Some of my neighbors are real disrespectful idiots and assholes. The person who blasted the music at nightclub levels in December has been cool since I wrote that note asking them to please think of the others who live there. But now there’s a new menace; the girl down the hall. She is something straight out of Springer or Maury, who’s in her mid-20’s but speaks like a 15-year old. She has a 5 or 6 year old daughter who I’ve never seen because she doesn’t live with her mom. I also know this girl was in jail not too long ago because I overheard, through the thin walls of my building, one of her friends saying how the guy she was seeing at the time cheated on her while she was in jail. That’s a shame. All that said, things have been okay until she hooked up with this crazy dude last week. 

Every night since there's 4-6 people over at her place in the evening and partying til whenever. Now thankfully she doesn't really have a stereo so there isn't much noise from the apartment itself but do you know that feeling you have when you know bad people are nearby? It’s discomforting and you just wonder what bad thing is going to happen and it’s a question of when instead of if. The biggest problem I have is that they have to pass by my apartment to get to the stairs and door to come in or go outside and they aren't real polite about it. The first night they partied on a weeknight until well after 2. Again the noise didn't bother me until people started going in and out passing by my door having conversations at full volume or even yelling at each other like freaking high schoolers. They woke me up at least once that night. I wrote down the specifics of what happened in a journal I am keeping of incidents. The next night they smoked so much weed they set off the smoke detectors at 12:42am. Thankfully I hadn't gone to bed yet but it still startled the crap out of me and I by the time I went out into the hall to check on it, they had taken the battery out or something because it had stopped but I heard them discussing why the alarm went off. The next few days they partied at night but it wasn't anything too terrible outside of a few angry screaming matches at reasonable times and some smoking in the hall/stairway. You know how it is with the Springer/Maury crowd… one minute they love each other more than anything that ever existed, the next they are screaming bloody murder at one another and need to be pulled apart. So I’m trying to play this cool and let this thing go away on its own. 

Last night, it kinda did although it was an escalation. Apparently the boyfriend was out in front of my building trying to badger people into giving him money. He screamed at and told a fellow beggar who passed by to suck his d***. He then, from what I can tell, went to the bar a few buildings over, started some shit and could be heard out on the sidewalk, once again in front of my building telling some people from the bar to suck his **** repeatedly as well as threatening anyone who had to say anything to him or came near him. Honestly, I hoped some people from the bar would shut this guy up. Finally for a few minutes things were quiet until 4 police cars came flying up the street and parked outside my building. Turns out the douche went across the street to Walgreens. That’s why it was quiet for a few moments. A few more police cars showed up. The police went in there and arrested the belligerent fool. I have to tell you. I don’t even know if the neighbor girl knew he was arrested because my apartment is the only one facing the street. She wouldn’t have seen the lights. But let me tell you, things were so quiet after that. It was wonderful. It was kind of like how it was before the girl started seeing this guy. Because when it's just her and her usual friends/family, they're actually not bad at all. Now all I'm doing is keeping my journal of everything that's going on and trying not to get directly involved in the drama, because hey, you really don't want to get into that stuff right where you live. Besides, with this girl's dating history from what I hear in the hallway, the chances are really good that this guy won't last too long. Oh and did I mention she's 3 months pregnant too? I want to try real hard not to judge, but damn these people suck. Welcome to my nightmare. I only have 9 months left on my lease. 

the failure of Obama and the Democrats... (1-19-17)

Now that we are on the eve of the apocalypse, or Trump’s inauguration for those of you who aren’t political, can we now look at things clearly? Because we cannot continue to look at the world through rose-colored glasses or behind veils of denial any longer. The stakes have simply gotten too high. All I keep hearing lately is about how much people are going to miss President Obama. Ask the people of Yemen how much they’ll miss him between bombings. While you’re at it, ask pretty much any country in that region and you might not get the sentimental rhetoric we’re hearing from many Americans this week. Let’s be honest, a lot of that sentiment is a direct result of the stark contrast in personalities between Mr. Obama and the guy coming in next. Because of Trump and how he is, it makes Obama seem like he’s more than he is and to me he’s far less than that, politically speaking.

