GRACIE NO!

I live in a four-apartment building that shares a common driveway and carport with another building with six apartments. Our bedroom has a balcony with a sliding glass door that faces the studio apartments across the driveway and, as you can imagine, sound carries pretty well from one end to the other. Over the years, we have had a rotation of interesting occupants across the way.

One girl, who has lived there for a while, I shall call Questionable Taste In Music Girl. I have often caught her, at 1 in the morning, sitting at her computer, smoking pot with the blinds open and singing loudly to Whitney Houston. A few weeks ago it was “P.Y.T.” by Michael Jackson. You can shout and shout across the driveway for her to turn down the music, but she won’t hear you.

To her right, immediately facing our balcony, there is a unit with far more frequent turnover. Since living here, I believe at least 6 different people have occupied that apartment. One rode a Segway around town and listened to bad 60s folk. Another, whom I shall call White Power Bill, owned an English bulldog, listened to charming white-supremacist nu metal, had a red, black and pewter COAT OF ARMS hanging on the wall outside, and decorated the inside of his apartment with a painting of a rough-looking topless woman and a leg lamp like the one from A Christmas Story. But even White Power Bill was not so annoying as the latest woman to move in.

I have no idea what this woman’s name is, but I’m already well acquainted with her dog, Gracie. That’s because, as far as I can tell, all this woman does is sit on her porch, smoking and drinking beer (there are over 40 bottles on the porch) and yelling at her dog, who yips in protest.

“NO GRACIE! GRACIE NO! NO! STOP IT GRACIE! GRACIE? NO.”

yip yip!

“GRACIE? NO! GRACIE STOP THAT. GRACIE NO. NO GRACIE!”

yip!

Andrew has taken to doing this incredibly uncanny impression of the woman, which gives me the giggle fits and all, but I really want this woman out of my line of site and earshot. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to write or read a 1,000-page novel while this woman and her apparently poorly trained little mutt spend all day on the balcony arguing with each other.

Luckily for me, with the turnover in that place, she’ll be gone soon.

The Man Cave – Update

Andrew is slowly but surely reducing the amount of clutter in the Man Cave, but man, it’s been like an archaeological dig in there, with fossilized nerd memorabilia from the Paleonineties epoch. He found POGS, people. Like, in plastic, protective binder sleeves. Other humorous finds include a book about farts and a bumper sticker that says “Chucky Did It.” When pressed about each of these items, Andrew claimed he had no idea why he had them. I believe him, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t more than a little appalled at what’s being unearthed in there.

I am unbelievably grateful for Craigslist in all of this, yet kind of amazed at what people will and won’t buy. Andrew was sure the baseball card lot he put up would be the last thing to sell, yet it was the second thing to go, before a beautiful guitar and an elliptical trainer. One man’s trash, I guess.

I actually don’t want to sell either the guitar or the elliptical, but we don’t have room for the latter, and I don’t have time to learn how to play the guitar. I’m still not sure I’ll sell the guitar, to be honest. It was a gift from my parents, and I adore it. I just am not a very good musician, it turns out, except on Rock Band, where I’m kind of a big deal. On the drums. Maybe I should get drums! Wait, didn’t I just say I don’t have room for all our stuff?

Despite the progress, there is still a long way to go. Your continued prayers will not go unappreciated.

The Enchanted Man Cave

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a boy and girl fell in love. They spent so much time at each other’s respective apartments, that their respective roommates were like, “OMG why don’t you just move in together?” And the two love birds were like, “OMG, you’re right!”

And so they did. They found a reasonably cute, reasonably sized, two-bedroom apartment close to the downtown area and combined the contents of their two households. But there was one small problem. The boy half of this couple had boxes and boxes of things, boxes which hadn’t been opened since he haphazardly packed them when he moved out of his parents’ house. There they stood, a fortress of sealed boxes, their exact contents unknown. Now, rather than go through these mystery boxes and sort out the treasure from the rubbish, the boy put the boxes into a moving van, where they were dropped off into the spare room the boy and girl had decided, as they mapped out their life together there, would be an office and exercise room.

There they sat, the lonely boxes. They sat through a summer, a winter, a marriage proposal, a wedding, and two anniversaries of said wedding. In those three years, maybe a third of the boxes had been dealt with, if the girl was to be generous. However, the boy appeared to have placed an enchantment upon the boxes and the room, wherein he would unpack one box and sort its contents, yet the room would appear no less cluttered than before! While the imagined purposes of the room were technically achievable—there was indeed an elliptical trainer and a desk in there— the room was so cluttered with the boy’s belongings that it has really become the Enchanted Man Cave, where the boy would go to do boy things like play video games and (probably) look at porn on the internet (the girl does not pry much into the intimate affairs of the boy when he is in the Enchanted Man Cave).

