There have been ups and downs, and now where am I?

The good news is, we've got Johnny out of the house. The bad news is, he left owing us $900 and we aren't able to make rent.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me start from where I left off last time!

January 26, 2010:

I'm at the library now, and Morgan is talking about how his dad is a lesbian. Cool! "On the one hand, it's kind of weird," he said, "but on the other hand I can see how this would be the case."

Later on, we were discussing some of the transparent propaganda techniques used in the movie Expelled (not to mention the fact that all the scientists were lied to as to what they were being interviewed for!), when Lucas finally shows up from his trip to Value Village with the burned-out rock and roll guy. (Sans the burned-out rock and roll guy, who apparently lives in a cardboard box or something.)
` He actually changed into his skimpy stage costume for Saturday! It was quite exciting and I got some pictures!

At Denny's now... Alex handed me the rest of her strawberry milkshake to me and said, "Orgasm's on me!"
` Mmmm banana split! (No milkshakes necessary!)

According to Laura, your cell phone sucks if it doesn't have a tip calculator!


January 28, 2010:

Turns out that not only are Random the filmmaker and Mark the Jack Sparrow going to be at Lucas' concert, but they know each other!

By the way, did I mention that the other day I got pulled over for my headlight, just after it burned out, and it was one of the same cops who came over when Brad called the cops on us -- and Char before that! I told her how glad I was to have those two out!


January 29, 2010:

Johnny said that he was going to be here all day to practice for the show tomorrow, and he wasn't at all! This is the fifth time in a row he's gotten out of rehearsing! On top of that, his brother Joe drove all the way up this way to pick Johnny up on the corner and Johnny wasn't there, so Joe came up to the house to call around looking for him!
` Michael, at least, was able to come over and help Lucas with the internet. Also, Troy has moved some more of his stuff in. Oh, and Lucas' hair experiments have been amusing.


January 30, 2010 -- day of the music video concert!

I woke up to Johnny refusing to pay bills. Though Violet was under my blanket, lying with her head on my shoulder, I made myself get up.
` As usual, Johnny is making accusations in order to get out of paying bills: "You're double-charging me on Comcast!"
` For what? The $14 phone line, which I've been paying for, just so he has a phone? It's not like anyone else uses it -- we have our own phones, thanks!

Johnny's amazingly bitter about not getting paid for the concert, which is going to be filmed and shown on the internet, because we have to pay Random for the filmmaker and Heidi the sound girl, for their work! So, instead of helping Lucas set up for the show, he's going on some expedition for his car.
` Sue, another person who is filming the concert, isn't complaining about not being paid, and Random, though he is at least being paid a hundred dollars for the hour (a quarter of his normal rate) has not complained about working for Lucas without pay in the past.
` Anyway, I went out into the living room amid all this, and Johnny stopped arguing.

Just after eleven a.m., I was cleaning the kitchen floor and the doorbell rang four times rapidly. It was... SIDESHOW, that guy from the ghetto who hates Lucas and me! Oh my Dog! Do ALL the ghetto rats know where we live?
` He was here with his tow truck, going to tow Johnny's car, but Johnny isn't here! Again! Just like yesterday with Joe!

You know, when Johnny says one thing and does another, thus pissing someone off, his excuse is "Those are just words." He doesn't seem to realize that words are supposed to be used more strongly than just half-assed! Seriously.

P.S. By 5:00 p.m. I managed to photograph all of my really old drawings I brought with me from my mom's house, dating back to when I was only 5 years old, so I'm hoping to put those up online with the concert photos from tonight!


January 31, 2010 -- one in the morning!

Ahhh... tasty, Kool-Aid flavored shower steam wafting through the bedroom! For unsweetened strawberry Kool-Aid is one of the ingredients used in Lucas' hair dye.
` His outfit was a scream -- button-up boxer shorts, knee socks, bead necklaces, transparent shirt -- as was his neon orange double-mohawk with red Kool-Aid as well as blue highlights that ran down face as he sweated, along with red and black lipstick, black starburst lines around his eyes, and white fingernail polish.
` To offset his flamboyantness was the other half of the Lou Ryan band (but not for long!) Johnny, on drums, wearing a very nice suit. Belonged to his dad.
` Larry and Cowboy Steve's house really did look like a bar, and that's where most of the people flocked to as they came in. I was watching The Green Mile on the TVs, but by about 8:30 or so there were so many people that I couldn't hear it anymore.

