Day: August 28, 2003

To anyone who is reading this who is not my ex-roomate, you can skip it, because it doesn’t really have much other than a lot of rambling in it, that won’t make too much difference to anyone not physically in the situation I have found myself in. If you insist on wasting your time, you do so forwarned – it certainly don’t concern you. It is going on my journal because that appears to be everyone’s forum of choice in dealing with these matters of late, which, I don’t see as a half bad idea.

There will be no more posts like this in the future.

Concerning your comments on this post.

I have waited some time so I did not knee-jerk respond to what you had to say. I gather it doesn’t make too much difference, as you don’t have internet access.

I’m not sure where you get off going apeshit. Richelle really tried to be your freind, to like you for who you are, and that didn’t work. Maybe it was the incessant negativity – maybe it was the fact that your concept of cleanliness and roomate responsibility were far below what she, or I, consider complimentary for a living situation. She tried to help you out in times of need, even going so far as to divulge sensitive personal information in response to a panic in your life, which had nothing to do with her. She and I both stuck up for you when your scruples were under the highest of scrutiny, despite the fact that we had to lie to others to do so. Sure, you would have done the same for me, but I don’t know about Richelle. You pitched in around the apartment, you did dishes now and then, and took down the garbage now and then. You put up with Marley and his idiosynchrisies, and the fact that after a point, the living room became much less of a communal space after 11pm than it was when we first moved in. You were not 100% neglegent as a housemante, except in the insect problem department, which was not even an issue for Richelle and I until VERY recently. Richelle spent MONTHS putting up with not only things she couldn’t contend with in your personaliy, but also guff from other people who know both you and she, about your negative aspects. It is something I have done for so long, I barely think about it anymore – to her, it was not the same.

Richelle is not claiming faultlessness or perfection as a roomate. She is venting. She has a right to do that. The fact that she choses to do it on Livejournal, rather than in person is a better thing for all involved, IMO. Suck it up and deal. It is certainly not the first, and probably not the last time someone will rant about being in close quarters with you for extended periods of time. She has made it very clear about how she feels about you. I can’t say I completely understand why you persit in keeping her on your “friends” page. Clearly, she is not a friend. You are like the statistic about Howard Stern – the average listener lsitens 45 mins a day, the average Stern hater averages an hour and a half. What the fuck is the point?

Even after trying to like you didn’t work out, Richelle tried to keep things civil, and not cause friction. She avoided you as much as possible, and kept to herself. Its not her problem that you have a tough time not constantly insulting someone when you feel slighted, or asserting your correctness on any topic. You are aware of your ability to irritate and anger people – it was something you relished at one point in your life, and I feel a part of you has never truly moved beyond that. Part of you is just plain oblivious about it too, at least I hope I’m not wrong about that, or I fear my judgement is to be seriously questioned for the future. I have, for whatever reasons, a lot thicker skin than anyone else you’ve ever interacted with in that regard – Richelle didn’t. It was a risk, one which we discussed and all parties were forewarned about.

To the best of my knowledge, Richelle never insulted Danielle. She did, however, make quite a number of comments about living with you, and dealing with the aftermath of what ultimately, no matter what you have to say or think about it, is a disaster of your making. She has since posted her opinions on those comments – I leave her to explain her own feelings.

As to your monetary situation, I have very little compassion.

You are an incredibly frugal person – when it comes to certain things. I don’t even want to guess how much you have spent on LARP donations and LARP related expenses since we lived together. You shouldered some unfortunate expenses of late, but so did we, and the cause of them, directly in our case, was you.

Your car, which was a big investment, and which you have the gall to use as some sort of shield to your financial situation, was a loan from your dad. In your own words, you haven’t started paying it back yet even! Don’t cry over soemthing you got for free, even when it breaks. If you were smart, you would have taken that car to the dealer for a trade in as soon as you got possesion, and gotten something new with a warantee and better mileage, but worth a little less. I’m still ffing paying for a car I can’t even legally drive, and I don’t have the option of calling them and saying “things are a little tight right now, I’ll get ya next month”. The fact that your insurance comapny is being tightfisted and inept is no suprise – that is thier job, to keep thier money as long as possible.

You having to pay for your move is an unfortunate side effect of scheduling. I did say I would help you, and feel bad that I was unable to, but, all things being equal in hindsight, I don’t feel as bad about it anymore. The fact that you had to work “the whole weekend” I made avaialble to help, despite the fact that you made the schedules at your job, AND spent two days at a LARP mini-con BEFORE you went on your work training thing is NOT my problem. The fact that they gave you very limited breaks while away, in which to make reservations, likewise, is not my problem. Perhaps a phonecall instead of DDR might have saved you some dough.

