Posts archived in Imma Little Cranky

9 comments

January 13, 2010

I Cat-Proofed My Apartment, But Somehow Those Little Fuzz Butts Keep Getting Back In


(Photo credit: Scootie@Flickr)

WHO THE EFF IS LEAVING THEIR WET CLOTHES IN THE ONLY WORKING WASHER?!

What about me? What about my needs? Do you know I only have one pair of athletic pants? Are you aware it’s cold here and I’ve thus felt compelled to wear these pants (in lieu of shorts) to the gym, like, five times this week? Do you know I’ve got exceptionally sweaty crevices? Do you understand my sweatiest crevice—which during fitness pursuits gives the foulest swamp, thick with mold and mildew and curdled stench, a run for its money—is situated, a split the size of the grand canyon, underneath the waistband on the ass-side of my pants? Forget crunches and squats—you do know that wearing the same pair of pants for five consecutive trips to 24 Hour Fitness is, in and of itself, an exercise … in OLFACTORY endurance?

How do you feel about that, dear-neighbor-who-can’t-be-bothered-to-empty-the-washer-after-the-rinse-cycle’s-complete? Does it help you to sleep well at night knowing that the god-awful odor snaking through our shared ventilation is not—as you’d assumed—the innocuous off-gas of a cluster of dead rats, but rather something infinitely more sinister? Would you, Maytag midwife, birth your white cotton sheets more quickly from the wash machine womb into the world of the waiting dryer if you knew that next to be washed was a pair of putrid spandex pants that could stand on their own without legs inside them? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, A-HOLE NEIGHBOR, WOULD YOU STOP BEING AN INCONSIDERATE TWAT LONG ENOUGH TO REMOVE YOUR CLOTHES FROM THE WASHER BEFORE THE MACHINE—WHICH I HEAR IS QUITE BULIMIC—MYSTERIOUSLY BARFS (PERHAPS WITH MY HELP) YOUR CLOROXED CONTENTS ALL OVER THE DIRTY TILED FLOOR?

…

Quiet and contemplative, these are the questions I sometimes ask myself (mostly on laundry day).

(And also: I sometimes ponder the cosmos, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the unfortunate exposure of my eyes to the dude next door’s shirtless, bony clavicle and his Rorschach blot plume of black, pubey-looking hair. Galloping across Dude’s chest in a tangled weave, I see horses … and posies … and people who should know better to keep their breast bone covered …. But I digress.)


—–

Two weeks from today I will have the entire contents of my current crappy apartment packed and ready to move to my (or rather “our”) new, not-so-crappy apartment where—omg!—I will have my very own washing machine. And then every day will be like Christmas. And I will be drunk off the fumes of power and Tide and bargain-bin dryer sheets. And when guests come to visit, they will say (of the Whirlpool appliance to which I am firmly affixed in an awkward embrace), If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it? To which I will respond, Fabulous idea! Cue up the organist! Buy me a bouquet! Book us two tickets for a honeymoon in Vegas. I hear the Liberace museum is *very* romantic this time of year.

But two weeks is not today. So for now, I can only do the thing of which hormonal teenage boys (and the similarly depraved) are adept. I fanticize. And furniture is my porn.

Even as the clot of cardboard I’ve gathered for packing sits untouched on my bedroom floor, in my head it’s urgent that I decorate a space I don’t yet inhabit. And so I spend hours—of which there are precious few remaining in this shabby little apartment where I found solace and self-sufficiency after my difficult divorce—researching, obsessing, making plans to spend what I’ve so carefully saved. Beveled mirrors, bamboo chairs, zig zag rugs and zebra pattern pillows—these are the trappings of a glamorous abode; and also, the smoke and mirrors of a glittering distraction.

Maybe the reason my packing thus far consists of three paperback books is, this place—the 600 square feet where I got my wings, did some healing, felt bad and then felt better—I just might miss it.

But only a little.

