MIA/A Prisoner of War

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

I’ve been absent from this blog for quite awhile due to a variety of reasons/excuses. Amongst other things it was my PC going kerplunk again. One day shortly after Thanksgiving, I logged on and there was no internet connection log on and no way to create a new one without totally reinstalling the operating system.

Just in time to prevent me from placing my Christmas orders. sigh… It was obvious “the Gremlins” were back. Past experience with a situation such as this meant that even a re-installation wouldn’t even solve the problem so I didn’t even bother trying.

But never mind, the Senior Center has Internet Access and since I already knew what I wanted, it didn’t take long to get my order placed and paid for. neener, neener, neener! :^*~~~~ OK, that was childish but it felt good. ;^} Finding ways to work around the Gremlins gives me great pleasure. It’s like playing a game with naughty children.

Then one day I was bored so I decided to reload the operating system and see what happened. It worked. The PC is slow and weird things keep happening. I have to disconnect the internet connection every once in awhile because it just seems to get so clogged down I can’t use it and it just doesn’t function as well as it did before but at least I can get online and read at the the forums. Posting is iffy.

In the meanwhile I started sewing or crocheting while I was watching movies. (I love NetFlix!) More about that later) I made myself a dress and have a matching hat almost done. It’s sleeveless so I’ll needs something to wear over the top of it. The dress has a white background with red and purple flowers, green leaves and mustard butterflies with black accents so I have a lot of colors to choose from. Very retro 60s.

It’s long-below mid calf and an A-Line. It could be uses as a jumper with a blouse underneath and I might consider belting it with black if I wear a black shirt under it. I want to make to make a shrug jacket to wear with it since it’s sleeveless and there is no way I will wear a sleeveless dress even in the warmest weather since I’ll freeze or get a sunburn. I have some red knit and some lightweight mustard wool that matches. I’d love to get some purple. It would make for a very versatile outfit.

Then I started working on a flannel shirt and my sewing machine started acting up. The tension was all screwed up and for the life of me I could not get it fixed. Oh great… It turned out that the bobbin case had been unseated and the timing was off. Simple to fix if you know anything about sewing machines but how in hell did THAT happen? “The Gremlins” again? I don’t know but… Now I have to lock my machine up in the bedroom which is a PITA. <big heavy sigh…>

Then my TV remote disappeared. I’ve scoured the house for it. Turned everything upside down looking for it. There’s just me here to use it and I only sit in one chair when I watch TV. The remote usually gets put on the coffee table or maybe the TV. It’s just gone.

Then my DVD player went kerplunk—or so I thought. It’s an old DVD player handed down from my son-in-law to my son and now to me and half the functions don’t work so it didn’t surprise me it quit working. The problem was that there was a DVD from NetFlix stuck in there. So I had my son take a look at it to see if he could figure out a way to get it out when he came over to take me to get a new one. Lo and behold, the electrical cord in the back had been pulled partway out. I hadn’t moved the damn thing…

There’s more but I won’t bore you with it. Suffice it to say that it’s very tiresome and well, depressing. Things seemed to ramp up when I got Igor. Whenever I leave to take him for a walk, I wonder what will happen next. I worry when I leave him and Patches alone that someone will come in and try to hurt them.

Or maybe it’s been since I filed the restraining order against the suitor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He hadn’t been on my list of suspects until that incident and the note but I’m still not sure he’s the one who wrote it. He said he didn’t but I wouldn’t cop to doing that either if I was him. Still, I don’t think he has the computer expertise to pull off what is happening with the PCs in this building.

Two more people have told me that they have viruses or trojans that they can’t get rid of with their regular anti-virus software. Damn but that sucks. It happens all too often in this building.

I’m depressed because somehow they managed to get past the $100.00 lock that was guaranteed to be pick proof. It wasn’t guaranteed to be pick pocket proof which is what I think happened. One day I took Igor out and when I came back I couldn’t find my keys. I retraced my steps but they were nowhere to be found so I came up to see if they were in the door just in case I had been foolish enough to do that.

