THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS

Now that I'm really single I'm actually starting to focus on ME.  My main goal is to shove as much money as possible into my "I'm Finally Going to Buy a House" fund.   I just went through a small spending phase, but I have my summertime wardrobe now and that should last for a few years unless I have a significant weight gain or loss.  Not too likely.  So...let the savings begin.

I know what I want and I know what I have to do to get it.  It'll take some hard work, but I've never shied away from that.  It'll take some sacrifice.  I'm familiar with that as well.

I'm excited.  If I buy a house in the community I'm thinking I want to retire in, I will no longer have to listen to the old man who lives above, with his incessant smoker's cough.  I won't have to smell my next door neighbor's boiling "Pot of Goat."  I won't have to blast my air purifier at night just to drown out the sounds of the neighbors slamming into the walls or banging their pots and pans around at 5AM every morning and 11PM every night.

Oh, how I'll miss the crowing of the retarded rooster next door.  His alarm clock is seriously fucked up.

No more shared water heater.  I risk a 3rd degree burn or possible frostbite every time I take a shower.  I jump around in there a lot due to the changes in temp - bringing a hint of realism to the phrase, "I'm just going to jump in the shower."   It's not pretty and it's not safe.

I won't have to avert my eyes from, or try to avoid completely, the tattooed speed-freaks that live across the way and always want to engage me in some sketchy, nonsensical conversation about nothing. 

I'll have my own little front entryway that I can decorate for the holidays.  Not garishly, of course.  I'll have my own backyard and patio where I can sit and relax and read with no chance of anyone bothering me.  I can invite people over when I want to, and they can stay as long or as little as we both feel is appropriate.  But they will be welcomed and comfortable and safe.   

I am excited about the possibilities my new-found freedom is bringing me.  Oh, there will be times I will still miss what's-his-name, but that too shall pass. 

JoeJoe the Tattoo-faced Boy

The beauty of living in Melrose Place is the wonderful array of colorful people who live here.  Yes, I'm being sarcastic.  I find most of these people insanely annoying and useless.  One in particular, a newer resident, is a young'ish man-boy I refer to as "JoeJoe the Tattoo-faced Boy."   He's 38 for cryin' out loud.    He and his girlfriend moved in about six months ago.  Oh, what a joyous day that was.  I thought, when the day after he moved in he was arrested and actually incarcerated, that things were already starting to look up.  Well, nothing lasts forever.  Three months after he was locked up, he was released and he returned to the only home he had.  Even though his prior length of residency here was less than 48 hours.  His young girlfriend, bless her little heart, allowed him to move back in with her.  What a sweetie.  Yes, more sarcasm.  He's an unemployed self-proclaimed tattoo "artist" who is tattooed all over - including his face and neck (ouch).  He's a criminal and a junkie.  Yes, that does mean he uses/abuses heroin.  He refers to himself as a "recovering addict."  Ummm, okay.  Sure.  If that makes him feel better and he thinks others are buying it.

Don't ask how I know things about him.  It's irrelevant and I won't tell you. 

Normally, I'm at work during the weekdays.  Well, I happened to be home for part of a mid-week day.  Boy, the things I miss.  I got to witness a sampling of the fights that occur between JoeJoe (of course that's not his real name...although it may be close to it) and his girlfriend.  Here's a little bit of what I got to witness (warning...foul language follows): 

She yells at him for getting loaded, he denies it, she yells at him to get out, he jumps on his little bike, tucks his skateboard under his arm, and pedals away while yelling "FUCK YOU!!!"  She then chases after him begging him not to go.  "Please don't leave.  I love you, JoeJoe!"  He comes back, secretly happy that he has a place to keep his bicycle and skateboard so he doesn't have to stash them under a random bush where they will be stolen at some point down the road by a savvy hobo) and she cries and sobs about how sorry she is, secretly thinking that she has no self confidence whatsoever and this is all she deserves but still won this one.  And on and on...

In the meantime, I'm secretly thinking that he is getting loaded again and will soon get re-arrested, violating the conditions of his parole, and he will get locked up for a long period of time.  At which point, he will be evicted from Melrose Place (the manager said that will happen if there are any more problems over there) and I won't have to listen to anymore of their heinous, foul, repetitive arguments.

Also, I'm thinking that maybe the girlfriend will then have time to find some of that lost self confidence, pull herself together, find some inner strength and cut the loser from her life.  Maybe she can learn to put some of that kind-heartedness where it will be truly beneficial to someone who really appreciates her sweet soul.

Okay...I'm hoping for this really hard.  Maybe even out loud.

Melrose Place

Okay, so something exciting doesn't happen to me everyday.  In the meantime, I'll fill you in a little bit on where I live.  It's an apartment complex...courtyard type.  It is often referred to by the locals as "Melrose Place."  There are a few subtle differences though.  There are no cute wooden doors or archways.  There is a pool in the center of it all, but no gorgeous bodies lounging around it.  And no hot pool guy.  The tenants are not exactly young, beautiful, or professional.  Certainly not any combination of the three.  No, it's not a senior living complex either.  I'm middle-aged, not over-the-hill.  There are a few nice people living here.  Some are senior citizens, some are family people with small children, and some actually have jobs.  There is diversity.  There are a few apartments that exceed maximum occupancy.  There is an unusually high number of loud, vulgar, pot-smoking, white trash, useless, tattooed, drunk individuals living here.  Some are cohabitating, but I hope to God not procreating!  You'll hear more about them.  I loathe them.  I don't so much mind the tattoos - freedom of expression and all that - I just despise who the tattoos are attached to.

I'll fill you in later on the "Church Girls," "Speedo Man," "5150 the Music Mogul," "JoeJoe the Tattoo-Faced Boy," and "Peeping Juan."  It's a colorful place.  Can't we all just get along?