Hairy neighbor notwithstanding.


(Photo credit: Robert S. Donovan@Flickr)

4 comments

November 30, 2009

Wherein I Threaten Birthday Spankings To The One Who Is Not Turning 30 In Two Days

Andrew Hotpants: “Hänni, what night is your birthday party?”

Me: “Uh, you mean the party for my birthday which is in like two days?”

Andrew Hotpants: “Yeah.”

Me: “Uhm, would that be the party that you’re hosting? The one I watched you create email invitations for?”

Andrew Hotpants: *Blank stare*

Me: “So I’m guessing you haven’t prepared for anything big like belly dancers, sword swallowers, or uh … guests?”

Andrew Hotpants: (Cradling me in a massive bear hug) “Hey, you know I love you more than anything else in the world, right?”

Me: “Yep. Well, at least you remembered to order my ice cream cake.”

Andrew Hotpants: (Squeezing tighter, sweating a little) “Ice … cream … cake? Erm …”

birthday cake
(photo credit: gracey@MorgueFile)

7 comments

November 17, 2009

Me To Writer’s Block: I Can’t Quit You

alphablock
(Photo credit: mmconnors@morgue photo)

Dear Writer’s Block,

This little thing we’ve got going between us, it needs to stop.

I could say it’s been fun, these too-many days spent wracking my brain for words that when typed are the literary equivalent of lukewarm gruel, but then I’d be lying. Truth be told, I’ve had more fun getting my wisdom teeth pulled. At least then there was lots of sympathetic head patting involved. And pudding.

Yes indeedy, I haven’t had this much fun since the frat party in college where I decided to flavor my dixie cup of keg beer with a handful of skittles. Skittlebräu, I called it. “Mistake” would’ve been a more accurate descriptor. I can taste the rainbow! I thought while taking great, greedy gulps of the saccharine liquid that made sweaters on my teeth. When it came back up—chunky and candy-colored—it tasted less like rainbows and more like hot vomit. It was a regrettable experience … especially for the dude standing adjacent, my unfortunate regurgitation having painted a stinking, Jackson Pollock-esque scene on his tidy, black Pumas. Yes, that was the best, and by “the best” I mean the worst. The worst until Writer’s Block swooped in and stole my mojo, that is.

I mean really, I just can’t take much more. This creative block is torture. I’ve got cobwebs in my head where a brain used to be! Cobwebs! What’s more, my appearance has really started to suffer. Where I used to get Sandra Bullock, America Ferrera, or the boy muppet from The Dark Crystal, lately I’ve been told I bear striking resemblance to Sigourney Weaver in Alien or Sinead O’Connor circa 1992. Bald chicks.

alien III

In deed, my friends have gotten very concerned about my recent hair loss. The other day Paul, eyeballing a shiny patch of scalp, asked if I was OK. “Everything’s fine,” I told him, “it’s just I have this weird psychological condition which makes me want to pull all my hair out.” “Ahh,” he nodded. “Trichotillomania?” “No. Worse,” I breathed, “writer’s block.” Jesus Christ! Paul blurted as he  clutched his hands to his chest and scurried away,  the look on his facing saying  “I hope its not catching.”

And I’m wondering Writer’s Block, what’s next? Are you going to steal my boyfriend, take my lunch money, wedge my feet into cement shoes and deep six me somewhere over the Atlantic? Are you going to outlaw organics, advocate infanticide, drown kittens, abort babies, and betray the Jedi? Are you gonna sprinkle when you tinkle and then leave it for me to clean up? Are you going to melt the polar ice caps and increase the price of gas by $5 a gallon? Are you gonna interrupt Taylor Swift because Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time? I don’t really know where I’m going with this, except to say that Writer’s Block, you are a gigantic pain in my @$$! Please to dislodge yourself before I lose it completely…. Of course, the fact I’m having this conversation with a concept and not a person (or cat even), means I’m probably already there. Crap.