I think my pocket got picked in the elevator but I’m not sure who did it. When I get another lock for this door I’ll have to wear the key around my neck like a precious jewel. <sheesh>

I found them in the lock on the bedroom door. That is not something I would EVER do, I unlock that lock, take off the hasp and relock the lock on the loop so that I have to have the keys in my hand to relock it. That’s to prevent me from locking the keys in the bedroom. But still I could have left them in the door and that pisses me off. I’m angry at myself because I wasn’t careful. If I had stopped to put on a pair of jeans so I could stick them in my jeans pocket rather than running around with them loose in my jacket pocket well… Jesus this sucks

If you are familiar with the movie Gaslight you might have some understanding of what has been happening to me for the past 4 years. FOUR years. I don’t exactly understand why although I have my suspicions. I’ve tried to catch them but everything I’ve tried, including hiding small cameras has failed. I’ve complained to the management and the police and even though they believe that there is something going on, they say there is nothing they can do until I have actually seen someone in my apartment. It’s so frustrating…

Sometimes I feel like a prisoner of war because this never lets up and I want to stay in the house to protect the things I have. And sometimes I get into that mindset and become very isolated. One of the reasons I got Igor was to force myself out of the house. I refuse to sit here paralyzed by fear that some poor sick sociopath is going to invade my space and mess with my stuff, I have to remind myself: IT’S JUST STUFF! ALL OF IT!

Sure there are memories attached to some of the things they have taken–my grandson’s pictures. But you know what? They can’t steal the memories I have of him at those ages. IT’S JUST STUFF! If it makes you feel important to take it, please, help yourself. IT’s JUST STUFF!

People who place so much priority on stuff that they’ll lose their perspective when it gets destroyed or stolen have fucked up priorities in my opinion. STUFF can be replaced or like the rose that got destroyed tonight. Big deal. It was a pretty rose. But I was just thinking the other day that it was getting old and scruffy looking. Time to toss that nasty old thing.

I haven’t given up and even though I get a little depressed sometimes—especially around Christmas which is always a hard time for me anyway. They are not going to win this war. Sometimes it’s hard to sort out how much of the depression belongs to the stress from dealing with “the Gremlins” and how much is just old shit. Sometimes “the Gremlins” trigger old shit.

I found a card at the Community Pharmacy that says “Your Mind Is Burglar-Proof.” I put it up on my bulletin board to remind myself that NO ONE can control how I think, feel, or react. “The Gremlins” whoever they are are probably just sick twisted people who need to do stupid shitty things to people in order to feel like THEY matter and have meaning. What a pity. If truth be known I feel sad for them. What horrible things happened to them that they feel like they need to do things like this to get even in life?

Still, I get depressed when I think I have managed to repel their invasion into my life and once again they foil all of my efforts. I feel helpless sometimes and then the depression takes over. Depression has been something of a fixture in my life. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been at least a little depressed. Sometimes I retreat into it, that familiar dark place where I let life happen while I watch. Sometimes I trun away into the darkness and refuse to watch. I turn into the darkness and wait, hoping for an end to the pain–death or the light that eventually comes if I wait long enough for the pills to do their thing.

In general, any depression associated with the Gremlins is short-lived because I remember that that MY MIND IS BURGLAR-PROOF and what they are doing is mostly just irritating. Like mosquitoe or fly that keeps buzzing around your ear and won’t go away no matter how much you flap at it. If you ignore it it gets bored and goes off to find someone else to bug eventually.

B

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Internet Window Shopping! Gotta Love It!

Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand,
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand.

Bob Dylan

The city is replacing the sewer and water works and presumably the electric and  phone lines under the street out in front of my building.  The construction has been going on since mid-July and it’s created quite an air of grit and grime in my apartment.   I don’t have an air conditioner–don’t need one or want one.  I’m happy as a pig in a wallow when those temperature soar into the 90s.  I’m finally warm.

But that has created a  huge problem this year.  Filth.  I’ve been looking at these sorry off-white vertical blinds hanging at my windows that aren’t so white anymore and thinking about what a pain they are going to be to clean.  And how much I really dislike them.  I’d much rather have horizontal blinds like these MetroWood Blinds I found at GUARANTEED blinds.com.

But I think I could live with these lovely fabric vertical blinds . and they’re on sale. They’re beautiful!   I’d only have to decide which color and fabric to choose and there are plenty of choices!

I don’t get a lot of direct sun.  Barely two to three hours hours in the late afternoon.  Most of the time I don’t even close the blinds because my poor plants need their Vitamin D and so do I.  But when I do I’d like to have something attractive to look at and I want that sun to stay OUT!

GUARANTEED blinds.com even gives you detailed instructions on how to measure your windows to get a custom fit for your blinds.  But if you need a technician to measure and/or install your window blinds all you have to do is plug in your zip code and enter your contact information and someone from GUARANTEED blinds.com will contact you.  Easy peasy!

