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.