It all started with our bathroom fan. Apparently, our use of it drives our upstairs neighbor to childhood. Seeing as we have no window in there or desire to harvest bathroom mold we continued using it like regular, rational people. At first, we couldn’t figure out why she was stomping and blaring her tv. When I say stomping, I mean there was cracking in our ceiling. We started calling her fatty, because we figured her weight was the cause of the ceiling noise and because we had grown to despise her existence. TBU tells people she’s 400 pounds but it’s closer to something like 300. Regardless, the common stairs she uses had to be reinforced after she loosened several steps and pulled the base away from the wall. TBU and I took great delight in this news.

A few months, ago she complained to management that we used our bathroom fan too much. And management had the nerve to call us and tell us not to use it if we didn’t need it. Remember this? Yeah, we need it. While we had them on the phone, we complained about her noise level, and you know what their response was? “THAT’S PART OF APARTMENT LIVING.” Why didn’t they just say that to Whiny McNeverLeavestheHouse?! I don’t know but I was pissed.

Our landlord already thinks I’m crazy unreasonable* so in an effort to appease me he said would get us a “silent” fan and hoped it would take care of the problem; but asked us not to use the fan until he installed the new one. After a week of not being able to use our regular cieling fan, our brand spanking new, taking care of business, “silent” fan was installed. And everything was reasonably quiet. Until fatty got home.

(* So crazy unreasonable as to be pissed when the handyman crushed all my plants that were out front, then left razorblades, rusty nails and cigarette butts in our entry way. Landlords response? “They’ll grow back,” and “Yeah he’s not the tidiest person, that’s why I’m here to clean up after him.” This was 5 days after the handyman was gone, and the landlord didn’t clean up shit, I wound up collecting all the trash later.)

There was no satisfying her. She was back to stomping and blaring her embarrassing taste in pop culture. We responded in kind. Actually, TBU resonded in kind. I prefer not having the bass determine my heart beat. MY stealth move was to leave the fan on and wear headphones. Eventually she would get out of breath from all the stomping and just blare the tv, which was easier to mask anyway. Then she would go to bed around 10. This has been our fairly consistent routine for the past few months.

I got out of the shower today and had had enough. It’s total fucking bullshit. I spent 3 hours psyching myself up for the confrontation. I planned on being very, very nice. Like so nice, it would be impossible not to see my point of view. Like so nice she would not want to ever upset me because I was so nice. Like so nice she would just shut the fuck up already. I prepared a speech with TBU’s help and opened the front door a bunch of times like I was going to do it but just couldn’t start walking up the steps. I called TBU and he said a bunch of shit that’s easy to say when you’re not the one about to climb a flight of stairs and knock on a door.

I practiced the speech and then I just did it. I climbed the stairs and knocked on her door.

And knocked again, this time louder.

And one more time, even louder.

Nothing.

It’s not like she’s fooling me, I know she’s there. I’ve heard her tree trunk legs all morning, Natalie Imbruglia was so loud I actually sang along to it. I waited, flipped off the peephole and walked back downstairs.

So much for being nice.

Funny thing is she’s been near silent since I went up there this morning. Granted the fan’s not on, but she’s quieter than normal. I can hear her walking, but it’s normal walking, not her usual wants-to-embarrass-herself-by-breaking-through-the ceiling, stomping. If I had known that all I had to do was knock on her door a couple times I would have done it a long time ago. It may have helped that while I was talking to her next-door neighbor (who we’re friendly with) I slipped in, “Yeah it would suck to have to get the landlord involved.” Now I know she’s complete chicken shit and thought no one was going to call her on being a fucking 6 year old. So if she reacts poorly the next time I take a shower, I’ll just knock on her door. Problem solved.

Teebs and I went on a super gnar gnar bike ride Saturday, which I’m still going to refer to as yesterday. We biked several trails at Wilder Ranch, which is pretty effing breathtaking as evidenced here. But the problem is that we are not as hardcore as we think we are so we were pretty tired when we had friends over for dinner. And then we slept all day today so that’s why I’m writing a post at 3am* (Well it was 3am when I started).