B

Plastic Free Patches

Well, that little episode with Patches itchies was quite a revelation.  She got checked out, got her shots for the year, got her teeth cleaned and was sternly admonished to exercise more and eat less (she blinked twice and lay down as if to say “as if”) and pronounced healthy but pudgie.   They don’t use the F word there.

The Vet laughed at me when I told him about the leash but said going up and down stairs a couple of times a day would be good for her.  So I will have to get another collar.  I should walk over to Walgreens for one of those rugged fabric ones  or find another excuse to go out to Shopko.  Maybe I could make one.  Where the hell is she going to go if she gets loose?  We’ll be in the stairwell.  The leash is primarily for managements benefit.

The Vet agreed that it was probably allergies to one of the things that was new and most likely the collar but to let things be for awhile  and then  we could re-introduce one thing at a time to see if she reacted.  I’m thinking why bother with all that?  Not one damn thing was essential.

But OK out of curiosity I’ll see if she breaks out from the Newmans Own.  Just so I can write to Robert Redford and tell him my cat is allergic to it if she is.  Besides, she liked it but ate less of it than she did the Iams.   Now  I wonder why that is?  I have no idea what the caloric count  is on either brand.  I wonder if she would pick the Newmans out of the Iams?  Oooo Kitty torture.

I still think it’s the plastic.  I took away her plastic food bowl too and she is no longer scratching her chin like she used to.  I wonder if that means I have to forbid her from playing with the plastic bags while I’m unpacking groceries.

She does get rather playful then.  She chases them across the floor.  I fill them with air for her like balloons and she kills them for me.  When they are dead I pick them up and put them in a paper bag to save as pooper scoopers for the grand-doggies.  I need to transfer some to my suitcase for the next trip to Edgerton.

Anyway, I’m going to start giving Fatty Patty Newman’s own cat food tomorrow morning.  Stay tuned.

B

The Shelf Wars Revisited

A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war.

Gertrude Stein

Gosh, I finally found a way to quote Getrude. The professor I pissed off when I told her I thought Stein was a crock of over ripe manure and not worth reading would be so proud of me. Of course I left out about 5000 words of sheer and utter nonsense and when you come right down to it this is pure BS as well. Alice B. was a saint.

My professor later forgave me when I won second place in a Robert Frost poetry contest with a poem about cowpaths and cows getting their udders ripped open by barbed wire because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It was a femnist poem. She liked that too. <heh>

But back to the shelf wars. Remember when I tried to hang the shelves in my bedroom? Not good.

I was hanging shelves again today in the living room when who should buzz my buzzer but my dearly beloved son. I answered my inside door with my handy dandy ratched screwdriver in hand. My son covets my ratcheted screwdriver with it’s many different interchangeable heads of varying sizes. It’s a newly acquired toy.

He promptly relieved me of my screwdriver and began toying with it. “Whatcha doing, Mom?”

“Where?”

“Over in the corner.” and he goes running over there to see what I had done with my ratcheted screw driver in his hot little hand.

I had just begun to set those plastic doohickeys into the dry wall after having carefully measured everything three times with my retracting tape measurer to be sure that everything was going to be level. He remeasured everything for me and nodded his head wisely. He reminded me so much of his father I had to giggle.

Then he picked up my hammer and the long handled screwdriver I was using as a punch and began driving the rest of the holes to finish the job. Whoa! Wait a minute here, This was my nice little Saturday, I’m writing and I need a diversion every now and then project. I’ll write and when I need to think, I’ll punch a hole or screw in a screw.

But he wants to use my ratcheting screwdriver so bad he can taste it. All in the name of helping out the old lady. His Mom. Nothing can make you fell more ancient and helpless than a son who has just taken possession of your ratcheting screwdriver and your self-suffiency. And dammit I wanted to have the bragging rights of saying I hung those shelves and did it right. The last damn project was a disastor.

Not my fault the wall is cement and I couldn’t get the screws set plus the brackets just won’t stay in the thing-a-ma-jiggie. (Well they will now–Gorilla glue is the duct tape of today! Love that stuff!) But he had to rescue me from that disastor and I AM HANGING THESE SHELVES.