Writer’s Block, I can’t quit you. And that would be OK if you were Heath Ledger and I your gay cowboy lover, but let’s face it: you are not Heath and the only guns I’ve got are made of muscles. If you’re going to be something I can’t quit, I’d at least like you to start wearing a ten-gallon hat. And chaps … preferably assless. And also, you should bring me some Rogaine. And pudding.

I won’t miss you when you’re gone.

*kisses* H

8 comments

October 5, 2009

What Price Dignity, And Reliable Plumbing?

Two years ago, I signed a lease for the 600 sq. ft. apartment I currently inhabit. I’m starting to think moving here was a mistake.

It seemed like a good idea in the beginning. My first apartment post-divorce, it was small and cute—a place I could furnish cheaply with girly stuff: baroque frames and floral rugs. Rent was inexpensive, at just $500/month for the first year. I figured, with all the money I was saving, I could start putting something into an online savings account. Maybe I could squirrel enough away for a down payment on a small house, which was something I’d wanted for a while and felt kind of robbed of by the divorce, since I no longer had a cosigner spouse.

So when I first moved in to my space—stars in my eyes—it was easy to overlook the sloppy paint covering the 1970s cabinetry, the mildewed grouting, the broken hinges, the stuck door, the ominous sound of a compressor coming from the crawl space. But then one day, not too long into my stay, the sky fell on my head. Like literally! It was all downhill from there.

Stepping out of the bath one morning, I stopped at the sink to brush my hair. I had not gotten but two strokes in when a large chunk of drop-ceiling came crashing down on my skull. Startled, I fell backward. It was very strange, lying there like that. It’s not every day one finds themselves sprawled out, pantsless and dazed on the bathroom floor … at least not when sober.

In the months that followed I discovered all sorts of novel quirks about my humble abode. And many times I wondered if my apartment—just like the evil ship computer in Stanley Kubrick’s, 2001: A Space Odyssey—was trying to kill me.

retro-3

For example, there was the incident after the hurricane, when the broken limbs of a massive oak came smashing through my patio at precisely the time I’d usually pass through on my way to work. Fortunately, I was reporting from home that day. Unfortunately, unable to pry my door in the aftermath—the tree jammed so hard against it—I became a prisoner in my own home. That would’ve been OK if I lived in a nice manse, but when you live in a place that wants you dead, well it’s quite unsettling. When the maintenance man finally came to cut me out, he said that being imprisoned inside was better than a sharp stick in the eye. I asked him to stop speaking in clichés. He said he wasn’t.

And then there was the time the complex burned down … well 10 units of it anyway … mine not included. No, I can’t pin my apartment on that one. Police reports site maintenance’s illegal storage of chemicals in the unit garage as the source of accelerant. As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir amongst the residents. Partly because it was just so darn stupid to store flammable supplies in a residential space, but mostly because it was largely believed that maintenance had no supplies, it takes so long to get anything fixed around here.

It’s too bad it takes so long to fix things, because SOMETHING IN MY APARTMENT IS ALWAYS BROKEN. Take the plumbing for example. Periodically, and for no discernible reason, I will lose all water pressure. Or if the pressure’s working, the hot water won’t be. Well, that’s not entirely true. Last week when I came home from a six-mile run, dripping with sweat and grime and all manner of nastiness, both the pressure and hot water were out. Now that was a pleasure, and by “pleasure” I mean ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE. Thank God they have showers at the gym … and that I didn’t get fungus from washing there.

Also, my dishwasher is now broken. But I’m afraid to call it in, should they fix the problem like they “fixed” the mold issue: that is, with a can of white spray paint.

Lately I’ve been thinking it’s time to vacate the premises. Really, I don’t need to continue my residency in the House of Horrors. My corporate job pays enough I can afford to upgrade. However, by leasing somewhere more expensive, the house fund will take a hit … But there again, better the fund than Hänni; Death by domicile is highly undesirable.