Battle Lines

It would seem that the Nameless Roommate and I have re-entered the battlefield. That’s just great. I just love walking on eggshells in my own home.

The difference between this fight and the last fight is that I’m deciding not to deal with it. The last time we went through this I was apologetic and open for communication. I wanted to face it head on, fix it, and move on. This time, however, I frankly don’t give a shit. If she wants it resolved (I don’t think she does), then she’ll have to put forth the effort. Until then I’ll continue to be the roommate who pretends to live alone.

Let me lay out what this means, exactly. This means when I come home from work early in the morning, I’ll clean up any messes that are the direct result of me. While doing any dishes that are mine in the sink, I’ll make sure to bang the pots together loudly. When I’m digging cleaning products out from under the sink, I’ll slam the cabinet doors shut. When scooping the litter box, I’ll dig and dig and dig loudly around the bottom of it until I have every last clump out of there. I’ll clean my room and vacuum thoroughly (especially by the door that connects the two bedrooms. I won't worry about waking her up, as I'm sure vampires sleep soundly.

When I’m in the common living space, and she walks into the room I pretend I don’t see her, hear her or feel her presence. She does the same. I let her mess accumulate until I can’t stand it, then I pick it up and pile it outside her bedroom door in hopes that she’ll step on it and pick it up. This includes any empty cups or soda cans, empty cigarette boxes, wrappers left strewn by the computer, old fast food bags and cups, and the dog crap her dog left on the floor that she neglected to remove.

Oh, and if her boyfriend doesn’t quit leaving the toilet seat up, I will speak up about it. But it will be an announcement (if we had an intercom that would be great) along the lines of, "I don’t live with a man. I live with a woman. If men visitors cannot put the toilet seat down, then the female occupants of the apartment need to check behind them to make sure it is done." By the way, Dave has spent the night several times and he’s never left the toilet seat up. It’s nice to know I can pick a guy I don’t have to clean up after.

What the fight started over, to me, is stupid. I spilled a soda in her car when I swerved to miss a jackass on the railroad tracks. I told her about it. I apologized. I even offered to pay for carpet cleaning materials and to clean up the mess. She took her keys back.

I don’t have a car. I moved in with her because she had nowhere to go when her ex kicked her out on her ass. The agreement was that I got to use her car for work and errands. It would seem that she’s gone back on that word.

So I am living with somebody who doesn’t keep promises. Essentially I’m living with somebody I can’t trust. I can’t believe anything she says.

The family downstairs is getting fed up with her, too. Her dogs shit in the backyard, and she doesn’t pick it up. In the lease it says they are responsible for maintaining the yard, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to mow over piles of dog shit. But, hey, if she can’t even clean it up off the carpet inside the house, what makes you think she’ll clean it up out of the yard?

The piles of shit in the back yard aren’t the only complaints they have. Her new boyfriend and her have a lot of sex. Good for them. At least one of us is having a lot of sex. But she does it loudly with lots of banging. The little kids downstairs can hear this, as can the pregnant woman who’s been ordered to bed rest. She’s politely told her that she can hear everything they’re doing, and perhaps they’d like to keep it down when it’s late at night. The nameless roommate usually responds sympathetically and promises she'll keep it down only to return in full force even louder the next night. The result of this has knocked pictures off the walls downstairs and has caused the pregnant woman to become enraged with anger. The last time she confronter her, the nameless roommate claimed she wasn't even home that night. So she likes to lie, evidently.

Nobody’s telling her to stop having sex, just stop doing it so loudly so late at night. You know... it’s a respect issue (and she seems to know a lot about respect because she won’t shut up about how I've disrespected her car).

The solution, to me, is simple. Grow up. Take responsibility for your actions and your pets. And quit blaming everybody around you just because you can’t control everything around you. Oh, and maybe get your head examined... I'm starting to think you're crazy. And honestly, I don't know how long I can live with crazy before I kick crazy out.

The Return of Nola

Imagine the loudest friend you have. Imagine the most inappropriate friend you have. Imagine the most promiscuous friend you have. And also imagine the one friend you’ve seen naked most frequently. Roll all those into one and you have Nola.

I’ve known Nola as long as I’ve known my other friends (Julie, Felix, Nameless Roommate, Laura, Jenn.. the whole gang). The only difference between Nola and the rest is that I haven’t spoken to Nola in over a year. Well, I didn’t speak to her until last week, that is.

In true Nola fashion, she popped back into my life out of the blue. After a hiatus because of something I wrote about her on a blog (gasp), Nola decided to return as if she weren’t ever angry at me. The blog was a mirror... a mirror she didn’t want to look into. She didn’t like seeing the truth spelled out for her (as most people don’t).

Nola used to live with me. Back when I lived in a sprawling metropolis (my one attempt at city life), Nola, her boyfriend at the time, and I co-habitated together. Things ended badly when she tried to pawn my cat off to somebody else while I wasn’t home one day. Screaming ensued, and, like most fights, it wasn’t just about the cat. I moved out that night at 3 o’clock in the morning. We didn’t speak for three months until her boyfriend broke up with her (called it) and she came back home to small town life.

Once upon a time Nola was the life of the party. She was known for wearing her bra on her head and flashing her tits for everybody to see. She went through a spell where she swore she was a lesbian (or at least bi-sexual), but I think she only said that so she could sleep with women and not count them in her total number of people she’s fucked. She was always the drunkest, the loudest and the most emotionally disturbed member of the social crowd. And every time she moved away (lost count), she left a dent in the dynamic of the group.

Julie never liked her (shocker), and Jenn didn’t care much for her either. Laura loved her and still does. Felix thought she was awesome but could only handle her in small doses. Most people can only handle her in small doses.

If you’re going to hang out with Nola, there’s a few things you need to be prepared for. First of all, you’ll learn WAY too much about her sex life, her former sex life and her fantasies. Second of all she’ll reveal too much about her home life. She’ll tell you about her financial situation, as well. She’s an open book. Really, she’s an open book on tape and you’ll hear it read out loud whether you want to or not.

She’s funny, though. She always has me laughing. We feed off of each other’s energies, and sometimes the funny comebacks turn into bitchy squabbling. From an outsider’s point of view we look like two bitches going at it, but we both know when it’s joking and when it’s serious. And when it’s serious, look out. Hiroshima had nothing on us.

During our hour long conversation last week, she told me a few things that shocked me. For one, she’s engaged. Her days of sleeping around are over, it seems. Two, she’s in AA. She’s been sober for a year and a half. Her days of wearing her bra on her head are also over, it seems. Three, she’s forgiven me for writing that blog about her (just wait until she hears about this one... shut up, Laura). She supports my idea of writing a book about my friends, but she wants to make sure I clear it with her before I publish anything about her. I hope I can stick to that.

All in all, I’ve missed her presence in my life, but I’m leery about letting her in again. It seems she’s cleaned up her act, but back in the day she was on a path of destruction. I guess she finally got tired of destroying herself.