I really dislike my landlord. You can revisit my initial reasons for this feeling in the first three weeks of the archives, but i felt as though i should take this opportunity to update them for the present. Aside from his general incoherence and unbusiness-like manner (and once threatening me with a gun, but that’s another story), he inserted a clause into our lease that our windows were to be kept shut while the building’s heating system was in season or be fined $200 dollars. What he neglected to mention was that there is no control of heat per apartment or per floor, and that the heater decides to come on whenever it wants and started to do so as early as September. After finding out all of this i just assumed his clause was more of a reminder than a literal threat, and so i generally keep my living room windows cracked as to relieve the incessant heat on nice sunny days (the same way i generally wear three layers of clothing on the mornings when the heat doesn’t work).
Today when i arrived home from work i found a note written on my realitor’s “letter head” (read as: shitty photocopies of his address typed onto white paper) stating that many tenants were in violation of the window clause, and that there would be a building wide check of inside windows and storm-windows (as opposed to screens) tomorrow with open ones netting a $500 fine for their tenant. Aside from the bare 12-hour notice and the 150% hike in the fee involved, i don’t especially like my realitor having a potential excuse to come into my apartment whenever he wants under the pretense of “i thought your windows were open”
As an aside, not all of my inside frames had a maintenance check after the previous tenant moved out, resulting in one that won’t stay open, one missing the top half of its frame, and one with no lock (not that i really need one on the 3rd floor, it just bothers me). As i was shutting the screens of all of my windows i opened one and had the top of it fall out of the window and bonk me squarely on my head. If it was a glass window it would’ve shattered into pieces. Apparently, the window had never been popped into its track and so just had been sitting on the windowsill the entire time.
Archives for November 2000
It feels good to have people digging through my past at 4am in the morning… it gives me a sort of addictive quality where i hold sway over sleepy people who should be hard at work. And my pen has been burning to write lately as well. Oh well, i’m verging on late for the shop. I shouldn’t complain; today i get to pick all five discs in the changer. Oh, the power!
I love the rain. Living in dorms and apartments doesn’t really give me the chance to enjoy it like i wish i could, but i love it all the same. This summer while we were training for Orientation, there was a massive downpour one really humid night, and a third of the orientation leaders decided to go outside and dance around like children. By the time we skipped and hopped the half a block to the soccer field we were soaked to the skin. On the curiously spongy astro-turf we kicked off our sandals and chased each other around for no reason at it. Towards the end we had a sort of sumo-wrestling match, which i lost at huge. The rain started to let up after a while, and without the constant torrent of fresh drops we all started to feel a bit soggy and cold, so we returned to the dorm and dripped our way back up to the eighth floor.
I have this uncanny knack for wearing corduroys when it rains. When i put them on yesterday morning it was nice outside, though a bit chilled, but it managed to rain all night so i wound up looking and feeling like a damp piece of shag carpeting. We finally found our way to the indoor clues, at which point i knew i was going to get sick, and that made me all the more manic and anxious to get the hunt over with. I finally found a hot chocolate machine on the 7th floor of one of the engineering buildings, and after that everything got better.
I felt a bit sick because i was out in the rain for quite a while last night. If i could have helped it i’m sure i would’ve made my way inside by the time it really started to come down, but it was the night of Pi Nu Epsilon’s scavenger hunt for the new members, and all the brothers and sisters of the fraternity come out to participate and hang out with the pledges. Anyhow, our hunt was on a balmy Spring evening, but the Fall class had no such luck, and so we ran to and fro all over campus with cameras in the rain. Early on in the sequence of events i sent my guitar home with someone who had work to do, so at least it wouldn’t be soggy when i got back to my apartment.