for those of you playing along at home...

i moved.

first friday

tonight i went on a sort of bike ride art gallery crawl in raleigh and at one of the places they thought it would be good if we participated in the artistic process so they gave out lengths of wire which we were supposed to use to make art (it's just like gesture drawing - but with wires! they said) and they told me that the art should be inspired by nature so of course i made a smokestack.

also there was a gallery showcasing this one guy's work that i did not like. he had decided that ironic juxtaposition of dreary images with upbeat slogans was a thing that people had not done even one time before. i kinda felt like i was on the crimethinc website. anyway, the best thing i saw was a painting entitled big daddy owl, which featured what looked like the owl from hitachino labels. you can look at it and disagree with my opinions by going to this place.

crushing

well, it seems that joseph was lying. he, in fact, did know her very well, man, and it's looking increasingly likely that "my tarantula" is what he calls his penis. you see, she and he have, at some point in the past, become intimate. the horror of this situation (and in particular it's progressive aspect) is partially allayed by the sense of catharsis i feel now that i know where the 35 dollars are going. she is a lady of discriminating taste, and so joseph (whose paper route brings in barely enough green to keep vacuum-sealed biscuits on the table) has to borrow money to show her a good time. because no one in the house will lend to him, he has started taking a collection plate with him when he proselytizes on campus. surprisingly, most graduate students and hospital staff are unwilling to pay for sweaty exhortations to join the mormon faith, and so he has resorted to selling his empty food stamp cards to our neighbors and then hiding in his room when they, having discovered his ruse, come by and threaten to shoot him.

i'm not too worried about that though because if he continues to see this girl, he'll be dead long before they can find him. jospeh possesses both the physique and the general demeanor of a more sedentary than average tree sloth. so unhealthy is this man that i believe a sustained erection would prove fatal. i hope, for her sake, that she is cognizant of this, because no series of paid-for meals at wendy's is worth undergoing peine forte et dure.

standing in a septic tank

the ironic detachment which allowed me to endure this place is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. about a week ago, things were disappearing at an unprecedented rate, gosling was caught breaking into a room, and he and joseph combined to kill a roommate's cat. so i issued sandra an ultimatum: if gosling was not gone within the week i was going to file a police report, list her and her husbands as accessories to the thefts, and file for constructive eviction. apparently the possibility of a court appearance was enough to overcome sandra's inertia; she spoke with gosling and he began vacating his room. this was well. this was good.

but as of this morning he has returned. the others have told me that sandra is allowing him to stay because he "already paid for the month." i keep telling myself that i shouldn't be surprised by this, that of course this happened, but i honestly didn't see this coming. i contacted sandra again and told her that gosling's continued presence constituted a violation of her responsibility to provide a habitable apartment and that my original deadline still stood.

so we'll see if i have a place to sleep next week.

diplomacy

today one of my neighbors had some difficulty with his car. i am elated about this because for the past couple of weeks i have had some difficulty with his car. more specifically, i have had difficulty with his car alarm, a malevolent thing whose activation seemed to negatively correlate with that of my overhead light. this, combined with joseph's predilection for blasting foreigner from his car speakers in the early hours, has ensured a state of consistent sleep deprivation. i tried knocking on the door of what i assume is the car owner's apartment so that he and i could have a polite discussion in a measured tone, but he never seemed to be around. after a couple attempts, i considered the general quality of sandra's tenants, concluded that he was incarcerated or strung out in an alley somewhere, and gave up.

but a couple of sleepless nights later, i decided to send the landlord a message about the situation for you know just the hell of it. shockingly, sandra actually did read my or someone else's email, because today she dispatched her husband to address the issue.

here is a picture of his solution.

son of a bitch

this is joseph's favorite phrase, and he will whip it out at the slightest provocation. he raised the maternal conjecture most recently this afternoon when he received a ticket in the mail from the dot. reportedly, joseph is in the habit of flicking expired cigarettes out the window of his car while driving and a short time ago some public-minded citizen observed such an incident. this zealous person copied down joseph's tags, contacted the authorities, and filed a complaint. josephs intends to fight the charge however, and has asked me to recommend a good lawyer. i have no idea why he thinks i would know this information, but i conjectured that triangle area lawyers were no good, and urged him to exercise his 28th amendment right to trial by combat.

the hand that feeds

gosling came by just now claiming that he had a way to lower the electricity bill each month. my initial thought was that he had at last discovered the binary nature of light switches and that he had come to share his intellectual breakthrough. turns out he wanted me to lie to the government instead. allegedly, the welfare office will cover utility bills if a certain percentage of the tenants in an apartment are enrolled in the program. gosling wanted me to write them a letter declaring my intention to vacate so that the house would qualify. so for fifteen dollars a month, he is not only willing to defraud the organization that pays for his food, shelter, and nearly all his other sundry expenses, but also to ask me, someone he consistently steals from, to act as an accessory to further theft.