We argue about it a bit until I remember that the hanging Stained Glass Butterfly gadget he got me for Christmas still hasn’t been hung. And it will require me to stand on a chair to do it myself. Not good when you have vertigo. Plus I don’t know for sure what kind of hook to get. Plus he is tall.

I got the guy in to drill the hole into the cement ceiling (yeah… cement. Next time someone says tornado warning and we ought to take cover, I’m telling them we live in a freaking bomb shelter! We’ll be the only building standing after it’s all over. <heh&gt I’ve just been waiting for him to show up.! YAY Diversion tactics!

Anyway, I show him that and we take a walk over to Dorn Hardware and pick up a hook and he puts that up but he still wants to play with my screw driver so together we put the first bracket holding strip up. I insist on driving the first screw.

I’m going to have to get that boy one of those screwdrivers for Christmas. And maybe one of those nifty ratcheted socket sets they have. I wish I needed sockets because they sure are cool. I love hardware stores. Dorn’s is really cool because they have cool people who work there.

B

I Know Where the Circle Is, I Just Thought It Was Too Tight For Me So I Took It Off in 1970 Along With My Panty Girdle Somewhere on I-95 In Michigan Some Trucker Is Probably Still Driving Around With It Stuck To His Windshield Like a Trophy!

There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.

Ellen Terry (1847-1928), British actor. Ellen Terry’s Memoirs, 2nd. ed., ch. 5 (1932).

MerlinsDad, my cyber friend in Atlanta, and I were discussing eccentricity as in me being eccentric. I think people probably see me as being eccentric. I know my children think I’m eccentric. Quirky. That’s a good word. I’m quirky.

My kids think I talk too much to too many people. I probably do. I’ve never really met a stranger, just someone I haven’t been introduced to yet. I also have a tendency to talk to myself if there is no one else to talk to. I have wonderful conversations with myself!

Then there is the matter of my verbiage. I hhave a huge vocabulary of $64 words that I can even usually spell correctly but I curse too much. I use the eff word with abandon. I say damn this and damn that and oh shit with every stumble. I have a potty mouth and I don’t give a damn. I come off sounding like the very well educated redneck that I am. I can control this tendency when I want to and I do until i get to know the people I’m getting to know and then I shock the living hell out of them when I loosen up.

I have a tendency to dress eccentrically too, like an aging hippie in tie dye clothes and long skirts or jeans that are worn out. At the age of 56 I have long hair that I wear long and loose in the winter or in a bun like Tyne Daly in the summer. It’s graying beautifully if I do say so myself. My daughter wants to cut it short and stylish and hates it long. She has training as a beautician and takes it personally when I don’t follow her advice.

My neighbor Max told me I project this Earth Mother, feel good, it’s a sunshiney day persona that draws everyone into my circle. I don’t believe that’s true because I apparently have plenty of enemies and besides, there are people I definitely don’t want in my circle which has caused more than a few awkward and some decidedly ugly moments.

The reason MerlinsDad and I got into this conversation is because I said I preferred to hang out with the people in the apartment complex that the so-called nomal people would consider eccentric and it was going to seal my eccentric label. But that’s OK because I’ve known, admired, and loved a great many eccentric people, many of them in my own family. One of my very favorite eccentric relatives was my Mother’s eldest sister Cleo Fate Flleschner (I cannot for the life of me think of her married name but she was married to my Aunt Christine Gavin’s husband’s second or third cousin twice removed. It will come to me,  See I told you it would come to me.  It took a couple of hours or more but I rmembered eventually.)

My Aunt Cleo spent all of her life on a farm until Uncle John died and left her with a reasonable sum of money at her disposal. She wisely turned this principal over to a broker and told him to invest it as he saw fit and told him to send her the dividends to live on.Then she went to work at the truck stop in Sutton Nebraska as a dish washer and bus girl on the third shift at the age of 56 and began living like a teenager. Before we knew it she was dating truck drivers and going on long haul drives with them. Why, she was having sexual relationships with them! Men she hardly knew! Men none of us knew!  She was getting a reputation!

All of the relatives were flabbergasted! All of her relatives were horrified! All of them except me. I was tickled pink for her. She was my favoritedAunt and she had worked hard all those years. It was good to see her having fun. It was fun to see her happy and excited! Her children tried to get her committed to the looney bin. That pissed me off. I wrote to her eldest son who was a preacher and told him off in no uncertain terms. He never answered me.

