Shitstorm

I'm finally settling down here; finding my way around yet another part of this endless city, getting back into a routine, putting the pieces back together. I have a new home, a new room, new roommates, new neighborhood, new gym, new subway... basically a new life. You know how at the top there ^^ I describe [my] life as a vast ocean where I struggle forward against the waves that hurl me back... well this last wave was a fucking behemoth and although I was expecting it I was totally unprepared for its destructiveness. I got the rug pulled out from under me. Maybe I was asking for it... days before the shit hit the fan I had been talking about how I needed to be single and strong when bad things happen, then they happened, I almost moved in with my ex, N, then I dumped her and dealt with it all by myself - after initially freaking out for a few days. Then I got my strength and clarity back and I did what needed to be done and all by myself (mostly). Everything seemed to play out just like I had written it would. But whether I asked for it or not, I got through and now I'm going to put it all down so I can stop reflecting and get a move on. Then I'm going to write better things so that *good things* can happen instead.

Everything first began when Mitzy told me that she needed me to be out at the end of the month - April. She was hesitant to explain her reasons why, so I presumed it was because of something I'd done. She confessed that she was pregnant and she was going to make my room into the nursery. I congratulated her and said I understood completly; I wouldn't want a stanger living in the same house with my first newborn either and besides that I didn't want to be another illegal alien live-in nanny. So that was fine, but I appealed that a month was too abrubt for me, that I'd been going through a rough patch (for a couple years) and that their house was really the only stability I felt my life had and I'd need some time to find another place that could meet my needs w/o throwing my whole life into upset. I asked for six months at the most, giving her plenty of time to redecorate my bedroom and what-all and giving me time to find something accomidating for myself. She agreed. I was so releived; instead of being kicked out at the end of the month I had a cushy buffer zone in which to make a more deliberate life transition. That the routine and stability that my life had adopted wouldn't get knocked on it's ass.... then a couple weeks later she heedlessly kicked me out.

Lemme back up a little bit and talk about Mitzy and Vincent. When I first moved in I met with M and V independantly on separate days. M spoke in Spanish and told me that she was "only renting the room" and that I could only use the kitchen for breakfast, but that I still *could* use their utensils, etc. There was a mini-fridge upstairs where I could keep my food and another cabinet downstairs. V spoke in English and told me that I could share their kitchen whenever, that I could use their living room, and that I could stay for as long as I wanted. I continued to get these opposing messages from them for the duration of my stay there; V was more like "our home is your home" and M was more like "pretend like you don't exist". M was in charge I guess, which was too bad because Vince was actually nice to me. M stopped acknowledging me after the first month. At first she was smily and attentive, but then all of a sudden I could rarely get her to lift her head and grunt for my greetings. As the months went on she grew more distant in her relations with me, but I didn't really care because I only saw her once or twice a day for maybe a few seconds and I rarely needed to talk to her at any length. Eventually I stopped saying hi to her at all. Then in March we started butting heads for the first time because I had begun using their kitchen on a daily basis, back when I first started going to the old gym.

I had gone to the grocery with the intent of creating a healthy diet and what I brought back was put in the cabinet I had been told to use. Then later that day I find all of my food dumped out on the table; no M, no explanation. (later she'd pile up my dry clothes and dishes in the same way). I considered bringing the food up to my room, but decided to just leave it scattered on the table as it lay; aware that this would force M to explain herself to me until I cleaned it up... if I just cleaned it up and stashed it in my room she would never discuss it and she'd just keep being a passive aggresive bitch. When she did confront me about it, it was just as I had expected, she seemed incredulous at the fact that I had a need to eat and that I would keep food in her kitchen. I asked her where I should keep it then, and she kinda scoffed and told me I could keep it in the closet outside. Okay, so I moved my food to the closet. Fine. Then it was one thing after another; I couldn't use her plates or silverware anymore, I'd have to buy my own set. She'd leave the sink and drying rack full of dishes and yelled at me when she heard me putting them away. So I had to keep my dirty dishes my bathroom sink and dry my dishes in my shower. Basically my bathroom had become the two bit set of a half rate cooking show.