All seemed lost, and the girl had become resigned to fate, her hopes of a spare room for their mutual enjoyment dashed, until one day, like a beacon, her fairy godsister came upon her and  granted her a magical opportunity. “I am looking for a place to stay for the summer,” the fairy godsister declared, and she offered a handsome sum to the boy and girl in exchange for lodging in the Enchanted Man Cave.

“Oh, fairy godsister, this sounds too good to be true,” quoth the girl, “but I’m afraid the enchantment the boy has placed over the Man Cave has rendered it forever a Man Cave. Alas and alack!” However, after productive conversation with the boy as to the benefits the godsister’s handsome sum would bring to their household, the girl  convinced the boy to lift the enchantment.

The boy and girl are not out of the woods, yet. The spell for lifting the enchantment will require both their efforts and take several days of labor. Even so, they are (okay, she is) determined to lift the spell over the Man Cave, in order to transform it into livable quarters for the girl’s fairy godsister. After two months’ time, foregoing any other enchanted boxes, the room may be repurposed, hopefully into a habitable workspace for both the boy and girl to live happily ever after.

Please wish the girl godspeed.

The Murtaugh List

A few months ago, there was this hilarious episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted makes a list of things he’s too old for called “The Murtaugh List.” The Murtaugh List is named for Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon. Allow me to illustrate:

While 28 is not particularly old, it can often feel pretty ancient when so many of your friends from school are between six and eight years your junior. I didn’t really think there was much of a difference between 22 and 28 until I started running with a gang of 21-22 year olds. Now, with more regularity than I care to admit, I find myself muttering, like Murtaugh, “I’m too old for this shit.”

Because I am a goody two-shoes, this has mostly been made evident this year when I have tried to pull the ol’ all-nighter (which, incidentally, is on Ted’s Murtaugh List as well). Without fail, somewhere around 4 am, I feel like crying, and the next day I’m completely useless. Long gone are the days I could at least pretend to be semi-conscious after an all-nighter. Now I’m lucky if I can make it to the other side of 2 am.

Now that it’s summer, I am learning new things to put on my Murtaugh list. This weekend I went out twice in a row dancing and boozing. It is now Monday and I still feel like a 90-year-old woman with osteoporosis. Yesterday was worse — my feet felt like they would snap off at the ankles if I stood up. What the fuck, I ask you? I’m under 30. Isn’t this what we under 30s are made for?

I am also apparently too old to be unemployed and really enjoy doing nothing all day. I mean, the downtime has been nice and all, but I’m already kind of bored. Thankfully, I’ve made it pretty certain I can keep busy. For one, I have the blogging here and at MamaPop. I’ll also be studying for the GRE starting next week, as I mentioned yesterday, and I might also attempt the LSAT because I’m a freak and I kind of love standardized tests (probably because I’m good at them). Also mentioned yesterday, I will also be participating in Infinite Summer, which is a big internet book club wherein participants read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace from June 21st to August 21st. I’ve read it three times, and I know it shouldn’t actually take me three months to read, but I may go ahead and stick to the 75 pages a week with the others and devote the rest of my reading time to other books in my queue.

So what else is on my Murtaugh List? Well, I’ll tell you:

- eating whatever I want without getting heartburn

- rock shows where the bands don’t start until 10 pm

- Jager Bombs

- MTV

So what’s on your Murtaugh List?

Baby, Please Take Me Back!

Hey baby. I’m back.

Look, I know what you’re gonna say. “Where have you been? You just up and left us without even a note and then you just come back here with your, ‘hey baby’? Hey, fuck your hey baby! And fuck you!” That was what you were gonna say, right? See, I knew it, because you know what? You’re right.

I don’t deserve for you to take me back, my sweet internet. But please believe me when I tell you this:

This time it will be different. I mean it. Look, I know I’ve said that before, but things have changed. I’ve changed.

See, I was going through some stuff this year. I didn’t make time for you like I said I would, but now the school year is over, and I finished my job, and I’m making the time to make you feel special. All summer it’s gonna be just you and me. Well, I mean, mostly.  I also have a bunch of books I plan to read, and I’m doing Infinite Summer and studying for the GRE and maybe the LSAT too. I know that sounds like I’m taking on too much again, baby, but I’ve learned a lot about time management this year.

I swear, internet, I’m gonna make our relationship a priority. I’ll write here every weekday. I’m gonna tell you every day that I love you, because I do, baby, I swear—more than anything.

So, baby, please take me back. I’m nothing without you.