I was living here in Wisconsin while all of this was going on but when I went home for a visit I got a chance to tell Aunt Cleo in person that I was on her side and Hurray for her for having the guts to live her life to its fullest measure. We were standing out by her car as she was getting ready to leave and I told her not to let anyone tell her she was crazy because she wasn’t, she was beautiful and full of joy. She was still young and she should enjoy what remained of her life not sit down and get ready to die.

She cried when I told her that and said it meant everything for someone in her family to support her and she wished she had a daughter like me. Funny, I wished she was my mother instead of the disapproving wretch who sat in the house hoping no one had noticed her eldest sister had been in town.

B

Promotions for Gremlins or Is She Crazy?

can’t bear the roosters crow
I guess it’s something that you already know
Remember the darkness bless the light
Lest I fall into the night
You might think I’m crazy, crazy like a fox
You might think I’m soft but I’m hard as a rock
I got something , something called fire
I got something take my spirit higher
Stopped wearing black I am tired of look thin
I got a big fat spirit walking born again
Got to get humble going to wash your feet
Got to feed the beggar down on poor’s man street
Like a saint I walk on water, turn water into wine
Turn the other cheek, give my eyes to the blind

Crazy by Bride
Well I went to court today and got my restraining order against the man-who-wishes-he had-never-met-me At least that’s what the note under my door claims but he claims he didn’t write the note or so his lawyer told me. Lawyer? Yup, he had a lawyer there representing him and she wanted to settle the matter before we got to the judge. He would agree to everything I wanted for one year.

At first I said no, I wanted to go before the judge because I wanted to know about this note and my blogs disappearing for several days. Ms Lawyer (yes he got a female lawyer!) said she would not allow him to testify. WTF! The person who was with me said the judge couldn’t make him testify and couldn’t do anything about my blogs anyway and I couldn’t prove he had anything to do with the note or my blogs so I should negotiate. SHIT FuCK DAMN!

OK then sucker 2 years! I could hear him getting pissed and whining about that because he would have to take another elevator if I was in the one he wanted blah blah blah and he couldn’t eat at the Senior Center (he never eats there, he just walks through and stares at everyone). I did concede that he could go to classes during that time period but that he had to stay out of the dining area. I could have made things much worse for him. Much worse.

Now, I’m willing to believe he didn’t “write” the note but I’m willing to bet cash he knows who in hell did and how it got under my door. I’m willing to bet he had “nothing to do with my blogs playing hide and seek” but I’m willing to bet cash he knows who did and he was told all about it before it happened. I’m willing to bet the reason he had a lawyer with him is to protect those other people more than it was to protect himself.

Those other people are an amorphous group of men and women whose identities I am not quite certain of. I am sure that some of them live on the premises but I am also certain that not all of them do. I think of them as a consortium of individuals known collectively and somewhat affectionately at times as The Gremlins. Today I believe I am promoting them to Troglodytes. At least some of them.

I believe that there might have been some meddling going on that got my admirer thinking I was more interested than I was and then got him even more upset than he needed to be when his overtures did not work. I think I know exactly who that twit of a meddler was. He’s a sociopathic snake in the grass who can’t resist causing trouble for others. A troglodyte who looks good on the outside but is so putrid on the inside one or two pokes reveals the stech of psychic decay. He’s supposed to be moving out soon and it can’t come soon enough. If I get a chance, I will confront him about this and then I will go to the building manager about it.

But the other troglodytes are much more onerous and dangerous. I believe there are burglars living on the premises. There are so many complaints about break-ins and theft it’s ridiculous. The management says they can’t do anything, call the police. The police say they can’t do anything until you actually catch somebody in the act. Right. The cops don’t pay much attention to complaints from people here at the Three Threes. You are automatically labeled neurotic simply by virtue of your address and posibly psychotic. Complaints like this are dismissed out of hand.

I think the main reason for the break-ins is because of the computers in the building. I’ve “lost” six (or is it 7–I’m beginning to lose count) computers to viruses/trojans that none of the big gun virus/trojan detectors out there can detect or figure out how to remove. I’ve spent hundres of dollars trying to keep thme out and/or get rid of them. Basically I don’t really control this computer–they do. They allow me to use it if I behave myself and don’t try to do anything to get rid ogf them or talk about them. I am writing this in Word because when I tried to writ it online, the sentences about burglars living in the building got edited out.

