2005-08-02

Peeeeerfect, Everything's So Peeeeerfect

A ringing Blackberry.
A nasally voice talking down to a colleague who I adore.
The early twinge of cramps reminding me of the twinge a big, stress pimple is causing on my cheek.
S T R E S S
S U C K S

I was smart enough to do a lot of research about animal noise. After a call, there is a 7-10 day window where the problem has to be resolved and then it goes to Community Mediation. Now, I got Rosie to stop barking while I clean in 2 days. I KNOW I can teach the bitch to zip it when I leave in the morning.

What's funny - did I tell you about my landlord and the fight and everything? I think I did. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that he's calling each person on the property and advising them to call 911 if they hear Rosie. Funny, since I've asked each person and they tell me they only hear her a little when I leave and a little when I come home.
Except for one person.
Anyway, landlord is making harassing threats and yesterday, after an inappropriate email, I went to the city website and downloaded an injunction against harassment. I completed it, gathered all of my documentation and sent it to him with a conciliatory email. He hasn't provided the documentation I've requested, he's gone to people and advised them to call Animal Control (I only know this because 2 of them knocked on my door last night to tell me that they weren't sure why he asked them to do that but when he did, they told him that they never heard her and that they probably wouldn't be dialing the police. I love my friends.), and he doesn't make the repairs I've requested.
Basically, he doesn't treat other tenants this way and treating me this way, after he got his feelings hurt, is harassment. Especially considering that we are in a business arrangement that involves the roof over my head.
I get so frustrated that people who are used to getting their way, or who don't want the responsibility of affording another person his or her rights, lash out at you because you do feel like you have rights.
I do have rights and for once, I know what they are.

If Rosie is really making someone miserable, then they should call Animal Control. They have a right to do that. I have a responsibility to ensure that she is not harming people. I don't want her to be going barking-awful-crazy. I am working diligently to create an environment where she is able to learn to control her needless barking when I leave the house. HATE yapping, noisy dogs and am doing a phenomenal amount of work to teach her that yappy, noisy dogs suck.

If, while I am getting her to learn about barking, someone feels that I don't have control over the situation, they have every right to take whatever measures they feel are appropriate.

My landlord advising people to take the most extreme measure is most assuredly not appropriate.

Luckily, for once, the law is on my side.
I have paid every month on time and in full, I have requested and not received necessary repairs, I have been more than cooperative and helpful to him over the years, and I have all of the documentation that might be needed should this really spiral out of control. I have an action plan for Rosie and am confident that by Saturday, she won't be barking when I leave. Due diligence is a beautiful thing. According to the law, I have 7-10 days to stop the perceived disturbance.
I don't want legal action on either side but I can't afford to move right now. Since it seems that vacating is the only thing that is going to make him stop escalating this situation, I need to know all of my rights and responsibilities.
And I do.
Period.

Maybe this is a test. I've taken full responsibility for everything I have done over the last year. Fuck, I even told Namoli that it was me who TP'd her house last summer. I went to JAIL for taking responsibility, dammit.
I'm not a fucking coward, you know? I may play one in my head but when the water starts filling up the boat, I get on my hands and knees and start bailing without trying to pass the bucket and without blaming the leak.
Sometimes, I'm starting to see that I think I take too much responsibility. Namoli asked me about the dui last night - why did you quit fighting?
Because I was .09 and that's over the limit. I did it. It sucks but it happened. I still can't believe it happened but it did. I can't believe I was in jail two weeks ago but I was. I have a history of accepting the consequences for the things I really did do.
But I will fight until I'm broken and bleeding to not be saddled with things that are not my fault. For so much of my life, I got punished for things I didn't do and I shut my mouth and I didn't fight because fighting made it worse.
Here again, fighting is making it worse.
But the fact is that I don't have a choice right now.
Financially, I do not have the resources that I need to move.
This time, I need to be able to separate what is mine to fix and what is someone else's to fight.

I own a puppy.
She barks when I leave for work.
A lot of people think she doesn't bark that much.
1 person thinks she does.
1 landlord is mad at me for a personal beef that we have.
I have taken responsibility and I am working through action items to train the animal. The 1 landlord doesn't give a crap and that fine. The part that's not fine is that he's gone beyond not giving a crap that I'm trying to make this work and he's treading on the thin ice of undeniable harassment.

It's a dangerous fire pit to which I've been drug.
I can't lose my housing. I've checked further and I don't think there's a legal way he can cause me to lose it. I have been a dream tenant and illegal ouster could mean that he pays something like 2.5 months of rent, plus any extraneous fees that I incur as a result of the illegal ouster. The bottom line is that I haven't done anything to give cause for eviction, considering that other people were allowed to carry out their action plans when they were made aware of a complaint against their pets. For him to evict me is discriminatory right now.
By the time he would issue all of the warning and implement al of the things he would need to implement to all of the tenants that =would be effected, there wouldn't be a problem. Rosie is a star pupil!
Anyway, I have to be prepared for the worst and I try to head off the worst before it gets to the pass.

Jesus my mother would shit a brick if she knew all of this was going down. Somehow I was supposed to be someone's perfect wife with a perfect baby and a perfect part-time job by now; I wasn't supposed to be boning up on the legalities of a slum-lord's attempted harassment and eventual attempted ouster.
Well, maybe I'm with her on that.
But that's not how it unfolded, you know?
It just so happens that I broke up with one of my very favorite lovers ever, who happens to be a transsexual folk singer, I got some cancer, I gained a bunch of weight, I still like this silly gig as a Corporate 'Ho, I got a dui and a dog, I stay in the house way too much because I have what I am thinking might be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I was violently mugged about 3 weeks after the dui, which kind of feeds into all my feeling about leaving the house once I've entered it.
You know, things never turn out the way they're supposed to.

Life never opens as neatly as a perfect bloom. There are always bugs or rot or disease and somehow, it all keeps blooming anyway. If it was supposed to be a pink flower and it opens and it's yellow - it's still really beautiful.
I mean, stunningly, perfectly, mite-bitten, brown edges, BEAUTIFUL.
Just because it is there, in bloom and unexpected and imperfect, it's beautiful.
Like me.


And X-Tina.

arizonasarah at 9:31 a.m.

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