Then she started complaining about the electricity for the first time. She tried to tell me that I was using thousands of pesos worth of electricity every month that I wasn't paying for. That I was leaving lights on all of the time. This is bullshit off course, there were three months I used a 500 watt space heater for a few hours a day and besides that all I had were five lights and a computer (and a blender). And I did leave lights on sometimes, I admit it, but not often at all and never for more than a few hours... nothing compared to the energy that I witnessed them useing. M would leave the lights on in her bedroom and bathroom and go out for the day, then when she'd return she'd sit outside in direct sight of all of these light she'd left on with no one to use them, and do nothing. If she really cared about the electricity she'd turn off her own goddamn lights instead blaming me.

But I was grateful that she was letting me stay an extra six months, so I gave her an extra $700 pesos with March's rent, I switched my light bulbs with those low wattage bulbs, and made a stonger effort to turn my light's off when they weren't in use. Not only that, but I had gone to great lengths to abide by her challenging restrictions. But still she continued revoking my house privelages, now I couldn't use her dishes or her blender, then I couldn't use her pots and pans, finally that I couldn't use her stove. We had a woman who came to do our laundry and clean the house and my room and M deliberatly didn't tell me that she wouldn't be coming anymore until I had found my clothes piled on the ground outside. This is all within the space of a couple of weeks. Shit was getting rediculous and I had no way to cook for myself or clean my clothes.

She was obviously doing this to force me into leaving of my own accord because she had already promised to give me more time. When driving me out didn't work she finally renegged on our agreement and told me - again - to be out by the end of April. *This* after going so far out of my way to comply with all of her stupid bullshit rules and enduring her acidic attitude towards me, after buying dishes and blenders and the light bulbs and tiptoeing all around her, after all that, any patience or sympathy that I might have had for being a respectful, loyal, docile, submissive roomer was now just as dissolved as her promise to me was. I was furious with her beyond care for restraint.

I had nowhere to go and only a week to find it. I had only started looking a few days before, so I didn't have many leads. This was when N offered to let me move in with her. I had a bad feeling about it - G had implied that she was offering her bed in some attempt to win me back or something... which didn't exactly bolster my support for this plan - so I told N that I was still going to try and find a someplace for myself and that staying with her would be a last resort... but realistically I didn't hold out much hope for finding something in the next week and a half and so figured N's was exactly where I'd end up. All of my options seemed for the worst and I was getting scared.

N and I went out that Saturday and my flowering depression seemingly brought out an allergic reaction in her. She had acted strange toward me the whole day, rebuking my personal feelings of dissapointment and rage toward my situation, rolling her eyes when I made jokes at my own expense, then she just lost her patience altogether. She told me that I was acting depressed just to play for her sympathy (as others have said before), that I was using her to fix all of my own problems, but the real ball breaker was when she said the only reason she fell in love with me to begin with was because I was just like her *mother*. Her crazy, schizophrenic, six times married mother who mentally abused her to the point where N now openly wishes for her death and general misfortune. What. The. Fuck. It didn't make sense that someone could go from being totally enamoured with me to thinking that I was just like their psycho mother in just a few weeks. It didn't seem right... (still doesn't) she had seemed so solid before. I knew I wasn't in the most stable mindset to make life impacting decisions, but there was no question, she had said something to me that was irreconcilable. I said goodbye and walked away from her and never looked back. I haven't seen or spoken to her since. This upset me terribly... because I really did love her and I missed her and she had clawed open my chest. Everything felt out of control, it seemed I had finally nosedived into the canyon.

I barely left my room for almost two days - my "safe space" which had become not-so-safe - for fear that something else bad would happen if I did. That's the closest yet that I've come to returning to Columbus since I've gotten here... but even then suicide seemed far wiser - I wasn't about to do either. The fear and loathing ran it's course and I came around on Monday, ready to find a place to live. And just like that, *, after three rooming appointments I found the one I'm at now. I decided I would either move my things straight there on the 1st or temporarily to G's house if needed, depending on how the rest played out. I had the feeling that things were going to get ugly with M. I still needed my last month's rent back and I knew she was going to screw me out of most of it. I hated her with a passion and was ready to get nasty if that's what it took. After the last couple of weeks I'd had, the need for contingency plans had become definative.

I told M to give me my last month's rent back, which I had already paid when I first moved in - and wasn't going to be useing in May since I would be kicked out by then - along with the $700 pesos I had given her for the electricity. On Tuesday we discussed the terms of my expulsion. At first she wouldn't talk to me inside of the house, she would only talk to me out on the patio, because inside was *her house* and I had no right to dwell inside of *her domain* while still possesing a single breath in my lungs - as if I even wanted to. This was how badly she wanted me out of there. But she was just being a stupid twat - I mean this was all about her house and ridding me from it - so we finally went into her office to talk. What a cunt.