Mark the Jack Sparrow, unfortunately, was up late filming this movie with Brendan Frasier or whoever it was, or some other project, I forget, so he couldn't show up.
` However, there was this cool guy named Dan who kinda reminded me of Mark, but without the hair. Supposedly, he's Johnny's friend, but he seems to cool for that.
` He was saying how much he loved Lucas and wanted to have sex with him, while his girlfriend rolled her eyes. Which reminds me, Dan said that I was the first person he told that he had bought her an engagement ring but hours before! (Luckily I doubt she will read this, so his secret's still safe with me!)

Anyway, the camera persons were great, and I got some good shots with my Crowd Cam, despite the fact that this drunk woman was trying to grab it away from me, saying that I should be on camera because I'm so hot, as well as some other weird stuff I couldn't quite make out over the din.
` She also slapped my ass.
` In general, she was hanging on me and staggering around, flipping her long hair up and down, her huge boobs bouncing like they were spring-loaded, and every twenty seconds or so she would emit this 'pretending to yell' sound, which I thought was kinda cartoony and weird.

She had enthusiasm, I'll give her that -- she made up probably about 30% of all the commotion in the room!
` At one point, she shoved me straight into Lucas and I almost tripped over his guitar pedals and fell on him! I stepped on his guitar pedals instead, but luckily nothing bad happened... that is, until Lucas was in the middle of a guitar solo with the audience stomping to the rhythm, and this same woman stomped directly onto the guitar cord right where it met the pedal!

The music stopped abruptly, and the filming soon ended, right after the guitar cord jack was found snapped off inside the pedal! I continued to film the crowd a bit, as well as take some stills, of not only Lucas and the crowd, but Misfit too, who was also playing in between sets.

Despite one of Lucas' guitars being out of tune, and despite the fact that Johnny left Lucas not once but twice in order to get intoxicated with the audience members while Lucas played on by himself, and the fact that Johnny's drumming was too fast and also not the way Lucas had in mind for his own songs (Johnny claimed that Lucas wanting him to follow his own composition was 'snobby', even though Lucas let him drum whichever way he wanted in other songs) well, I say the Lou Ryan Band sounded pretty good.

However, Lucas is getting a new drummer after Johnny's delinquency.

After the main show segment, Heidi the sound girl insisted on being paid on the spot for both tonight and tomorrow's work, so Lucas scrounged $50 from the door so as to avoid feelings of resentment.
` Then, Lucas and I took a walk, got to talking to an amazingly friendly giant cat, then a thirtyish guy named Bill came along from his own break from the show, and recognized the cat as Larry's cat, also named Larry ("boy you have gotten big!") and we chatted for a while, with the cat climbing all over me.
` Then, Lucas and I walked around the block, greeted a homeless veteran whose right leg had been blown off, and went back around to Cowboy Steve's, where Lucas played some more with Al, Misfit and a couple other guys, then we loaded most of our stuff up and left. Except, Lucas forgot his glasses but luckily he has spares.


February 3, 2010:

Lucas has by now gotten his glasses and sound equipment from Larry and Cowboy Steve's, so everything's good there.
` Also, roommate Dale Divelbliss has been away on a trip for a few days and we were wondering if he was coming back -- his room is completely empty, though he has been living out of his suitcase. Finally, Lucas has managed to call him, and Dale said that he has only stayed a few days longer than he was expecting to and was actually coming back today with the rent.
` Good! Because if he doesn't, we're not going to be able to afford it!

On a lower note, I found that the night of the concert, Johnny had put a bottle of Lysol kitchen cleaner in my backseat with the cap not screwed on, and it had soaked into my back floormat, which explains why my car has been overwhelmingly lemon-fresh for the past few days!
` Luckily, it was confined to just the one mat, so removing it solved the problem.


