Disappointment

I had been hoping that one of my next blog entries would be happily telling you, my valued readers, that our application for our new apartment/house/home... I'm not sure what we should call it, since it's kind of a weird building... was approved, and we will be moving within the month away from this terrible, oppressive place.

I cannot. Our application was denied. The nice lady who showed us around explained to my boyfriend over the phone that they've gotten some requests to use the building as office space and as such, the price has been increased by $150 per month. In accordance with some kind of zoning policy, I presume, since it would no longer be "residential". The thing is... it had been zoned as shopfront for a long time, and didn't sell. Apparently the same place has been on the market for about a year, albeit under different conditions.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore to me.

I haven't been exercising consciously at all anymore. It is a thing which has stopped happening. I've been spending more of my time socializing, on an IRC full of generally closer to like-minded individuals, and I've made some new friends. One of whom seemed really nice and even made a request that I tell him if he ever, figuratively speaking, missteps on my toes, along with a promise to bear it in mind and try to make right on his mistakes... since he knows making one now and then is unavoidable. He managed not to offend me at all the first time I spoke to him. The second time, he said something which, unintentionally, caused me some offense. It was a thing about different play styles in roleplaying games, about resource management bogging down a perfectly good game (I tend to put some focus on it in my cavern game, since it's an important part of struggling to survive, which is kind of the premise). It was a minor offense, but me being me, I find it kind of hard to get past minor offenses sometimes. I told him how I felt about it... and was, in effect, dismissed as an accusatory and ridiculously oversensitive bitch who was making a big deal over nothing and was convinced he was a hateful person.

This isn't related, of course, it just fits in with the general theme of my life for the past 24 hours... profound, hideous, heartbreaking disappointment, after I'd allowed myself to get my hopes up. Again. How much harder will it be to avoid convincing myself there's no point in trying, next time? I don't know. For now...

I've mostly gotten over the liar crush from IRC, but the house is a much bigger problem. I feel trapped here. I would say that I feel like the walls are closing in on me, but I don't. I looked at the walls practically asking them to, and they refused. They just stood there being walls and mocking me for the cowardice that traps me within them. It's not their fault, they seemed to want to remind me. They even have a nice high ceiling to create the illusion of greater freedom and openness, specifically, it almost seems, so that I can't be intimidated and cramped by its closeness. Nevertheless, I hate this room. I hate this apartment. I hate the mess and most of all I hate the evil Old Man that I've become so afraid and disgusted with that whenever I'm in the kitchen/livingroom area and he walks in, my gut tightens, my shoulders stiffen, and I just wish fervently for him not to try to talk to me (not that he ever does) and to please, please, just hurry up and go away. He can probably tell. It's hardly as though I'm taking any particular measure to be subtle about the vibes I'm putting off. And when he talks, even if it's just to my boyfriend while I'm in the room, I want to tear him apart.

He posted a list of unreasonable, stupid "Normal" house rules, including not using the stove after 7 PM and not eating after 10 PM, until breakfast, that even my boyfriend is afraid to break, now, because he claims that us moving around and running water to clean dishes kept waking him up.

The other morning, between 5 and 6 in the morning, he came and actually knocked on our door. I don't remember what it was he wanted, my boyfriend sorted it out. Apparently he was confused by something, probably a setting of the new television he bought recently, and needed help figuring it out. It doesn't matter to me. What I do remember, and what does matter, was the sinking feeling of dread and anger, as I realized that by knocking on the bedroom door, he had forced his presence into my awareness even when I was safe in my room. I couldn't be free from him even if I never left my, our, my boyfriend's and mine, so our, bedroom, the place which was safe... because it's where he doesn't go. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for him to take that security away from me by doing something as simple as knocking on our door. At a time when "Normal" people would probably not be assumed to be awake. I can't help but feel that this is a terrible form of hypocrisy. He hasn't exactly broken his own rules, but his complaint was that we had been accidentally waking him up at times when it was reasonable for him to be sleeping. ... And this seems like behavior that would accomplish the same on purpose.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. I guess we'll look into other available places around town. Or rather, my boyfriend will. As for me, I'll more likely retreat further into the internet in an effort not to face my despair, and rot for another couple of weeks.

If there is a change of plans in that regard, I'll let you guys know.

Thank You, Ani

I've not been living, this past week, I've been waiting, that's all. Waiting to be somewhere else, with so much ferocity I don't think we're getting the paperwork to move there in on time. Isn't amazing how that will happen? The system just kind of... stops... And refuses to do anything, with too little hope, too little connection to anything outside the grubby walls of a messy bedroom that never changes...

I've been playing casual games on OMGPOP recently, mostly Draw My Thing, which is fun and social, especially to play with friends who appreciate your joke answers. I know this shiny, glossy, colourful world of little jewelry tokens and rewards for momentary cleverness or quick reflexes... It's fake and shallow and silly, and it makes very little but an effective distraction. I feel a little bored just testing my reflexes, and so I open my music library. Huh, Ani Difranco. Hello. It's been a while. Why not?