We can talk about Barack Obama’s wonderful exit speech last week but in reality I tuned him out a while back. I voted for him twice, one time enthusiastically (2008) and one time reluctantly (2012). The fact of the matter is I’ve never been more disappointed in a politician in my lifetime, partly because I feel like I was duped by him, since his message of hope and his many promises were never kept and partly because he himself set the bar incredibly high and failed to live up to it. He didn’t even come close. Yes he’s classy, extremely intelligent, an amazing orator, has a great temperament and he even seems like a cool dude, but as a president he’s failed miserably to deliver the hope and change he promised and had us believing he’d deliver. For the most part, he’s just delivered more of the same. Slightly better than George W. Bush wasn't what we signed up for. Why else would the nation feel like change was needed again? Think back to January 2009 when Obama was inaugurated… do you feel more hopeful now than on that day? Do you feel like the things that needed to change have changed? I feel like in some ways we are worse now because progress wasn't made. Yes I have health insurance, but since they didn’t go with a public option and kept private insurance companies involved, Obamacare hasn’t been as efficient or as effective as advertised, leaving the door open for extreme criticism from the other side and from those whose premiums keep going up. Yes it’s been a godsend for some, myself included but this year, instead of having several choices for which insurance I want, there was only 1 choice to “choose” from in the “marketplace”. The private insurance companies weren’t seeing enough profits through Obamacare so some of them took their ball and went home. There are many flaws in the ACA and now instead of fixing them and improving the imperfect but necessary program I fear the entire system will get discarded by the Republicans and IF it’s replaced at all, it will likely be replaced with some bogus voucher program that they’ve been talking about for the last 8 years that nobody but they and their business buddies want. Speaking of them, income inequality in this country is worse than it’s been since the 1920’s. This did not improve during Obama’s 2 terms. Major companies continue to merge into supercompanies and rich people still buy elections. Not a single crook who helped to destroy our economy before Obama's arrival did any jail time despite their business model being nothing more than fraud... are you kidding me?!? Civil Rights and voting rights seem to be evaporating every year in favor of increased rights and power for the corporate sector and the oligarchs. Crooked corporations were bailed out and are now stronger than they were before the recession but nearly half of Americans live in poverty. When do the people get bailed out? In a lot of ways, things are worse than they were in 2008. Why else would there be such a backlash in the form of Trump?

Fact: Obama is the first president EVER to have troops at war somewhere in the world for an entire 8-year presidency. Why? Remind me why we're doing it again? What are we fighting for? Why are we still there? Why are we constantly trying to topple regimes? Why are we so upset that other countries are trying to meddle in our elections? We’ve been doing it for decades! Perhaps the attempts to undermine our democracy have occurred as a direct consequence of our thirst for imperialism and our continued attempts to rule the world like some power hungry red, white and blue global dictator. Since the events of 9/11 and subsequent response we have been at perpetual war over in the Middle East. In 2 months we’re coming up on the 14^th anniversary of the United States having troops over there. You think all that war and fighting and arming of rebels is cheap? All those trillions used to fight abroad to protect the rich man’s lies and the rich man’s oil interests could have been used to provide public college and health care to citizens and there would have been plenty left over to modernize and repair our crumbling infrastructure. Notice I didn’t say “free” college or “free” health care. It’s time to drop that tired narrative. If you are a citizen of this country you have rights and you absolutely deserve certain things, especially from the richest country in the history of this world. Other major countries do this without issue and strangely their health care systems are more efficient and far less costly than others, hmmm. When you privatize the crap out of what should be essential systems and programs, all you are doing is creating a systemic division between haves and have nots, splitting up citizens in the name of profit. In terms of spending for the greater good, other countries see this as a moral obligation to their citizens; ours sees it as radical fantasy, a pipe dream while they dream about more pipelines. The fact of the matter is that trillions of “our” dollars have inexplicably been spent on things other than US, for terrible reasons and with many Americans dying both here and abroad as a result. Why people aren’t more up in arms over this when cities don’t have clean drinking water and several places suffer the effects of an antiquated infrastructure is beyond me. The naked truth is that our leadership has failed us, the Democrats especially. I blame the Democrats more than the Republicans because we know what we’re getting from the Republicans. They don’t hide it. Their playbook for several decades is to make the rich richer, privatize everything, worship golden idols, shrink social domestic spending, bloat military spending, tell everyone else what to do and piss on the poor. That’s trickle-down economics folks. We’ve already proven it doesn’t work. We’ve already proven that Republicans by and large do not do things with the best interests of everyone in mind, just the chosen few. Fighting for the rest of us was supposed to be the Democrats job. And don’t get me wrong, they still claim that they do this, but sadly their actions in recent years show otherwise and the results are telling. See the recent election trends for proof. Again, if Obama was so good, why have we gone in such a drastic, opposite direction? People are hurting, they're scared and they feel like no one is there for them so when a sleazy con man with no morals actually speaks to them and pretends to share the same values, the people are so happy that someone is actually speaking to them and for them that they'll overlook his historic flaws and come together in support of their new paper champion. You have to remember that values unite people while issues divide. If you speak to people's values, you can win. And win they did leaving the Democratic Party searching for answers. 