February 5, 2010:

I've been so busy! Troy is fully moved-in now, though ironically we may lose the house if Dale doesn't come back today with rent! Even so, I don't expect that Johnny will have all his rent money since he's probably spent it all on his car as well as booze.

At least today he's finally admitted that he does owe Lucas money after denying it for so long -- after Lucas screamed at him at the top of his lungs for over an hour! He had to, though, because Johnny is such a stubborn liar, insisting, "I don't owe you anything!" the entire time!
` Lucas was screaming not only about money, but other stuff too, like how Johnny's excuse for everything is that he's 'robusk', and also that he thinks we're snobby because we say 'robust' with a 't', like that isn't the way it's spelled!
` Ignoring the dictionary, which I showed him, he still believes it's spelled with a 'k', so not agreeing with him makes us snobs!
` (It is similar in his insistence that genre is supposed to be pronounced 'jun-drah' instead of 'zhan-rah', and that we're Frenchy snobs for not going along with his pronunciation! Like anybody would know what jundrah is supposed to mean!)

Anyway, he expects us to excuse his rude behavior, his bummy clothes, his peeing on the toilet seat every time (even when the seat is up!), his slouchy ape-man walk, his lack of personal hygiene, his burping as loud as possible in front of potential new roommates, etc. because he is just too stupid to do these things right.
` Come on! There are a lot of mentally-challenged people who are more presentable than him! Johnny is just plain embarrassing to be in public with, but he doesn't get it!

Lucas even brought up the fact that Johnny wouldn't stop asking me to have sex with him and joking about it and stuff until Lucas, my boyfriend (now fiance) who is sharing this house with Johnny, actually said something about it!
` And who would want to have sex with someone who apparently works at being repulsive, anyway? It's not like he's even close to being seductive, I mean, come on! It seems as though every time Lucas wants him to be less smelly, Johnny purposely doesn't shower or brush his teeth just to piss Lucas off! It's really odd!
` Apparently, Johnny thinks that people like Bummy Bill, who lives in a crappy trailer and looks like some old homeless, alcoholic bum with rotten teeth and who beats his dogs, is how normal people are supposed to be!

On top of that, Johnny said that his friends hate Lucas, but Lucas has talked to many of them about him, like Dan and Chris, and even they opine that Johnny is a total bummy loser!
` Chris is around Johnny because Johnny is still in their band, Hillary's Bush (although Johnny hates them and Chris is also mean to Johnny), and, more amusingly, Dan describes Johnny as his 'period friend' because though Johnny is a drag, at least he only comes around once a month!
` I'm not joking!

And what else? Well, Lucas also brought up the fact that he drove Johnny to the hospital many times to see his dying mother (and even wore a clean suit with him), and later on, to her funeral, and also to Johnny's brother Joe's 'shotgun' wedding, at which Lucas performed live music for free!
` But after his mom was dead and he had no one to parade Lucas around in front of to show that he had at least one non-ghetto-rat friend, he's refused to show Lucas any respect!

So finally, after an hour of Lucas screaming about all this stuff, Johnny sounded like he was going to start crying, then went into his room while Lucas stood outside his door continuing to scream as loud as possible.
` At last, Johnny opened the door and finally admitted that yeah, maybe he owed some of that money... but not all of it!
` "So, at least I'm not a liar," said Johnny.
` "Then what do you call telling me, 'I owe nothing to you!' all this time?" Lucas said. "Not lying?"

It was harsh, and Johnny has gone away for the time being. Even Lucas is drained -- he is not used to having such anger flowing through him for that long! He's going to have to rest.


February 6, 2010:

Six words; Johnny's at it again -- right now!

First of all, earlier today I was here in my office -- it's all mine again! -- when Johnny's heater was sounding off its alarm because it got too hot or something. I could hear Johnny's TV and figured he was in there, but the alarm continued, so I opened up his door -- the sound was deafening! -- and found him passed out in bed, his cat Noll at his feet, staring at the heater.
` Oh my Dog, he's taken some pills, I thought. So I turned the heater down and went back to my office. Then, it started buzzing again, so I waited a minute, then went in his room and turned it off all the way.
` A little while later, I heard him noisily get up, turn his TV off, come out of his room with his jingling keys hanging off his belt, go into the bathroom, go out of the bathroom, then I heard our bedroom door open for a second, then slam shut, after which I heard Johnny run out the front door, keys jingling the whole way.

