Tenth Musee

I figured I’d blog today… you know, to give a update to the patient people who still keep up with this blog or who don’t follow me tweets.  Matey.  That should have said “my tweets”, but we have this thing where if we typo “me (something)” we follow it with “matey”, no matter what.  So I did and… well, now you know.

For those who don’t know, I’m moving out of my apartment in a week and a half.  I am really going to miss Casa Cocktail and all the good things about it, but lately the crap has started to outweigh the good things.  To start, Slick (a.k.a. Guitar Hero) picked up the electric guitar and bass as a hobby, which he played  every day at 4pm for 2-3 hours.  Is it not bad enough that his girlfriend made sex sounds like a caffeinated baboon, he had to fancy himself The Edge at least 5 days a week?  But… a blessing!  He moved out in April and took Ape Escape with him.

But then, GFI moved out.  I don’t know who the hell she thinks she is just moving out and having a life and stuff. I mean, god, lady. Don’t you know everything revolves around my happiness?  Obviously I’m kidding, but I miss her as a neighbor.  She never made a peep, we were BNF: Best Neighbors Forever.  I could text if she needed help when I heard she might’ve dropped something, she could text me to ask if I had margarita mix, we could sit on the patio and gossip about the neighborhood and I never, ever had to hear her pee.

When GFI moved out, we really pushed to get a woman to move in upstairs because we thought it would be better. It’s mostly women on this side of the building and, historically, single professional women tend to be quieter and more considerate than say… a guitar-playing baboon fucker.

And lo, we got a woman — a nurse, no less!  GFI met her and she seemed nice enough.  If only she’d known at the time that this woman — nay, this late-20’s girl — has feet made of cement and a double-wide disposition.  She walks so heavily, I half expect to hear “FEE FI FO FUM!”.

She also vacuums at 10pm or later indiscriminately.   Once at midnight in the bedroom on a weeknight!  She finds it impossible to enter or exit her apartment without sounding like a stampede of yaks and… this is the one that really gets me: she is incapable of going to the loo without stomping over to the bathroom, doing her business, then dropping the lid of the toilet and flushing every. single. time.  Now, this is something most people do, right? You go, you do, you flush, but for some reason, she even flushes loudly.  I never really noticed when GFI flushed, but I can actually hear this girl pee. And then she slams the lid and flushes… even in the middle of the night.

My name for her is Godzilla.  Also sometimes The Beast, Moose and “Oh my god, I hate you so much right now, wtf!”.  I tried to make nice in the beginning. I welcomed her with wine and smiles, both the property manager and I alerted her to the fact that this is a very old, very quiet building of single professionals and sound travels, so things like heavy walking and loud TVs/radios should be kept to a minimum. I also let her know I work at home and I gave her my phone number so she could text me if she needed anything or if I got to loud (and of course, it was just a ruse to get her phone number for the same purpose).

She doesn’t care. She told me we had to “learn to live together”.  I’m not your roommate, woman.  I pay my own rent and never had issues with upstairs noise until you got here. Check yourself.

And she lives a ‘younger’ lifestyle than I do, clearly.  Which is her prerogative, but one day, she turned up her radio SO loud it sounded like Fergie was playing live in my kitchen.  And all her little friends were clomping around on the terrace in their kitten heels, so I popped my head outside and there she was, hanging over the railing with a can of Miller Lite (sorry, I’m a beer snob), knocking some back before she and her friends hit “the club”.  Meanwhile, I was looking forward to a hot bath and the Ghost Whisperer, you know?  Different strokes.  I don’t begrudge her the fun, I just asked if she could turn it down a little because it echoes through the tile in the kitchen.  She turned it off and then sent me angry texts about how she feels like she’s “walking on pins and needles” and “I might as well turn it off — I can’t hear it outside”  Uh, it’s not my problem there’s a freeway, an ocean, some train tracks, a trolley and an airport outside that whisk away the sound.  Get a radio for the terrace, Mensa.

I even bought her a little giftie (of slippers — hint hint!) with a note that said I hoped we didn’t start out on the wrong foot and that she’s truly welcome in the building and I hope she enjoys it here.  If she could just try to walk a little lighter, I said, I would appreciate it.   It worked for like, a week. Now she’s back to Riverdancing around the house.

Bottom line?  She’s just a clod.  No grace.  NONE. I don’t expect her to go to Barbizon, for chrissake, but didn’t anyone teach her how to walk like a lady?  She’s a tall girl, but I’m 5′10 and not exactly the slimmest of slims and I’m capable of walking without shaking the damn tschotschkes, why can’t she?  Put a book on your head!  She came home last night at almost 3am, banging and crashing about, peeing and slamming and flushing and finally, I reached over and banged on the wall.  LOUD. I’m done being nice about it.

I gave my notice to move a couple weeks ago. It makes me sad to give up this beautiful view.  And I really do love this apartment, but it pains me to live here sometimes, too.  It’s a vintage building and the apartments have good energy… or used to.  But the landlord doesn’t care about the building as much as I do and I’m tired of caring about the building more than he does.  In fact, I dream of winning the lottery and restoring the building to it’s original glory, then rennovating it to make it eco-friendly.  But that won’t happen and I’m sick of my sink smelling like rotten eggs and the plumbing backing up. I’m tired of the foundation crumbling and the lack of A/C.   There’s not quite enough space now that I’ve got Lulu and while they are going to do some improvements to the building (all new triple-paned windows and a fresh air circulation system — like central air without the conditioning part), I don’t want to wait around for that.  Besides, since the landlord is such a cheapskate (and he’s not paying for these improvements, the Port of San Diego is), he’ll most likely raise the rent once it’s done.  The view is beautiful, but if I’m going to pay more rent, I want a washer/dryer more.

I decided to move to an area of town that doesn’t have a view, but is centrally located — about 10 minutes from everything.  It’s not the most beautiful area of town ever, but the property itself is like an oasis and it’s a big complex with proper maintenance staff and amenities like a pool, fitness center and the like. I’ve got a washer/dryer in my apartment.  It’s bigger than this place and it’s got a new kitchen and a big soaking tub.  It’s very much like my apartment in Dallas, which was comforting somehow.

Like I said, I will miss this place… quite a bit. It’s been one of my favorite places I’ve ever lived and I have great memories from here. But it’s not the same building it once was… the good juju I felt when I moved in is replaced by cursing and wall-banging and other rude neighbors.

It’s time to move on.