Let’s face it, the Democratic party is in trouble, big trouble. This is nothing new, but Trump may have been the coup de grace. We can talk about Gerrymandering, fake news, voter suppression, the so called liberal media and all this stuff but I saw a statistic recently that there are only 4 states in the entire country that have a democratic governor AND democratic state legislature. ONLY 4! That means in 46 states Republicans have control of one or both! That’s not winning folks. Do you remember in 2012 when Romney lost and the popular narrative was that the Republicans were out of touch with voters and regular people? That’s a half truth because BOTH parties are out of touch, clearly listening more to the money and the elites in their parties rather than the people. It’s taken a while but I think we’re starting to notice, hence the incredible popularity of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump last year. One party establishment was just better at squashing their populist “outbreak”. While they succeeded in beating back the challenge of Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement he represents the Democrats have failed in almost every other endeavor. In fact, I think it’s safe to say the Democratic party is now a joke, but they don’t get it. Don’t believe me? In 2009 when Obama took office, there were 10 more Democratic Governors, 70 more Democratic representatives in the House and several more Democratic senators. In all the Democrats have lost over 900 federal and state seats since Obama was sworn in. What we have right now is the greatest concentration of Republican power since the time of Lincoln! If you want to go even further, if you eliminate the votes of the 2 biggest coastal states, California and New York, both of which are decidedly blue, Trump beat Hillary by over 3 million votes in the popular vote of the remaining 48. They can point fingers and cast blame all they want but the reality is that the Democrats simply have lost the people. How else could you explain such results? The party’s handpicked successor represented more of the same and in a country with an enormous appetite for change, it says a lot that the people would rather choose a rich celebrity with no experience over a highly qualified but deeply flawed candidate who represented the worst of the party when it came to corporate connections and who lacked a real message. Trump and Sanders had strong messages that resonated with the people. We can debate how authentic that message was when it comes to Trump but he was smart enough to tell the people what they wanted to hear in a way that made them believe him. He spoke to the people while Democrats spoke at them. Try as the tone-deaf Democrats could, even with President Obama strongly behind Hillary Clinton, the fractured, fallen party could not beat arguably the worst candidate in history. Think about that. For something that unbelievable to happen I think it’s safe to say that the party was not and is not in tune with the people. Instead of blaming millennials, the Russians, Wikileaks, Bernie or busters, racists, white men, Faux News or whatever, just stop. Stop and think about what’s happened, be honest about why it did and fix it Democrats. If you refuse to accept this responsibility one of 2 things will happen: a grassroots fight for a 3^rd major party could be on the way that will further weaken the Dems or the Republicans will earn even more seats in the near future so that their majority will become so lopsided that the Bill of Rights and many of our other freedoms might be at risk! It's hard to swallow but what’s done is done. The Democratic establishment has no one to blame but themselves for losing their way but what we need now is a dramatic reversal before it's too late. We can't go to them, they must come back to us.

Now that we are in President Obama’s final moments it’s natural to look back, reflect, take account of what was, what is and what could have been. I’m going to look back at Barack Obama as an incredibly historic but failed president, who could have been one of the greatest of all time but instead presided over the potential death of the Democratic Party as we know it and because he and they have failed us, we are looking into the teeth of the beast. 

The power of the dark side (12-28-16)

I could have been seriously hurt or worse today. This morning, I came downstairs to go to work. I went to the bike rack in front of the house and my bike wasn't the only one locked up. There was the yellow mongoose that I hadn't seen for weeks locked up on the other side of the rack. When I first moved into my apartment about 2 months ago, that yellow mongoose was locked up to the rack all the time, every night. I assumed it was someone who lived in my building. A few weeks ago it disappeared. I figured the person who owned it brought it inside due to the weather, same as I did a few weeks ago. When the weather improved at the end of last week and the snow started to melt away, I brought my bike out again and have been using it pretty much since Friday.