Why not? I don't think anyone else could have pulled me so completely out of that cute little illusion. How can you listen to Ani DiFranco and not give your full attention to the real world around you? Suddenly, I wasn't a chimp responding to colours anymore, I transformed again into a restless but emboldened young person trapped in a small bedroom, avoiding responsibility and interactivity with the outside at the same time as I crave it, and am wasting away without it. I really need to put this music on my MP3 player. It would make good music for walking through that real world, to stay grounded in it... but in an empowering way...

Thank you, Ani. I was forgetting, again.

This isn't the only deep thing I encountered today. My friend insisted on showing me the video demonstration of current graphic technology, Quantic Dreams' Kara. Watch it. It's touching and valid and topical. It made me cry with loneliness and I am not even remotely ashamed to admit it, although I am slightly to admit that I am a bit jealous of my partner and my friend, who apparently had both thought up an idea about what might be going on that I did not. Ah, well. I should not take it to mean that I am dense or stupid for not thinking the same thing.

And then a Michael Moore documentary. I hear that a lot of people say his arguments are invalid, that they only display one side of any issue, and present it in a hugely skewed way. I wonder how many of the people who say this are not trying to discredit him for their own financial interests. My partner wanted me to see Sicko. It wasn't bad. I paused it a lot to have political discussions with him at various points when I had something to say that seemed important to me.

And yet, I don't think anything wakes me up like Ani DiFranco, who talks about fantasies to make them real fantasies, rather than false realities.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

To anyone who's been reading with interest, thank you, too. You can expect my posting to be erratic and strange, to be scattered and weird, and rarely hold the same topics for long. I hope you find some good stuff here in my ravings. Love and peace and inspiration to all of you.

Dungeon Crawl

The snooty upper-class born conman stands at the end of his trial. He is charged guilty of murder and high robbery, asked if he has any final words, but says no, and steps onto the platform which is lowered (with two guards and himself) slowly into the darkness of underground until it settles on cavern floor. With some confusion, and a lot of terrified hesitancy, and the guards' quiet, if not entirely polite, patience, steps gingerly off again, and lights the first of his torches off the guard's own, walking away as the platform starts to raise again, mind racing with the completely unfamiliar and terrifying challenges before him. Realizing dimly that he's going to have to find his way around, and find some semblance of food and shelter, he chooses a direction (they all look the same as far as his torchlight goes - packed earth, occasional stagnant puddles, and rocks) and walks it until the only way to continue would be to splash through a long area of surface water and wet mud, which he turns to avoid, turning again to avoid having to climb over rocky ground when he reaches an area that the ground gives way to piles of rocks - because he wants to be able to run if something threatening appears...


Fast forward - Alestir the conman's feet are blistered and somewhat raw from running in cheap, useless footwear while wet, his left shoulder is aching and sore from the outcast's brand he was given at the trial, and his cheek is scraped from where he tripped and fell running away from an unholy abomination of both goodness and common sense - bones aren't supposed to move on their own! On the upside, he's finally found something of some use - a rat-eaten corpse fresh enough to have proper boots, rather than the roped together foot sacks they gave him to wear... with three coins in them! Hallelujah! This hellhole has something in it that could, conceivably, be made shiny... With new boots bothering his blisters, and one coin nestled in each of them, the third in the patchy cloth sack that contains his other supplies, he keeps walking... and after another fruitless age of trudging in one direction hoping to come across something of use... the silence of the caverns is suddenly broken by the echoes of mad, cackling laughter. Alestir groans inside, his most coherent thought that the gods are laughing at him, and he doesn't want to know what else is.
Fade Out End Session.


Next time... similar scenario, different criminal. Are they destined to meet? Will they survive long enough?


I got to start a dungeon crawl game with my girlfriend yesterday. I was pretty scattered, but I'd say it went well. It was good to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of our current living quarters.


There is a living place in town that we should be able to rent... in things go well, we should be out of this hateful place and back in a home where we don't have to live under an aggressive roommate's rule next month. Here's to hoping. It would be good to be in our own space again, and the place we are looking at is actually very beautiful, with nice floors, a compact but not cramped kitchen corner, and a classy bathroom. Everything looks new and well built. I hear it used to be a shopfront, and there are big windows in the living room. Blinds to regulate the balance between privacy and daylight.


I hope, dearly, that we can live there.


Happiness has been strange recently, and strangely easy to come by. I think it's partly because I face the adversity of an adversary at home, so just living with it and surviving the passing days feels like something of an achievement, but better, being reminded of what I don't want to be, and the things I hate, contributes, I think, to focusing more on who I do want to be and the things I love, particularly when I go for walkies late at night.


While I'm not working out reliably, still, I have not completely stopped. I did a plank on Monday and held a couple of seconds longer again, even though I didn't do any other workout for workout's sake. We did walk across town to our friend's house, as well, though.


I have made contact with someone that my friends have been suggesting I should, who is part of a community oriented around ideas of magic and energy healing and things like that. I find the viewpoint he talks from to be alienatingly light and silly... but on the flip side, I'm sure he sees mine as needlessly dark and cynical. Still, apparently I have made a good enough impression that he'd like to talk political ideals with me sometime, and I think I'd like that.


To top of the weekend, my mate and I went to the local bar for some of their famous wings. They were delicious, and the atmosphere was relaxing and comfortably human, even though it was loud and included some bad music. There were drunk men playing pool.