I told you from the getgo how hard bedbugs were to get rid of. When you were still living in Yonkers. I shot you some links, even discussed alternatives. The data is very specific – pesticide everything to kill the living ones, then steam clean everything to kill eggs, and get rid of the poison. Every surface of every part of your room needs to be dealt both of these steps. Then launder everything fabric you have, and keep things spotless for 4-6 weeks to make sure there is not another outbreak. I have tried to stick to that as tightly as possible – barring possible future contamination from your recently vacated space. It will be months of worry before I know wether or not my precautions were adequite. I hope, for your sake, that they are – and, for your new roomates’ sake that you ahve managed to ditch your problem that started all this.

In short, the fact that you have no bed is your own fault. I know for a fact that you have not done all these things.

At one point or another you did take one or more of the suggested steps, but never all of them in concert. You had a waterbed after you moved, which would have made dcealing with this all the easier, since they had no fabric to infest. It would have involved you draining your bed, taking it entirely apart, along with your dresser, and spending two or more days doing nothing but cleaning from sunup to sundown. Since you don’t work on a 9-5 m/f, you could have responded even faster than Richelle and I did when I discovered our infestation.

You did not.

I fought for you dammit, against my own doubts and worries, and paid for it, dearly. Now I sit and read that you don’t think Richelle is deserving of an apology? Where precisely does that concept come from? It is my lingering attachent to some of the hopes I have about you as a person which is preventing her from taking you to COURT to get your wages garnered to pay for all our shit. Christ man, don’t make it worse by throwing gas on a fire you started. Richelle was content to just let things slide until we founf out that we were beset by vermin.

I’d like to know what problems you have you DO blame on Richelle. Aside from us moving on earlier than I thought we would have to, I can’t think of a goddamn thing. You were very understanding when I explained the situation about her coming to NY to be with me. You accepted Marley, and his frequent messes, with a stoicism I apprecaite dearly. I was VERY specific about how things were going to play between she and I though, if all worked out, and what my best case/worst case was, and you were willing to accept that. I moved in to the house in Mt. Vernon for precisely two reasons, in this order:

1. I wanted to live someplace big enough that Richelle and myself could survive if our romantic relationship didn’t work out, without either of us being in each other’s hair, or homeless. This apartment was perfect for that., If things hadn’t have worked out, I would have just moved into the geek room. Pesimistic pragmatism which has since proved irrelivant, but it was the safest thing IMO at the time.

2.I had a sense of obligation to you because you and I had spoken about it previously, before the situation with Richelle was a possibility/reality. I could have just as easily dropped the whole thing and stayed on central – my exposure would have been very limited – so I opted not to leave you in the lurch. Even after Richelle stated, rather clearly, that she was not happy living with you, I stuck to my sense of resolve and obligation – giving you advance notice on when we WOULD be moving out, instead of just ditching mid-month.

3. I wanted to try and save some money, and thought that the extra roomate situation would enable that more easily. My error.

Now, a year later, I wish I had not done some of those things at various points.

Not everything has been bad, not all of it has been black. There has been laugher as well as frustration. However, those two have not been in balance for the last few months. Recent developments were a guilded capstone on the proverbial sarcophagous of my patience.

Richelle sure as hell deserves as much, if not MORE than an apology than I do, especially since she has put up with other crap that has bothered her alot, and kept it relatively quiet. You were kind enough to aoffer me one, I don’t see why she should be exempted.

I am done with this. I am not going to rant anymore about it. If you want to face me about things I have said, you had best be ready to apologise to Richelle as well, or I truly don’t want to hear it.

I don’t hate you, and I don’t want to kill you – but I am not particularly jovial or positive about our friendship at the moment. The conversation we had the other night, in the recent wake of your comments, was before I knew about/had read your comments to Richelle. People joked about the post you made earlier in the month, in which you made it sound as if we were “breaking up” – I don’t hold to that idealouge of our relationship, but it is very clear that, at the moment, some serious time and space is needed. We will tie up loose ends concerning the Mt. Vernon place, and then it may be a while before you hear from me again – partially so I can cool my heels, and partially because Richelle and I need to work on our own shit more than anything else atm.

For a long time someone has been advising me to just drop you as a freind altogether, in the hopes that it would wake you up as far as the things you do/don’t do which drive people nuts. I have never throught that a prudent course of action.

However, perhaps you can take this time, while I am trying to get my life back in order, to reflect on just those things, and why, I’m sure, from your perspective, the world is so against you.

I’m not, like i said, but I’m sure not pulling for you the same way I was a year ago, or even a week ago, for that matter.