Harassment again.
August 06, 2009 / 3:33 p.m.
My one real day off this week.
I went running this morning, only to have to stop after about a half a mile when I was having what felt like a hernia-- pain radiating down from my right side all the way to my middle thigh. I sat against the reservoir retaining wall for a second, got up and ran again to get ahead of an old overweight guy with white hair, and then I gave up down the lap about 20 seconds later and walked to get my water bottle, slowly, and then to sit at the busstop.
Over the last two months I've been gradually getting into better shape, and been running constantly. The routine of waking up, running for a while until I'm sweating, coming up, taking the soaked clothes off and putting them up to dry, taking a shower, and then getting into clean clothes is something that's one of my only comforting routines.
So, anyway, it was tough not to exercise today.
My landlord is harrassing me again.
As I was making my lunch, I thought to myself, 'I know she's gonna come in here the exact moment I start eating.'
And what do you know? The SECOND I clicked off the gas to finish cooking the pasta, I hear keys in the door.
I make it to my room after a round of hellos, but soon she tracks me down and brings me out to the kitchen to whine about the wine bottle I had that was literally dripping out of a hole that ran all the way through the cork from the bottle opener, and dripping wine off the end of the inside of the fridge and onto the floor.
You know, understandable stuff. I've never seen a cork get split like that and have the wine pour through it. Move on.
Then it was on to complaining about the floor. 'I didn't want to say anything, but this is SO BAD. And you guys haven't cleaned this at all, because I pay attention to where the stains are everytime I come here, and they're in the same place they've always been right now.'
And then on to the dishes. 'I thought we talked about you guys doing your dishes IMMEDIATELY after eating, and then putting them away right after that?'
'Well, what you're looking at there is just from breakfast and lunch... coffee, gatorade from running, cutting board to cut up garlic for my pasta at lunch.'
'But, I thought we talked about it in the ad? And then I wrote you in a letter, and I think I called you, too. I mean, if you want to live like that, than I guess you guys can.'
And she's saying all this at this point as she has the most woe-is-me, end-of the world, 'Billy just took my favorite toy away from me' look on her face as she doesn't look me in the eye, and just tools around with her head through the kitchen.
Then, I finally take off and say goodbye to her as she's gardening, and try to be extra cordial and deferential and smiling to her. Which probably kills narcissitic, controlling, paranoid people like her more than anything... after they've just unloaded a bunch of deep-seated displaced emotional bullshit.
And as I'm walking off, she leaves a little parting shot. 'Tell tanya, you know under that strip rug? Yeah, the long one? Well, I check under that first thing everytime I walk in to see if things have really been swept, because things move towards that and get stuck under there, and it's dirty, and has been for a long time.'
And I get to the library, and she calls and leaves a voicemail.
'Lyle, I wanted to tell you about a very important, URGENT, matter. There's some damage on the floor in your bedroom. It was a perfect floor before, and now I think that all we can do is keep it from getting worse...'
Probably walked right into my room the second I walked off to catch the bus, and started tooling around in there.
I can't confront her about this because I would bet my life on the fact that she is completely incapable of being honest with herself about her own behavior and personality... but moreso because I know that if we got into a verbal argument, I wouldn't be able to handle the purely illogical shit that's behind everything she's doing, and it would almost invariably lead to me getting kicked out. Maybe immediately. I just have no other option but to grin and bear it, and maybe take a little more responsiblity for my own end of the bargain that I haven't held up as much as I could.
I can't believe I'm living in this situation. I guess I told myself that her personality closely resembles stuff my mom does, and the controlling nature of almost everything she does in her life... so I can at least handle familiarity, etc... but this is more upsetting right now.
I put myself in this position by meeting someone that I knew from reading social clues (within a minute) from experience was not a stable person, and then going through and looking at a house and accepting it, telling myself I could just move out if it got bad.
But it's just abusive. You don't walk into someone's home and do this. And like an idiot I signed off on allowing her to consider herself a tenant (so that she could legally barge in whenever she wanted), so I have to own that too.
But, man... talk about a gutpunch when you're already trying to get over a serious crises of confidence with the human race.