I'm back to tell the tale (of what's been going on over the past couple weeks)

I have good news and bad news. First, the bad news: I'm unable to upload the photos I'd planned to use because the image hosting site I was using has been permanently closed. The good news: That means you get the whole story at once! (Otherwise there would be too many photos to put everything in one post.)

I was planning to start with a photo of me at midnight on my birthday, lonely and staring into the bathroom mirror. I'm sad in this photo because my superhero boyfriend, Lou Ryan, had driven to Portland earlier to do movie business - in my car no less!

On the morning of my birthday, I woke up to the sound of a barking dog and Violet the pit licker - also have a photo of my birthday pit licking.

There were no presents, but I did have a bag of seventeen species of conifers. For me? But the cats wanted to play with them first. (There's a photo here too.)

Having no car, I headed to school on foot. I have many photos of strange/artful things, but you'll have to wait to see those, won't you?

After a freezing, two-hour trek down four miles of sidewalk - with nary a zipper or fastener on my coat - I arrived at school ten minutes early.

After my first and most interesting class, I ate all the food I had been carrying on me and decided that my most cost-effective option was to head down to Subway for a veggie sub. (On my way I snapped a photo of the new bus complex, which I considered using to get back home in case I was too weak to walk up.)

Anticipating a tasty wad of blood sugar-stabilizing vegetables, I was shocked to find that... Subway had no veggies!

The horror!

So, I went up to the cafeteria and had myself a salad. I was really feeling exhausted and sick and my limbs were trembling from weakness. (I have a photo of myself looking so sad.) But then, who should show up but... X-Dan!!!

He was back from his trip to Washington D.C. I was so happy! Happier still, I asked what his next class was and it was... Botany! Same as me! So, I let him check out my seventeen species of conifer branches! (I have a pic of this too.)

Then we went to class and looked at pine cones. I was so happy! I even made a friend, who crawled across my notebook and hand. (I have photos of this, too.)

Fun college fact about X-Dan: Thom, my favorite art instructor ever, calls him Lunch Lady Doris! (You can see the art final I did in Thom's class here on my art blog.)

After the day was done, I walked the two hours home. No, didn't take the bus, just walked home, because I knew I'd be too exhausted to go to the gym and I needed to use my muscles a little so I could digest food properly. (That's the thing with being me - I'll starve without exercise!)

I was utterly exhausted by the time I returned home, so I went to take a nap. That's when the bastard crow started yapping again, along with the damn dog. I would have sic'd my cats on both of them, but I was too tired.

Lou Ryan did not even make it home on my birthday - according to the comments on my very interesting and humorous Erich von Daniken vs. The Ancient Egyptians post (von Daniken loses, of course), he returned home the next day at 1:13 a.m., Blogger time.

He did, however, surprise me after school with a basket of flowers and balloons, which the cats enjoyed quite a bit more than I did. (Photos of this as well!)

Those cats are so zany! Vada's been taking to jumping on the table and not getting down when we spray her with the spray bottle. Instead, she just stands there, then gets down and sits in front of the heater to dry off. Silly cat!

And now, some crazy gossip about the crazies living around here:

As I may or may not have mentioned, this messed-up bitch who can't keep her mouth closed for one minute (I'm not kidding - it's unreal!) once told our former landlord that we hadn't moved out of our old apartment when we certainly had. So, he came asking for rent money from us, until we showed him the absolutely empty - and clean! - apartment.

Guess what she's done now? As I've mentioned many times, we don't have a gas furnace or an oven, and our new slumlord expects us to use the gas stovetop for heating and keeping the room from getting full of condensation.

The gas stovetop, people! It don't work - tiny amount of heat, lot o' fumes! And he refused to fix the oven, saying we could just use the stovetop for everything! Seriously!!

I've also mentioned how this method of heating/drying doesn't work at all and is very dangerous. So, we've been using our electric heaters anyway, which we're not supposed to do.

So what does the bitch do? Next time the slumlord came by she told him that we told her to use the electric heater instead of the gas heater like we did because it was cheaper for us.