The couple who came over is great and all but… First off, they never drink while they’re here. Oh sure, they’ll split a beer and accept glasses of wine. But they won’t actually drink the wine. When I was cleaning up this morning there was a (formerly) perfectly good glass of wine that hadn’t even been touched. The most annoying thing is trying to entertain sober guests. I’m not Martha Stewart here. Also, I am becoming more curmudgeonly in my vegetarianism. TBU tried to convince me to serve meat at our dinner party and I was indignant at the suggestion. If you’re coming over to my house you’re not getting meat, it’s fairly self-explanatory. I told Teebs that no one was expecting meat and they could all fucking deal for one fricking meal. We made stir fry with tempeh, which so happens to be my favorite meal of the moment. I don’t think it was a hit. Which leads me to the second reason I was all annoyed with my dinner guests, or maybe the third reason, because I was already pretty grumpy from being tired after the bike ride. Anyway, they ate before they came! If you’re going to eat before dinner with friends don’t say it. I reckon they did this for a couple of reasons. One, they realized they weren’t getting any meat and ate before because, as TBU said, “Carnivores don’t think they’ve eaten until they’ve had meat. What you have planned is an elaborate snack in their eyes.” Which, if true, is dumb.  Or, two, they didn’t actually eat beforehand but didn’t enjoy the meal and explained away their lack of consumption with lies. For the record, TBU made a delicious tempeh stir fry. But that was fine because the left overs came in handy after our nine hour nap today. And overall they just seemed like they wanted to be somewhere else the entire five hours they were here, or maybe that was just me.

Despite sleeping through the bulk of the day I was still productive. By productive I mean watched several episodes of Sunny and took a bike ride downtown. We stopped at uber hip Caffe Pergolessi for hot drinks and a pastry. The double f in caffe should warn you that this place is crawling with pretentious college aged hipsters and other too cool for school types, but the homemade whipped cream and sexy non-smoking deck make it all worth the trouble. I was mostly done with my peppermint tea when Douchey McStretchedEarlobes hunkered down on the non-smoking deck and proceeded to light a cigarette. I whispered to TBU, “Hey that guy’s smoking!” the way a five year old tells on someone. TBU started to turn around to direct Douchey McStretchedEarlobes, Duke of Unwashed Hair and Tattoo Sleeves, to the smoking deck but I didn’t even want to deal with what was probably going to be a blood boiling response to a simple request, so before he could say anything I said, “No, no let’s just go!” As we walked down the deck to our bikes I felt a little defeated, like we should have stood our ground. So I made sure to give him a good stern look as we made our way out.

All’s well that ends well though because just as we began to bike down the street we crossed paths with Smiling Mike. Mike has the highest levels of naturally occurring serotonin of any adult with a normally functioning endocrine system. He takes happy to a new level. I am jealous of him. If we all had one tenth the optimism and general good naturedness of this guy I can’t even begin to tell you what kind of utopia we’d have on our hands. It would be a polyamorous utopia though, ‘cuz monogamy is not something he’s down with. I don’t know what Mike does or where he lives or how he makes money. TBU went to college with him and that’s all the concrete facts I got on him. He’s constantly out of the country. Every time we see him, he’s on his skateboard, it’s downtown and by chance. I knew it was him before I actually knew it was him. Blond dude, huge smile for no reason, skating, pink shoe laces = Smiling Mike. He saw me and before he brought his board to a complete stop he was hugging me and shouting, “I love you guys!” I know I’ve made my stance clear on hugging before but hugs from Smiling Mike are always acceptable, which says a lot about this guy considering he might be homeless.

On the ride home we were talking about monogamy and how it’s the only thing that’d work for Teebs and I. We’re just too lazy to be continually meeting people and talking to them and figuring out how they want to be fucked. TBU is afraid of any possible STDs and I am with him on that. And yeah, we do love each other too much to add other people into the mix, I guess.

* Typing 3am reminds me of that Matchbox 20 song of the same name. I went to a Matchbox 20 concert when I was 14, I’m glad I’m not 14 anymore.

The Millionizer is off to milk the next 3.5 hours before her alarm goes off

I just got home from the most horrendous one hour commute. A commute that usually takes between 5 and 10 minutes. I know I should be at least a little sympathetic when there is an accident. But I’m not, mostly because I know someone was being a fucking dumbass. It only takes one monkey to ruin the party.

I tried listening to that old Snow Patrol album, the one that made too tan sorority girls think they liked alt music. There is like 4 minutes of quality on that album. So then I put on some Crystal Castles, which is a good time and all, but I can’t sing along to that shit. I knew what I needed and it’s disappointing because I am so fucking predictable. But I knew the only thing that would make wasting my gas bearable at a dead stop on the 1 (I know. Boo fucking hoo, right?) would be a smooth cocktail of my most sing alongable tracks. Dashboard and Fallout Boy to the rescue.

I got home and immediately tried to raid the kitchen because I find calories are the best way to deal with stress. But we have more alcohol than food so now I’m drunk on wine and have a few sunflower seeds in me. And I have gleeked on the screen like 14 times since starting this.

The Millionizer wants you to pass this on

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