Why do they want the computers. It’s some kind of cyber crime. I wish I understood computers better but what from what I do understand I believe they are turning other people’s computers into some kind of conduit (servers?) for information out into the internet. I’ve found evidence of what looks like credit cards and telephone numbers to Asia and Europe. They seem to be using Telnet.

It’s really amusing to write things that mess with their heads and watch them run around in circles being pissed as hell at me. They’ll do something they think will punish me. Like steal my blogs away again. Of course this time I will go to the cops. I might not get anywhere but since I have a job working on the internet and they may have cost me that job already, this has now become serious shit. So I double dog dare you, you idiots. Besides they’ll go straight to Mr Can’t-Take-No-For-An-Answer for answers. Any questions?

They could take my TV remote again. As if getting up and walking all of 8 feet is a huge hardship. They’ll bring it back later just to make me feel foolish anyway. What else? Oh they could move things around. Steal my kids pictures.Search the house for god knows what. Steal my sewing supplies. Eat my food while they are here. Use up all the ice cubes and don’t make any new ones. Rude ass people. Kill my plants. Why that was so appealing I don’t know but they put some mighty foul smelling shit in the pots.

But you know what, I ain’t gonna let none of that shit piss me off or hurt my feelings. If I let them control my emotions then they win. Wasting my energy on getting pissed off is foolish. I have better things to do like tring to figure out what they are up to and why they are so interested in being in my apartment doing nasty stuff to me. It started out as payback for something and I’m not even sure what. That part I don’t care about.

It’s the computer stuff that is so fascinating. You would not believe what I have learned about computers. They have rendered so many machines with windows inoperable right off the bat that I am really going to have to learn Linux. At the moment I am too lazy–better things to do. Tired of playing with PCs.

Yes, I know this sounds crazy. The rantings of an insane woman. God I wish it was. I could take a pill and make it all go away.

B

Hide N’ Seek

Olly olly ox in free!

My Blogs all went on a walk-about this weekend. I could see them but couldn’t get at them. My friends said they were password protected. Someone else had the controls. Apparently it was a cruel practical joke connected to my recent encounter with Mr. Won’t-take-No-For-An-Answer.

Sunday I got a note shoved under my door that said please read June 21st at 6:10 am on the envelope. I don’t know when it was delivered I found it at 11:45. I don’t follow instructions well and read it right then and there. It was totally off the wall and bizaare and somewhat threatening so I called the police.

We decided it was probably better not to poke a sleeping tiger at one o’clock in the morning and it would be better to try to get a restraining order against him. I took the note and envelope to my manager on Monday and she said she thought it was his handwriting so on Tuesday I went to the courthouse and filed for a restraining order.

Thursday the 21st my Blogs disappeard. Rat Bastard.

They came home last night.

I Can Get In Trouble Just Doing the Laundry

Man, I need a keeper. This morning I did a couple of loads of laundry and because of the stinking thieves in this building, you have to stay downstairs and keep an eye on your stuff so I was hanging out in the Community Room or as I like to call it, The Day Room. Anyone who has ever spent time on a Psych ward will catch that reference.

The first faux pah I made was when Erica, the building manager, came in looking for the newspaper and I said “Where’s P M? Wherever P M is you’ll find the paper!” P is my arch nemesis, at least in her eyes. I bear her no real grudge. She’s just there and I don’t much trust her but I am not about to go out of my way to aggravate her.

The truth of the matter is that she comes down in the morning and reads the paper without fail and everyone who wants to read the paper sits at that table. I apologized to her if what I said upset her because I just meant that she usually was reading the paper (even though I didn’t need to becasue I didn’t say anything wrong.)and she told me she thought that was an inappropriate remark. (!) jesus christ on a fucking pogo stick, these bitches will use anything to cause a stink on my behalf. sigh…

P will say the most obnoxious things about me to her friends and they join in while I am within hearing distance and I just ignore the BS because I dare not get into any kind of brouhaha with that woman since I “scare her and I’m dangerous.” All because of a remark I made when I was ranting about her to someone else got passed back to her TWO freaking years ago! THANK YOU JOE SPAGNOLA, you two faced bastard.

Oh dear, now I’m starting to name names. ;^) I said I would like to slap P silly when she tries to boss people in the day room around the way she does. This was after I had a big ass argument with her and really told her off in no uncertain terms about that very matter. LOUDLY She went to the then manager Dora and reported me as having made threats against her.