Even crazier, I was standing right there beside him! She said it with no apparent realization that she was getting us in big trouble!

We still continued using the heaters anyway, because there's no way the stovetop would work - and as for gas furnaces, you may recall that we did have a gas non-furnace which was basically a giant gas leak that we had to get rid of before it killed us.

Besides heaters, Lou and I have also been jogging to keep ourselves warm. We were jogging towards the field where I almost died of sleet-eyeball poisoning and there was this old guy letting his dog out of his car to crap on the ground.

Lou yelled many times, "Hey! Are you going to pick that up?" Finally, the guy acknowledged him and said, "Yeah!" And then he opened his car door, the dog jumped in, and he drove away, leaving the steaming pile on our jogging path!

Seriously, what is wrong with people around here?

Well, B-Dizzle was fleeing from this girl who did crappy things to him, then made him get rid of his dog, tried to get him to hit her in front of other people and then poisoned him! I think she just wanted him to be out of the picture so she could have his stuff.

Did I happen to mention that people are messed up around here?

He was feeling okay, though not having a car (nor sufficient eyesight to drive one) Lou Ryan was just pulling out of the driveway to take him to work. Yes, the driveway was all the further he got. Suddenly, B-Dizzle felt like he was dying horribly and they happened to be right by an ambulance, who was taking someone on a stretcher into the nursing home. (You know, the really abusive one we live next to that the old guy jumped out the window of that one time?)

The ambulance guy determined that B-Dizzle was not dying, though he needed to get to a hospital, so... he called a different ambulance to take him! They were gone for about six hours.

When they got back, B-Dizzle was covered in electrodes (which I got a good shot of) and was hallucinating. He said he saw the keys on the piano playing by themselves. Then Lou said, "we just got that feature newly installed!"

Then B-Dizzle was petting Vada and I asked if Vada was looking strange and he said, "I'm not paying attention to her, I'm looking at the chimpanzee next to her!" Then he was trying to sleep on the couch and was jarred awake. He said, "Hey, did you hear that gigantic mouse go by?"

Ca-razy!

When he finally woke up, he was considerably less drugged, though still a bit wonky.

Later on, we found a temporary home for his dog... with the motormouth bitch and the idiot living with her. (How does he stand it? I guess, since she has no teeth, she can give the best blow jobs around. Did I mention how messed up people are around here?)

Well, at least she was impressed that the dog was perfectly-behaved, so at least she had someone to lavish love upon after her former husband took possession of her children - because she beat them!

Meanwhile, the next day Director Nathan Lee came up from Portland and worked in the studio. He finished editing The Ripple Effect on the Mac Pro, which is the computer I'm using right now since it doesn't have as many internet issues as mine has been. (I hate cable internet. It's all but obliterated in the afternoon and evening when people come home from work and use their share of the bandwidth.)

B-Dizzle slept in the studio and Nate slept on our couch that night. Yes, that's what I meant when I said there were two other men living in the apartment. They were! And the next day, B-Dizzle was recovering from his ordeal while taking steps to get his life in order. (Poor B-Dizzle!)

Meanwhile, Nate and Lou Ryan were waiting, once again, for the perpetually late and annoying rap artist who, as you may know, we did a music video for and then he told Nate that the video rocked while simultaneously telling Lou that people were 'clowning' on him because it was so bad.

Everyone who saw the video (and knew the rap artist) agreed that it was a great video and this was just his way of getting out of paying for it. They made a compromise that Nate would re-edit the video to the rapper's specifications, and they already had done part of that. He didn't show up to finish the re-editing until Nate was leaving, as I wrote about a few posts back.

We got hungry waiting for him, so we went to Subway for lunch (there are about six Subways in town!). I mention this because of Nate's odd eating habits. Not only does he prefer his food cold, he ordered a tuna-meatball sub (and waited for it to cool down, of course).

The rapper never did show up. Instead, he waited until the night when Nate was driving back home to Portland to call him up. Nate didn't answer, since he was driving. Then he called Lou Ryan, who also didn't answer since he was asleep at the time. So then, he left Nate some threatening text messages about meeting an unexpected end.