First she tells me I'd been paying $50 pesos a month for cable television *when I don't even own a television* and then has the gall to try and retroactively charge me for seven months of electricity that I didn't use *either*. Out of the $3700 pesos that I was entitled (which should have been $4050 including my stolen cable money) she was only offering back $1200 - I think. I was prepared to fight her tooth and nail for all of it and the best I could threaten to do was stay there for another month - I had technically already paid for it - and this I knew would be the last thing she'd want. I demanded and held my ground and after she halfway threatening to have me deported from the country, what I ended up with was the negotiated sum of $2850 if I would get the hell out of her life in 24 hrs or less. (thanks to G for her tasteful translations throughout our final discourse together). She would hand me the cash when my last box was out the door and then slam it shut in my face forever. I was just happy to have her pay more than she wanted to. She'd thrown a fucking monkey wrench into my life plans, taken advantage of my trust and seriously shaken my foundation of hope. She had been contolling my every movement inside of her house for the last seven months and this was when I took control back. I won, you bitch. Haha, eat it.

It was a strange sensation, knowing that I would be on the street in 24hrs and having no clear place to stay the next night or the night after until the 1st of May. What was so strange was that I felt a kind of euphoria from the uncertainty of the situation; that anything could happen and would happen and very soon based solely on the effectiveness of my next few decisions. The euphoria, I think, came from the certainty that I was in control of my own destiny again that it wasn't bound by the actions of any other. I called up the guy whom I was moving in with, Francisco, and asked if I could move in a little sooner, "like tomorrow" - Wednesday - because I had just kinda lost my place of residence. He told me the soonest he'd be ready for me was on Thursday. This left me with a day in limbo with nowhere to stay, so I kicked in the contingency plan to move my stuff to Gaby's for the day and figured I'd stay either at a hotel or a hostal for the night. I packed up the rest of my life into shoeboxes and crates and boxes and garbage bags and made the arrangements to have my stuff Taxied to G's for Wednesday and then for a moving truck to move them from Gaby's to my new room on Thursday. Two moves in two days.

Wednesday morning arrived and it was time to make move #1. There was already a locksmith at the front door changing the bolts; her disgust with my presence was that tangible. The little taxi came and it took exactly 5 trips - with me in he car - to move all of my worldy possesion, 12 containers and two garbage bags holding my life, and all for only $150 pesos. Well, that was almost everything, I had to leave my PC desk out into the street; there was no place for it. I hope someone maybe adopted it, but it was a Sauder piece of junk anyways. M kept to her word for once; no sooner was my last crate in the taxi and the keys in her hand than I was seeing the door shut and grasping my $2850 pesos in pocket. We didn't verbally say goodbye.

I moved my things upstairs into G's house and stowed them up above her closet... which turned out to be much easier than getting them back down again. Once everything was put away I went and checked into the fleabag Hotel Colonia Roma for the night... seemed a wise decision after that hostel movie I'd seen. It was dirt cheap (200 pesos/night) and nice & sleazy. The guy at the front desk didn't believe me that I was by myself, he thought I'd had some bimbo hidden away that I was trying to sneak in for the night. The bathroom was like one big shower, no curtains or paneling in between any of the plumbimg; when I showered the water would spray all over the toilet and sink and the rest and then it would all drain out together by my feet. Yuck. At least I had my choice of free porn to watch and a warm vibrating bed for the night.

The next day I got up and went to teach my class, then came back to G's for move #2. This time I had a moving truck and movers to help. Before they got there I got everything down from the closet... kinda fell and fucked up my shoulder while I was getting my computer down (while my spotter had her back turned!), but managed to get everything out intact. With the movers, it only took about an hour to get it all to Itzaccihuatl (pronounced, "It's a sea waddle") and unloaded into my bedroom. I rode with them on the way... we didn't say a word. When everything was out they invited me out for a drink (was I supposed to buy them drinks??), I respectfully declined and gave them an extra $50... I would have given them more but I was getting pretty broke at that point. I put the rest of the boxes away in my room and exhaled.

It was done. After approximately 20 hrs of homelessness I was once again gainfully resided into my new home. I collapsed onto the bed and slept straight through the rest of the day and that night. I was free. I was drained.