Words and Words and Words

(If you want even MORE today, please look at June 17, which I JUST reposted because I'm no longer scared of future landlords googling me)

I had a pretty active weekend.

I had a brief talk with my roommate who brought her price down to $85 for the cleaning (further explanation is in the June 17 post). She is still unaware that I'm not paying it at all, although I have given her many reasons why $85 is fucktarded (not my exact wording). The point is, at some point between now and Thursday, she is going to approach me and try to go through the entire apartment together and try to convince me that I owe her $85. I am scared shitless. I KNOW that I'm right for the following reasons:

1. Nothing is destroyed. NOTHING.

2. I am cleaning the apartment (although she thinks that the difference between "cleaning" and "sanitizing" is at least a $50 one)

3. I did not sign a lease

4. She did not take a deposit or cleaning fee.

5. I spoke with not only many friends about this, but my grandparents, my roommate's mom, and the boss next door who rents a guest house, and they ALL agreed that I'm right (the latter said $35 would be nice, and if Davida has asked for that, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash).

6. While she insists at every moment that she gave me an amazing deal and telling me that the room is worth $975 a month--

-I can't flush the toilet after 11pm, use the shower before 7am, use her trash cans (the outdoor ones-- I have to shadily dump my trash in dumpsters).

-I FEEL like I can't use her kitchen or laundry room.

-She comes into my room (twice in the middle of the night-- I caught her because she thought I was asleep).

-I feel like the neighbors are watching me, for good reason (I want an article on the many reasons why I feel like the neighbors are watching me to link to because I read SO much cracked.com and it seems appropriate-- alas, I would have to write that article first).

-I can't have guests without talking to her first and she even charged me for the water Natalya used for showers for the 6 days she was with me (kind of-- she SAID she was going to charge me $10, but Natalya and I took 4 showers between the two of us for the entire stay (literal) and Davida later told me (twice) that she decided not to charge me as a Christmas gift (fucker!@)).

-She nags me about my muffler (lack of) consistently and has, in the past nagged me about what I eat, what vitamins I should take, that I should clean more (obvious), what bank to get, what bluetooth to get, what jobs I should take, how I should take care of my fish (that included a highlighted online article and a passive aggressive note (she thought I accused her of killing my fish by keeping the house too cold. I thought I was making conversation)).

- I had to buy specific, name brands of toilet paper and cleaning solutions for the floor vs the toilet vs the windows, which sucked WAY harder during my poor weeks when I almost exclusively ate bread and bananas (true story)

-And this last point REALLY shouldn't be underestimated-- you canNOT talk to this woman for 5 minutes. It is ALWAYS 45 minutes. I gave her a note, officially announcing my departure and then had to listen to her talk at me about every fucking thing that occurred to her for the next HOUR! Actual time. For REAL. My new building manager told me that she has NEVER talked to someone for so long for just a verification-- this included a lengthy and detailed description of her homeopathic medicines, which you might note has literally NOTHING to do with me. What I'm saying is that I spent the last year carefully timing my arrival home in hopes that I wouldn't catch her while she was outside, which is hard because the ONLY thing she does is take care of her horse.

I wanted to move 3 months after I arrived (production jobs distracted me for a while), I FINALLY have enough money to do it (barely and with much help from my family) and I'm not giving her another fucking PENNY for torturing me! I can't even tell you, guys. She tells me ALL THE TIME how lucky I am to live there and how I'm like her daughter while I alternately praise myself for having more self control than Mr. Miyagi and berate myself for being a pussy as I smile through my teeth and agree with her.

Anyway, do you see why I'm scared shitless of telling the most long winded, cheapest, screamiest, most entitled woman who believes herself to be the arch angel for poor renters in need that I'm not giving her any money and she can't make me? And if it's tonight, I have no choice but to stay in that house anyway until Friday (and I have thought long and hard about my alternatives). I accept that it's happening and my reward is relief and bliss and fun and so much money saved.

But I hate this week.

In other news:

-Moved the bulk of my crap to the new apartment, including books

-did the less crucial laundry of crap that I vaguely realized I had and stuff to give to Goodwill (good sign that I'm really on the ball)

-I finished reading Wasteland by Francesca Lee Block, which I REALLY enjoyed. I tried to read another one of hers, but it was lame and I put it down after 10 pages. Good thing Wasteland was good because I was worried that Francesca is only good if you don't go on a spree (I read Blood Roses and Echo this month)-- she reuses themes and images a lot and I worried they might seem cheap after a while. But not so.

- Watched a French movie called Shall We Kiss. I rated it 3/5. It was cute but the female characters were all annoying.

- I listened to the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack at LEAST a full 6 times.

- I got 24 crayons and printed some coloring book pages of unicorns and fairies and colored for a while. It felt therapeutic.

-picked up some electronics from my office and took them to the electronics recycling place only to find the recycling place closed. 2 hours wasted (I didn't really care, though).

- Due to some movie passes Corina had, I saw Bad Teacher and The Art of Getting By.

Bad Teacher: Cameron Diaz was great. Jason Segal was great but I needed more. Justin Timberlake was, unfortunately, kind of dead weight. Although I had an asthmatic laugh (read: very hard laugh) at one JT scene. At his face. I won't spoil it, but if you see it you'll know what I'm talking about. Mostly Cameron's character was so selfish and heartless and I liked it and then she had like.... 2 randomly placed scenes in which she had a TINY bit of heart (maybe the writer just couldn't handle someone completely soulless) which didn't really fit. And then they used that bit of heart to justify the ending, which just tasted weird to me. I'd watch it again if it came on TV. Better than I Love You, Man.

The Art of Getting By: Boyfriend from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is either a bad actor or made a character choice that makes it look like he's a bad actor. I'm really confident that it's the former, but it worked in the way that Keanu Reeves pulled off Neo in The Matrix. Also in many parts the dialogue was so on-the-nose about introducing characters and describing who they are that I wanted to die a little bit. However, I was really attracted to the idea of the story and in the many dialogue-less moments, I thought it was genius. Although every time I heard the dialogue, I had to wonder whether I was just attributing too much of what I saw as the actual intentions of the filmmakers. There was a line in the movie in which an artist says "some people think it's bullshit and some think it's genius. I don't really know the difference." And that's how I felt about the film. IIIII really enjoyed watching it and my mind was reeling the entire time. I can't say whether everyone would see what I saw, so I can't convince you to spend $12 on it, but I had a good time. Nothing to say about Emma Roberts. The dialogue was bad so she sounded bad and she didn't have much character depth and she was kind of annoying, but they had a lot of stylized shots of her that made her look awesome... so I was okay with it.