What was going on? For a minute there I had thought it was Lucas slamming the bedroom door, but then he came up to our room to get his keys so he could check the mail -- he had just done so earlier and found nothing in the mailbox, so he had set his keys back on the dresser. Well, they were gone -- and my coat was flung out in the middle of the room... from when Johnny had slammed the door, on which it had been hanging!
` Lucas looked everywhere he could think of for his keys, and then finally got ahold of Johnny on the phone. Johnny swore up and down that he didn't take them and told Lucas to keep looking for them.
` After a few minutes, Johnny actually called back to say, "Didja find 'em, huh? Didja?" Aha! And where had Johnny been on his way out? He had walked through the carport, which Lucas had thought was kind of strange. He found the keys underneath my car.
` Why he would throw them there, I don't know, as Lucas hadn't even been in my car today! Of course, he didn't know that, as he was too busy being knocked out by pills!

In other news, Heidi the sound girl has apparently bailed on working with Lucas until later on -- no wonder she insisted that he pay her at the show!
` Also, Dale is still not back, and hasn't been answering his phone, so it would appear that he's lied to us. But why would he tell us he was coming back? Boy, I'd love to know the dirt on him... what's he really up to?


February 7, 2010:

Superbowl Sunday, and not a Johnny in sight! I actually drove Lucas over to Dan's so that he could get drunk, and then picked him up later. Johnny luckily did not show up.
` Interestingly, Dan's apartment is in the same complex that I almost moved into once upon a time... and near where I thought I was going to be shot at, but that's another story.

So nice to know that Troy has a non-psychotic girlfriend -- actually, nice to know he has a girlfriend! Jennifer is her name, and he brought her over for the night. She's really nice, and also geeky... okay, I should stop using the 'g' word, but seriously, I am a geek myself and I usually have a liking for others with geeky qualities. They tend not to be antagonistic.

Anyway, it's just another sign that Troy is not a troublemaker. I mean, who did Johnny ever have? Char! And who did Brad ever have? Char! And who's the biggest psycho-bitch I've ever known? Char!
` Those two did not have good taste in women, although I do admit she was fairly well-put together.


February 8, 2010:

Though I'm the one in the math class, I didn't do so coherently in scorekeeping on the 'Jeopardy game' presentation for English class. I was a bit more functional than the software, despite my losing a lot of sleep over my English paper, though it is due in two days!
` We had six teams and only four colors of cards, so Shannon, the one who's done most of the work, put them together in such a way that our groups were Pink, Pillow, Yellow, Orange, Oreen, and Green.

At the moment, Lucas is sawing away at something with a hacksaw in our bathroom. I ask; "What the hell are you doing?"
` He says, "Nothing."
` Apparently he's destroying something because Johnny has stiffed us for almost $900.

Yeah.
` Lucas just got a phone message of Johnny saying, "I'm sorry I failed you! I don't want to owe you any more money, so I'm just going to not pay rent and leave."

What the hell? Like... he's not going to owe us money by owing us even more money! Does he really believe that makes sense?
` He hasn't taken most of his stuff, though at least he's taken his cat, who has been in the habit of eating our cats' food and puking it back up on the carpet, and also fighting with our cats.
` And since when has Johnny ever bought that cat food? Okay, so he got some for free from his mom's former house, but since that has run out, his cat has been eating our cats' food!

Oh, but Johnny did say he's giving us the speakers that Mark Stoeckle from Alison Chains gave him, so Lucas called Mark, despite the fact that Johnny's been deleting Mark's number off of Lucas' phone every time he called him.
` And how did Lucas find the number? By looking on the NAF Productions website, where Mark's cell number is posted!
` Anyway, Lucas called Mark, apologizing for being associated with Johnny, and Mark said that the speakers he gave to Johnny were pretty worthless, and that he could sell them for perhaps $250, not $1,000 as Johnny had claimed.