...

yesterday, i met a girl who asked me to call her susannarchy.

a sympathetic ear

i had an odd experience today. a woman, in a state verging on hysteria, came by and demanded to speak with joseph. i could see that she was put out, so rather than mincing words, i went to fetch him straightaway. reportedly she had come by the previous evening and been treated quite rudely by hormone. he had shouted at her and threatened to call the police if she did not leave, which, i thought to myself, was pretty reasonable behavior considering that she came by at four am and hammered on the door until someone answered. she was here today because she wanted joseph to castigate hormone so that his disrespect would not be repeated. he assured her that he would, then gave her one of his cigarettes (which is what she wanted from him last night), and she left mollified.

i, meanwhile, stood transfixed in the kitchen, drinking in her lack of self-awareness. i hadn't thought it possible, but it seems that i can still be shocked by the behavior of others. and so it was there in the kitchen that joseph found me, vulnerable and alone, and decided that mine was a sympathetic ear. "i don't even know her that well, man," he said before i could edge past him. "she just came over one time so i could show her my tarantula." i offered a silent prayer that "my tarantula" was not a euphemistic phrase, and in that moment, my window of escape closed. so i sat and listened for a time while joseph monologued about the boorishness of others.

the irony was exquisite.

wouldn't you know it

ok well that didn't last long. here i am, less than a week after telling joseph (emphatically and with an amount of profanity) that i am not gonna lend him any goddamn money when wouldn't you know it he asks for a loan. a portion at least of my tirade percolated with him, because he made sure to mention that my light was on before making the late-night request, but it appears that he dodged the main thrust.

it's amazing really. the number on his welfare check is the same each month, but somehow he manages to consistently run out of money. he smokes expansively and drinks a rum and coke each evening. he even gambles (poorly), but he is always surprised when the cash dries up.

what's that socrates said about the unexamined life?

a number of indelicate conjectures

ok. so this is a real thing and i promise that it happened. yesterday i had decided to go to sleep (it was eleven o'clock and i had gotten up early so i felt pretty actualized about the thing) and i was making progress. there i was on the bed with the lights off and the door closed with visions of i don't know maybe gainful employment running through my head when joseph came up to the door and instead of knocking or just leaving because the light was off and it was that time that i already mentioned, just decided to come in. stopping in the doorway, he called my name several times. when this failed to rouse me, he walked in and tapped my shoulder until i asked him why the thing that was happening was happening. turns out it was this:

oh, hi. sorry to wake you, but can you buy these food stamps?

my baleful glare, it seems, needs work, because after five seconds or so of the most withering expression i could muster, he asked me again. in response i made a number of indelicate conjectures about the manner of his upbringing, his personal hygienic practices, and the level of cognitive resources at his disposal.

we are quarreling.

protip

the top of the refrigerator is still not a good place to defrost meat.

hormones

new fellow moved in the other day. he has opinions:

if ladies allow fellas to get their hormones in an uproar, they shouldn’t call it rape; it should just be defined as stupid on their part.

kind of a bad day all around

today began poorly. i was awakened this morning by the sound of shrieking. gosling was engaged in an emotionally charged phone conversation with his mother. his speech had reached a frequency high enough to achieve vowel formant compression, so exact words were hard to make out, but as far as i could tell the cause of his distress was this: his mother had at one point promised to give him an amount, but now, due to an unexplained occurrence, she planned to give him a smaller amount. while i appreciate that gosling was upset about his reduced handout, i felt that some of the phrasing he chose failed to advance the discourse in any sort of meaningful way (goddamned witch cunt seemed particularly unproductive). anyway, gosling had decided that six was an appropriate time to have this conversation, so instead of reflecting on his appalling sense of entitlement, i went back to sleep.

today began poorly for a second time. i was awakened this morning by the sound of shouting. joseph, it seemed, had let the cat out; but rather than going out and just sort of retrieving her for a bit, he stuck his head up the staircase and yelled, "hey! hey! your cat is outside!" for nearly a minute while i plugged my ears and thought about the time i watched my grandmother blast a small, perpetually yipping dog off its feet with a water cannon.

today ended poorly. i came home after a sedate evening of industrializing western germany to find that someone had filled the house with smoke again. if i had any sort of graphic design ability, i would make up a pamphlet with the heading "have you considered outside?", and fill it with useful statistics about monoxide inhalation and a punchy graphic showing all of us burning to death because someone forgot to reactivate the smoke detector.

a new and exciting venture

joseph too has trouble budgeting the money he receives each month, so at least once each week he climbs the stairs (laboriously) and after a short rest, asks me for 35 dollars. he seems to have a preoccupation with this sum, because this is always the quantity he asks for. i assume he wants the money for drugs, but what costs 35 dollars per hit?

anyway, i am leery of lending money to people without an actual source of income, so i always refuse him. but he is a wily fellow. recently, rather than asking to borrow money, he has been trying to sell me shares in the company he is starting. reportedly, a 35 dollar investment could net me one million dollars! his explanations of the economics of this transformation are a bit nebulous, but he assures me that the business plan is airtight. when i inquire further about this business plan, i am told that it is "complicated."