That was kinda scary. Then, the next night our sleep was interrupted by the motormouth bitch who said that B.D. went after her cat, crashed through furniture, picked the cat up, shook it, and bit her. Lou Ryan and I suspect that this is a huge exaggeration because her apartment was not in disarray and her cat seemed to be fine.

So, the dog wound up tied in the main room of the apartment building where our old apartment was (and the studio still is) since we couldn't take her in because we had cats. In fact, to test her cat-friendliness, I took Violet over for a visit. B.D. snapped at Violet and Violet wound up on the other end of the room with her fur standing on end.

Hmmm. Not a cat-loving dog. Except maybe for consumption. (Since she's a pit bull, we think she may have been given cats as playthings to tear apart. Nevertheless, her behavior is otherwise stellar. I also have pictures of the dog as well.)

The day after that, Lou Ryan was driving me around because he needed my car. We had just eaten lunch and were pondering exactly what the bike cops would do with the guy on the bike we had witnessed them handcuffing. What do they do in this situation? Put the guy on the handlebars and impound his bike?

Lou was driving me back to school when the rapper called him on his cell phone to complain about the re-edit of the rap video. (Well yeah, I admit it is kinda dumb after his changes and stupid special effects were added.) I could hear him because Lou had clipped the phone to his shirt and put it on speakerphone so he at least wouldn't have to hold the damn thing to his ear.

He was at it again, complaining about the blurry parts, saying Nate screwed up the video and said, 'sorry, I screwed up your video' and wouldn't fix it. Excuse me? He said, "no, he doesn't want to work with me! I give up!" Lou was like, "What do you want, then?" He said, "I don't want nothin'!"

Whoa-kay!! For a while there, we were afraid his goons would be after us. Finally, he just demanded his money back and that was that.

Back to Botany class; a couple days later, X-Dan had mysteriously disappeared again and I realized that I was missing a textbook. Thank goodness it was only 30 bucks. I was going down to the bookstore to get it when I found the shelf empty. I went back towards the front of the bookstore and found that the girl who sits next to me in class had taken the last copy!

As Lou Ryan says; "Arrrgh!"

Then I spent hours in the library fruitlessly looking for sources for my Anthropology project. The next day (I remember this one was a Saturday) I spent three more hours before I finally found something.

Later that day, Lou Ryan gave the rapper the 300 measly dollars he had demanded back. This was a huge blow to Lou Ryan productions, being that it took a lot more money than that to make the damn video for him! We were right, though - the guy just wanted his money and his video both, but had to settle for just the money.

It was also a blow to Lou Ryan and one of his friends who, apparently because Lou Ryan is white, did not try to defend him against the rapper. And if that wasn't enough, the rapper told people that he had actually beaten Lou Ryan up and robbed him!

What a fuckstick! (Well, do you think that word is warranted?)

On the fourteenth, just after I had come home from school, B-Dizzle got home from work and pointed out that I had a three-day notice posted on my door. Like... what? Didn't I pay the slumlord two weeks ago? And why didn't he knock if he was just here?

It turns out that the check I had written the slumlord was one from my box o' checks because I couldn't find my checkbook when I had needed to pay him. (I found it right after, of course!) Somehow, the stack of checks on top was from my old account, which I had closed due to mail tampering, though the two beneath it were from my current account.

But, did he call us to inform us about this so I could just write him another check? (He knows I'd never gyp him! I always pay on time!) The slumlord insisted that he did call, though there was no evidence of this on either of our cell phone records. Nope. He didn't call at all, just slapped the notice on our door (or someone did, anyway) so he could fine us $133!

What a freaking punk!

This was especially bad because I didn't have enough to pay him so Lou had to chip in. We're really poor right now.

I was pretty stressed and tired by this point, so I went to take a nap. Now, tell me you don't believe in bad luck. (Which is a chronic condition I've been slowly recovering from since early adulthood, though I've had massive flare-ups - like the torture/mental hospital incident - from time to time.)