For the most part, it would appear that Johnny's generosity extends to leaving us with a stinky room to clean up.
` Seriously.
` Troy was standing about three feet from the door when Lucas opened it to demonstrate the smell... and Troy leapt back, exclaiming "Holy snap! That really stinks!"
` Shortly thereafter, Lucas wrote on Johnny's door, so that anyone who came in and helped him move out would see that; 'We knew this stinky bitch would find ANY excuse to NOT PAY!'
` He also found his VCR, which he had bought, in Johnny's room.
` A crash emanated from the room and Troy came upstairs, wondering if everything was alright. I explained that Lucas was apparently trashing Johnny's room, and Troy advised, "Be sure not to destroy anything valuable!"
` However, Lucas thought better of it and stopped, instead leaving a note about how Johnny gives Christians a bad name hanging on Johnny's rosary, above his picture of Jesus.

Oh yeah, and we're intending to keep the furniture Johnny had inherited for any new roommates who come in, since the last incident with the cops has shown us that there's nothing the cops can do. After all, what's he going to do with three beds besides his, as well as a futon and other furniture he doesn't have room for? He doesn't even have a place to move into!
` You know, it's ironic that Brad called the cops on us for supposedly kicking him out with no place for him to drive the U-Haul he rented to, and for wanting to keep our own bed, which he claimed was his... now Johnny has thrown himself out with no place to go and we do want to keep a bunch of his furniture because he ripped us off for $900! I think that's pretty fair, don't you?

You know, I didn't realize how stressful this stuff was until I was feeling good all January. The constant tension really does make doing anything really difficult, even without constant noise pollution!


February 9, 2010:

Lucas visited Landlady Roberta at work and told her of the situation. She knows she can't rent this house out to anyone else, it having not been updated since 1968, and really just wants to get rid of it! But who would ever want to buy it?
` We do!
` We can also offer her more than zero dollars a month, so it looks like we can stay, at least for now! Also, her son Zack, who works in the same office, had the same problem of everyone bailing out of his rental house in Everett, so he kind of knows what we're going through.

Anyway, Lucas worked out a deal with Roberta -- he'll put down his move-in deposit towards rent, paying a total of $1,700, and then do $1,700 worth of work around the house, such as replacing the downstairs sliding door with a French door.
` That way, if we still can't pay next month's rent, at least the house will be in better condition and they won't have to pay someone else to do all that work while getting zero dollars in rent!

Also while he was in town, Lucas went to Johnny's church to find that the priest isn't there on Tuesdays (it's not like he has Sundays off like most people!) so he left a note with a Xerox of the passage from the book of Matthew, which Johnny had asked Lucas to read.
` It's ironic, you see, because that book has been one of Lucas' greatest weapons against Johnny. For example, the passage about not putting your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack! Hello? That's been Lucas' biggest mistake, and that's why he's not tolerating any more ghetto rats and low-lifes!

The passage that he had left on the priest's desk was the one about how to deal with a jerk who won't listen to you; find someone they know who they might listen to, and if that doesn't work, have a religious authority come in and try to talk sense into them, which was the whole idea behind Lucas paying the priest a visit.
` But what if that doesn't work? According to Matthew, Jesus says; "then let him be a gentile (Roman) and a tax collector." In other words, let him know he isn't welcome -- good advice to this day!
` The note Lucas left with the passage says that Lucas has been the one to take Johnny to see his dying mother in the hospital, as well as the funeral and wedding in that church... and now Johnny has just stiffed him $900!

Also, Lucas has found a new drum set for this drummer guy, Lowell, who has gotten in from India. It's nice and it's cheap, in a pawn shop! He has amazing drumming videos online (though I don't know where), so I hope he is able to drum for Lucas. He has a show on Thursday!

OMG!! At 1:56 is the BIGGEST COINCIDENCE EVAR! Lucas and I were about to leave for QFC when Lucas read aloud what he'd wrote on Johnny's door and said, "Maybe he's feeling too much shame to ever come back. Wouldn't that be great if he just never showed up again?"
` He walked into our bedroom to grab my car key, looked out the window and said, "Nope, I guess not! Here he comes now!"