I was dumbfounded. I knew I had ranted about her  but I couldn’t think of what I had said and who I had said it to that would have beens seen as a threat.  Then the “slap her silly” thing came out and I knew I had said that in front of three people.  Which wone had told told P or told someone who told P?   I mean, I trusted Joe back then. It was never meant to get back to her and it was never meant to be taken seriously that I would do such a thing.   I was ranting.  I said I would like to not that I was going to.  Much much later, I realized it must have been Joe when I realized he was pulling other shit.

It was agreed that I would just ignore Pat but Pat did her best to make herself almost  impossible to ignore. She drives a big old scooter and she would practically kamikaze buzz me whenever she saw me sitting in the courtyard. As I said, she continues to make rude remarks about me within my hearing every chance she can get. Most of the time I just manage ignore the old wretch.

Occasionally I will say “FUCK YOU” without even looking at her. Then she’ll say “Did you hear that? Did she say that to me?” And they’ll all look at me and I’m minding my own business not looking at them except out of the corner of my eye. And they’ll all buzz, buzz, buzz about reporting me for using foul language. It tickles me pink. Gives me the giggles. And then they want to know what I’m giggling about. jesus they are a hoot.

The next thing that happened is I got the giggles when another one of the women who have me on their shit list got called down by another little old lady because she tends to run on and on and on with her stories boring everyone to tears. She told Sabrina she would talk as long as she wanted to and I couldn’t help it, I lost it. I do the same thing when I’m manic but at least I have enough sense to realize that I’m getting offensive when someone says something.

D is Bi-Polar and a complete and total bitch sometimes when she goes into a manic phase. It’s a long story about why she doesn’t like me but suffice it to say that it has to do with men and territorial rights. I encroached on what she thought were hers without knowing I was doing it. Twice. Ooops.

Then I ran into Larry in the laundry room. We said Hi and then there was the most awful dead silence that you could have cut with a knife. I had to get my clothes out of the dryer or I would have walked out of there. It was horrible. I hated it.

I talked to Harry about writing Larry a note of apology for being so harsh and abrupt with him the last time we talked and he said I shouldn’t do it unless I still wanted him in my life. Because if I do, Larry will take that as an invitation to reinsert himself into my life. That’s probably true. However, I am going to be running into him here on a regular basis and I don’t like this cold silence.

On the other hand, I think he should apologize to me. I am the person who is most wronged in this whole mess. I feel used and abused and I’m still mad at him. I also think he lied to David so I’m doubly mad.

I guess the cold silence stays in place for awhile. At least until I have had a chance to talk to David about this. It still feels awful. I feel like I am being a bitch and punishing him. But hell, he is perfectly capable of starting a conversation too. Why is the onus on me? It’s not! I should stop feeling guilty!

B

Handy Hannah Is Foiled By Some Stupid Shelves

Saturday I went to a “garage sale” on the 13th floor and scored a pole lamp which I’d been wanting for by my PC desk. It’s perfect. Exactly what I would have picked out! I also got a bunch of wall shelves and some of those expandable “cup” holders to hang my hats on.Sooo Sunday was supposed to be sewing day. I decided I would hang the shelves I got for the sewing area up. Now I consider myself pretty handy with a hammer and screwdriver and other assorted tools but I started around 8am and finally quit in frustration at 11:38 on these damn shelves. I could not figure out how to get the damn brackets in the hardware that goes on the wall. I managed to get one shelf up but I used brackets from an entirely different shelving unit. aaargh!

I like to sew but I don’t do enough of it and I think that is because I don’t like the mess it makes when you have to cut out the pattern. The whole house gets torn apart when you are cutting out patterns–especially in a small apartment. So I decided that I would go ahead and cut out all the projects I want to make up the fabric I have on hand for so that when the urge to sew hits in one fell swoop, I can just pull a project out of the box and go to work. Easy Peasy.

That way I might stop hoarding all this fabric and actually make something out of it instead of pulling it out of the box two or three times a yeat and carressing it and saying that sure is pretty–I think I’ll make a dress out of that piece or whatever.

I did just that last night or rather I started to. I cut out the backing for the Xmas tree skirt & ornaments for Kerryn and made up my own pattern for an 8 gored skirt from a formula I found on the internet and decided I’d make a dolman sleeve jacket to go with it. Made some decisions about some other projects I want to do and will be cutting out a flannel big shirt tonight and test washing fabric for some hats. Oh yeah, I’m going to cut out that dress too. Two dresses as a matter of fact. :^)