Oh yes. If things couldn't get any more retarded, by the time I'd woken up, both our K-Marche electric heaters had stopped working Yes, that's right. (I strongly suspect they have a built-in lifespan.) So, we went to the store to return them, carrying the receipts and the thing that says we have insurance on them.

But they couldn't take stuff back themselves - instead, we had to call this number and they would send us a mailing label so we could ship them the heaters and they would reimburse us.

Fair enough. But... we're cold now!

Though it had been 76 degrees the day before, it was kind of cold once again. Tired of a day spent heating the apartment with the toaster oven (!) I went to some stores to find another heater, just to get us through the last month or so of cold days. No store I went to had any! Why? It's springtime! Hello? How can you sell a heater in springtime, right? Irritated, I returned to my clammy toaster oven-heated home.

We had all the windows shut so it was humid - when I went to take a shower there was about 2 feet of visibility. (I have a picture of course - you can't tell if I'm in the shower or not!) It's so weird how wet it gets in here without heat!

But before I get too far ahead of myself, you may wonder what's the story with B-Dizzle? He's still sleeping in the studio. For a while he was also sleeping in there with B.D. each night after he got home from work at 3 a.m., but then one day a neighbor's mom actually took the dog to the beach and then tied her back up on the porch where she had been at the time. We were really happy about that, actually. Not only did the dog have fun, she also saw some cats and they got away!

Thankfully, this woman actually took the dog in (at least for now)! Happy times! B.D. even wound up tied to the porch once again while she was visiting! She actually seemed pleased to be lying on the porch-couch, knowing that she wouldn't be forgotten again (I assume).

On Wednesday (yesterday) another happy thing happened - I went with my class to Washington Park in Anacortes!

No, I did not get pictures of the green sea and the green islands and the lilies and other plants my botany class was looking for. I did sketch some, though. I also found out what a Madrona tree is - it has shiny leaves and totally smooth bark. It's really weird. (Turns out we have them out back!)

This one girl in my class who wears a bonnet and stuff and is kind of Amish-like (of course she isn't - in fact, she had buttons and a digital camera and she's taken online classes but I am too shy to ask her about that) said that when she was little she always called them 'sunshine trees' because they reminded her of sunshine. I can see that. Much better than my word for them - creepy shiny trees! I think I'll start calling them sunshine trees instead, actually.

The landscape was really stellar - too bad I did not bring my camera. On the way back, we went the tulip route (the tulip festival is going on!) and even pulled over in the midst of a flock of about ten thousand snow geese, spread over the fields! (I suspect global warming is behind their tardiness in migration to Alaska.)

All at once, about two thousand of them took to the air and flew over the van! Though my open window I could feel the beating of their wings and probably also the honking against my skin. Every which way I looked was the flurry of white wings! I was, of course, a bit leery about having the window partly open, though it was the windshield that had received a huge green splat.

When Lou picked me up after I'd returned from school (at five in the evening), he surprised me with - would ya know it? - a new heater! He found it at K-Marche on the top shelf, up against the wall where it was out of view to anyone standing closer than 30 yards away.

He's good.

So now we have enough heat to get us through any cold days coming our way - the only problem is that it's very loud. Cest la vie! (Too lazy to add French punctuation marks.)

Not only that, but the next day at school (our first botany exam) who should show up again but X-Dan! Apparently, some illness or another had taken him out of commission and made him miss most of our classes so far. Poor X-Dan! I'm glad he's back, though. We're going to hang out this weekend!

What else is up? I think the last thing on the list is something that just happened at around ten this evening: The slumlord took a couple of Lou Ryan and B-Dizzle's things - things which were outside of the apartment - and threw them in the back of a garbage truck! Lou Ryan was pretty mad.

So, he broke the basement door.

A few minutes later, there was a bunch of clucking going on about that from various residents. The neighbor aptly named 'Jackass' was saying that he'd kick the ass of whoever did it - probably meant B-Dizzle, though. Er... yeah, after he takes his nitrous oxide, seeing as he's recently had a heart attack.

Yeah, it keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Hopefully next time I'll have proportionally more good news to tell you. (Oh, and photos.) For now, ciao!


Update on April 20th: A little more story here!