They were in Joe's truck and they were there to pick up Johnny's stuff. Well, they got all the furniture from the rental rooms, so our ad that says the rooms are 'fully furnished' is now inaccurate.
` And what did Johnny say he was going to do with that furniture? Find a storage shed to put it in, and pay $75 a month just to keep it but not use it! So, Lucas asked him what if he can't pay that much money and loses it -- which seems probable. Johnny said he didn't care, as long as no one else gets to use it!
` He also started carrying off the speakers, claiming that he didn't give them to us to sell... after doing so just a few days ago! Right! Whatever! But, he left them at least.
` Lucas also insisted that Johnny pick up his drum kit right now, because otherwise he'd keep it! Meanwhile, I secretly videotaped a lot of the screaming back and forth as this was going on. It was intense and also very stupid.
` I was taping through my office window, and Violet jumped up into the window. When I put down the camera and went out onto the front deck, she jumped from the window to the carport roof to meow at us all.
` Then she jumped from the carport roof and onto the deck's railing and couldn't quite seem to figure out why Mommy and Daddy were yelling so much instead of loving on her, so she ran across the yard to find something better to do.

Later on, after Lucas and I had gone to QFC and swung by Dan's (though we didn't speak of what was going on, only of plans to hang out/camp etc.) Johnny and Joe came back for another load, and Johnny still denied throwing Lucas' keys under my car. I said, "I was in the next room, I heard you slam our bedroom door and then run out of the house!"
` Johnny said, "You're a liar!"
` But he knows that's not true. Still, it kind of hurts to be called a liar... I've been called that before by other jerks... not the least of whom was PsychoDad!

At last, later on he came back and finally got the rest of his stinky stuff out of his room! Basically, Johnny was all muttering and scowling about how he's such a victim while Lucas was treating Joe to a drink. Ah! Which reminds me, the horrible knot in my stomach has finally dissipated after that Bloody Mary!
` I hope it has dissipated for good -- I thought I was going to vomit for a while!


February 13, 2010:

Okay, so Lucas' Lou Ryan Band show was two nights ago, and I haven't been writing this crap down. Lucas was wearing pants this time, and talked of Phil, a 5o-year-old guy who works at Boeing, as being his drummer who is sick with the flu.
` At least, he would be Lucas' drummer, but as far as I know, the two haven't met in person since Phil really is sick with the flu and really doesn't want to make it worse by drumming on top of going to work, which was difficult enough!

Anyway, Lucas was up there playing his songs, his rock and blues, and even John Denver's Country Boy, which was amusing, as well as his originals, and he was being lively and funny despite the fact that there were only a few people there!
` For the most part, his friend Nate Fox, as well as Troy and Michael and I, were the only ones to show up for Lucas, though I had called a bunch of folks and also tried to get people from poetry night at Zippy's to stroll on over to the place next door when poetry was over, since that was when the show started!
` I even showed them my Lou Ryan Comics in an attempt to lure them over! It almost worked, but 'almost' doesn't mean much when you're counting heads.

There were, however, a few other patrons at the bar; one guy with a beard said he was a drummer, but he said he was giving himself a break because he was so OCD with it, staying up all night drumming until it was almost time to leave for work, etc. Wow! I've never heard of anyone being addicted to drumming before!

Anyway, today's been a long day, though I've spent a lot of it just typing this stuff in -- I started before noon, though have taken many breaks.
` Since I have my own computer and am not completely slammed with homework and household drama for now, I'll try to be more frequent about updating this blog and my photos, and that way this won't take so long.

Oh yeah... I haven't updated my Flickr account since partway through January... I have a TON of photos still on my camera, partly owing to Lucas' shows, but mostly they are all those drawings I'd photographed.
` That's my next project, which might take a few days as long as I use my old PC -- if I use my laptop, it will take weeks! I guess I'll start it tonight, though I was kind of hoping to burn my finally-finished home movies onto DVD with it first. (I could probably do that with my laptop, though, and it would most likely be faster!)

My latest photo, by the way? Lucas earlier today, burning the stinky, oily sheet Johnny has left behind! Anything to rid our house of stink... and it's nice cotton, burned like wood!

Well, I got to go! So many other things I need to do! Until next time, turn blue, climb walls, etc! Good night!