i am convinced that he is planning a train robbery.

tact

i came downstairs a short time ago to remove and imbibe a crispy 1554 from the refrigerator, but having opened the door, i was confronted with an empty cardboard sleeve rather than the expected six pack. i had purchased the beer less than three hours previously, and so detecting no signs of a break-in, i sought the aid of gosling - him being the only person at home during this three hour period - in determining its fate. i knocked on his door. immediately, the overhead light flicked off and the sound of snoring began to emanate from his room. i knocked again. presently the door cracked and he, yawning in an exaggerated manner, extruded portions of his face and neck.

gosling: (slurring) it wasn't me
i: ah... um well...
gosling: listen, while you're here... can i borrow ten dollars?

i told him i'd think about it.

a fine man

when gosling entered my life, he brought along a friend. they met about eighteen months ago at the halfway house where they both resided before moving here. gosling's friend, whom we will call joseph, is in his early forties, unemployed, and possesses nearly two thirds of his teeth. i attribute this to his diet, which consists almost entirely of tubes of prefabricated biscuits and powdered sweet tea.

a devout mormon, he frequently invites me to bus over to the lds church on country club road with him and gosling on sunday mornings. the first time he extended the offer i demurred, telling him that i preferred the proximity of the timber hollow church. stooping beneath my repartee, he complimented my choice, informing me that the pastor at timber hollow is "a fine man," and asking me to witness with him on campus. this has left me in a bit of a position as i now have to either maintain the increasingly complex illusion of faith or confess that i've been jerking him around for the past couple weeks. maybe i'll just start hiding from him.

oh. here is a picture of his sweet tea jug, simply labeled "joe tea."

audacity

in addition to an aptitude for sitting and coughing, i quickly learned that gosling possesses a certain flair for theft. one evening after mixing a usually delicious dark and stormy, i discovered that rather than containing rum, my bottle of goslings was actually full of water tinted with food coloring. when i confronted him about this, he professed innocence and suggested that I complain to the manufacturer via sharply worded letter. i stood transfixed, marveling at the audacity of his suggestion. but, being a practical man, i recognize when i have been outmaneuvered.

i retreated.

the next day, seemingly abashed, he admitted that he had consumed the rum (apparently all at once and despite his liver disorder), and promised that nothing else would go missing. but soon, as with sandra's son, large quantities of food began to disappear. this round of disappearances, however, was marked by the apparent randomness of gosling's selections. one day, i came home to find all of my cinnamon missing. the next day i was down a pound of swiss cheese and a jar of pickles. each time i confronted him and each time he apologized with a great deal of sincerity, promising to restore my items and to refrain from absconding with them in the future. unfortunately, goslings' resolve is more akin to balsa than steel, so inevitably another thing goes missing shortly after each assurance.

I am thinking about dissolving ipecac into my next handle.

smokers are jokers

shortly after our first exchange i discovered that gosling does indeed vacate the couch occasionally. when this happens he stands up, walks the five feet to the front stoop, then sits down again in the green plastic deckchair that materialized there one evening. upon arrival, he proceeds to smoke a truly impressive amount of cigarettes, usually consuming a full pack per excursion. this would be fine, i suppose, were it not for two things. the first is a practical concern. the stoop is situated directly beneath my window, and due to sandra's policy of hiring only non-accredited builders, the insulation surrounding that window possesses a more permeable nature than most. the second thing is a practical concern. due to his enthusiasm for inhaling ash, goslings has developed the sort of wet, wracking cough generally associated with tuberculosis patients. most nights, he wakes up several times in a storm of coughing.

typically after the fit subsides, he goes out for a smoke break.

sympathy

about three weeks after the health freak abruptly left us with an empty room and an unpaid $130 gas bill, a new guy moved in. our initial interactions were as interesting as they were varied. i'd walk past him toward the refrigerator while he sat on the couch blasting slayer on his cd player, or i'd walk past him toward the refrigerator while he sat on the couch blasting megadeth on his cd player. i admit to a certain curiosity regarding his ability to reconcile the reality of rent and expenses with his seemingly total inertia, but this curiosity was short-lived.

one day as i walked past him toward the kitchen, i was surprised to find him sitting on the couch, cd player silent in his lap. in what i later recognized as a significant judgmental lapse, i initiated conversation by asking him if his batteries had run out. he scrutinized me for about ten seconds and after arriving at a seemingly momentous decision, said, "hi. i'm gosling." in the period that followed, he related to me his life story. you will be spared the details, but the relevant bits are these: at the age of 34, ours is his first apartment, and due to various medical problems he receives government assistance. he was telling me all this because he wanted me to write a letter of support to his welfare agents.

i felt genuinely bad for gosling, so i agreed to write the letter and spent the next twenty minutes looking up first aid procedures for tonic-clonic seizures. in the coming days and weeks i was to realize that my sympathy was misplaced.