So I unlocked my bike but before I got on it to ride off I noticed something. The quick release handle to lock the back tire in place was open. I took a closer look and someone had nearly completely loosened my back tire. I say nearly because if they had loosened it completely the nuts and bolts would have fallen out/off. Also the back tire wasn’t in the fork on one side. Intense anger started coursing through me, someone sabotaged my bike! Were they hoping I would have just gotten on, tried to pedal and do a brutal faceplant? I was fortunate I noticed it was tampered with. Once I re-aligned the back tire and tightened it, I begin my ride to work. I was seething. If only I had caught the person doing it. I would have beat them to an inch of their life. How dare they!

I got about a half block down, barely able to focus on what I was doing when I looked down and my mouth hung open. The handle on my front tire was open and that tire was loosened too! And I’ve been riding for a half block on it! I stopped immediately. In my anger I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to check other parts of the bike before departing. Thankfully I hadn’t made and turns or sudden movements. I was just coasting that half block. Again, the tire was loosened but not all the way where the nuts would have fallen off. The person who did this knew something about bikes. I tightened the front tire, checked everything else on the bike and then finally made my way into work.

Although at first I thought it might have been one of the drunk people coming out of the bar next to my building late last night, the precision in which this was done makes me think the person who did this knows their way around a bike. They knew just how to sabotage it to make it less noticeable. They had a working knowledge of quick release bike tires. The anger had me throbbing. I would never do that to someone else, why would someone do that to me? Because my bike was there? Truth is… they wanted me to crash. They wanted me to get hurt. Now I BADLY want to know who did it.

I’m a loving person. There is a lot of light within me but much like the course of a day, there is also night. I have a dark side. I do my best to hide it, to suppress it, to keep the nights short but external forces pull it out from time to time. I am afraid of it. I’m afraid one day it will get completely loose. There is so much rage and anger inside of me for all those times I let people get away with rotten things. For all those times I had every right to be upset but I fought back the urge to lash out, explode, seek revenge or retribution and took the high road. It’s all stored within me. I’ve never forgotten a person who wronged me or whose injustice was never answered for. People say; you have to learn to let it go. If it were only that easy. Tell Batman to let it go. Tell an elephant to let it go. I remember emotion easier than anything else. I’ve been thinking about this, stewing about this all day. Why would someone want to sabotage my bike? If someone did this to another person’s car, it would be a felony wouldn’t it? Attempted assault! Who would have a motive to hurt me?

I’ve barely spoken to the people in my building and the nearby ones. As usual, I’m not friendly but I am nice. I’ve held doors for people; I’ve helped carry things for others. I’ve even redistributed the mail and given people theirs when the post office mixes it up. I don’t know and haven’t seen everyone in my building, just the 2 neighbors closest to me on my side of it. On the other side of the building are 3 more apartments, including apartment number 10. In case you didn’t read my post the other day, I had a problem with some neighbors blasting music that was almost at nightclub-like levels. I left an anonymous note outside their door mentioning how I thought the music was really loud and asked them to “please consider your neighbors”. I hand wrote the note and didn’t think anything of it. But outside of my apartment door I have something written on it. It didn’t occur to me until a few minutes ago that the handwriting would obviously match and I wrote both in cursive and both with the same black sharpie. If someone was wondering which neighbor wrote the note, it’s probably not a tough thing to figure out. So that makes me wonder, was this payback for the note? That’s kind of thin but I can’t think of anyone else who would want to sabotage my bike. I’ve never seen who lives in apartment 10 nor do I know who owns the yellow mongoose bike outside locked up next to mine. Is it a coincidence that someone with bike knowledge disabled my bike when a bike I hadn’t seen for a long time reappeared next to mine? Maybe it was a drunk from the bar. That, in fact might be the best case scenario. If someone who lives in my building is so petty that they tried to take me out like that, I don’t think I’ll be in that apartment too long.

I was going to bring my bike into the apartment tonight anyway because some snow is supposed to return tomorrow but man I can’t stop thinking about it. This isn’t good for my high blood pressure. This isn’t good to keep my darkness at bay. This just isn’t good. Most likely this person will get away with it and all I can do or say is feel fortunate that I caught everything before I crashed in traffic and was hurt or even killed. The world is a fucked up place. People seem worse than ever, at least in my lifetime. I try to keep my head down, never bother anyone, never hurt a soul, help when I can but I cannot expect the same from everyone else. I cannot expect people to treat me as I would treat them. I cannot reconcile this anger that is brewing… and my patience is running out.