2006-07-10
Spy Games
Clinical Boredom, I think, is going to be The Next Big Thing in American Psychology.
Like all of the other maladies related to being relatively privileged and employed... you know... Leisure Illness where you work so hard that you only get sick when you have a vacation (Have it and all I can do on the weekends is lie on my couch with the remote and some fast food to cure me); Computer Migraine where you stare at a computer monitor so long that your head starts pounding and your eyeballs start to cross their vision (Have it, but only conditionally. My head is fine when I am writing essays and I credit that to the fact that I have to look at the keyboard while I type, thereby avoiding looking at the screen for very long); Passive Aggressive Tendency (Have it, HATE it. I am not pass agg by nature and these things that I do confuse me... it's like muscle memory in reverse and on my brain.
I am adding a condition that falls in the category of General Malaise and I am calling the disease Clinical Boredom.
Maybe it's the time of year that's causing my complete and utter lack of enthusiasm for anything, anywhere. I mean... a lot of people flee from Tucson in the summertime so there could be something to the idea that less people = less stimulation for Sarah/spent too much on beauty products last week is RESULT: Clinical Boredom.
Whatever it is, the fact is that I'm over it before "it" it is even begins. Even going skating is like, a pain in the ass because it's a million sweaty degrees and there will be mild dehydration and those little skate fuckers who leave broken glass on the track because they're too young to make the connection that leaving your trash lying around a park is more stupid than rebellious.
I am over shopping for stuff because I have like $8.00 (hopefully) until pay day. I'm even over watching TV because I am over hanging out at my house.
Lately, the CREEPY neighbor next to me opens her door every time I open my door to go outside.
You remember, the hippy neighboress.
Being a hippy is fine, it's a stereotype, but it's fine. It should be harmless, right?
Now, I have a pretty good sense of whom to avoid. I haven't ever been wrong about my gut instinct and my gut tells me that she is a goddamn mess who should be avoided by me and whose mental capacity should be called into question.
Why?
Because she's doing this thing where she opens her door every single time I exit my apartment. She opens it, takes a look, and closes it. It's creepy and annoying; creepy because hello? Who does that and annoying because I'm now trained to open my door, brace for the noise of her opening and then swiftly closing her door, and understanding mentally that I am being watched.
I'm not kidding... everytime I exit my apartment, I hear her door open and then close. I feel like telling her, from experience, that spying is best done through a window.
And no, this is not paranoia.
I take the dog out at 6:00 AM - there it is: openLOOKclose.
I stop at home for lunch and there it is: openLOOKclose.
I go to check my mail, to play with the dog, to lay in the sun, to throw up in the bushes when I am really drunk, to get out of my place for a minute and this crazy hippy is there: openLOOKclose.
You live with it, then call me to commiserate. I am not kidding - everytime I open my door, I hear hers open and then close, like she is just checking to see what's going on. It's mental terrorism.
I have mentioned that that I suspect witchcraft, which I know is a nutty and totally violates Occam's Razor but for reals.... rocks arranged in the shape of an arrow pointing to my door? That's not natural. I've lived there for almost four years and I know what the rocks look like.
Here's the scene, from my door:
To the South is the path that leads to the driveway.
To the North is the picnic table and a little West of that, The Big Tree.
This morning I totally caught her as she, surprise surprise, exited her apartment right after I got the dog out the door for the early morning bodily functions. I go toward the Big Tree, which is Rosie's staked out Area. I hear her walk out of her door, headed to the driveway. Then I hear her stop and shuffle around a little. There has been this lighter lying in the path to the driveway for about four or five days now, since the last huge storm came through the neighborhood.
While I am standing by the Big Tree and letting Rosie root around a little, my feak-show neighbor crosses alllllllll the way across the courtyard to put the lighter on the picnic table.
It's 5:57 on a Monday morning, I am in my robe, my eyes are still sewn shut from sleep glue, the dog is shitting. NOW is when she chooses to pick up the lighter and walk all the way back across the courtyard with it?
Still think I am paranoid?
Now, I am a retired Olympic Champion of smoking pot, I know that, and I get that there might be some residual effects of paranoia. although I never had that symptom of being stoned, I get that I might be having it now.
But only with one person?
Who is THERE everytime I turn around at home?
Come on. Even for an active and creative imagination like mine, this is a strange situation that's developed.
You have to believe me about this person being really out there and not so easy for me to talk to. At work I would refer to her as "...a difficult personality for me to connect to but she seems really sweet."
Then I would totally comment on her wearing the same dress for three days with no sleep and hyper-vigilance over my comings and goings, as well as my dog's restroom schedule.
She's the same person who had the thing with the sick cat with me. One time on a Saturday afternoon, I was hanging a picture and she asked me to please stop banging at the wall. As if there was a better time for to hang a picture. Of course, she guess she could probably advise me since she must know my entire schedule by now.
All I want is some privacy.
There's no need to open/close at six in the morning. I am just waking up, I want a moment alone to take in the day. I want to make sure the dog does number one and number two. I want a minute to myself, outside, like I have always had since the day I moved in there.
With her around, I don't get that. I never get to sit in my courtyard, by myself, which sucks enough but then I also have to remove rock formations, feathers, chicken blood, and voo-doo dolls decorated with green buttons for eyes and long black hair that I suspect is actually mine, pulled from my bathroom trash.
I don't know what she wants from me or if most of this is me taking the slightly weird behavior of a close-proximity neighbor and making it into a really good and ongoing story... I do know that I want to roll out of bed and take out the dog in my nightie, just like I always did pre-spying.
She didn't used to do this.
This is new, and it started when I told her that I was going to have to call someone to deal with the sick cat that was hanging out and and being fed by her. She was really upset about that and thought that the little cat was going to go get killed if I called a shelter. I doubt it would be killed. I thought it was going to go to the shelter, get injected with anti-biotics and she would probably have about 10 minutes to see it at PetsMart before some little girl said, "Daddy, I want that one!" and it went home to a lovely set of curtains for the shredding.
Whatever. She ended up taking it to her mother's house and as a ture-blue animal lover, I hope it's better and it was just allergic to something on the property where we live.
So that's when all of this weirdness started.
Like, now she has to keep the Evil Eye on me so I don't threaten to call the humane society again. Which.... duh. Why would I do that? I let my dog run around leashless all the time and sometimes I tie her on a 20 foot lead while I go in to clean the floors or do the dishes. I am the last person who is going to invite law enforcement into my personal space because I am not exactly a model of legality over here. There's no reason to call animal control if all the other animals are healthy and/or accounted for by a neighborhood owner. Why she seems to think I am going to wreak some kind of horrible fate down on the property is beyond me.
And why she cares about my movements is beyond me, also. She is supposedly moving into her car, which is covered in stickers like "Goddess!" and "Fairies Live!"
Oh yeah.
That's what she told one of the other neighbors and she's been moving stuff out of her place for two weeks.
Frankly, I hope it happens; not that she necessarily moves into her car but moves out of the apartment next to me. Or at least that she chills a little. My friend Sarah and I disagree about her. Sarah thinks she's alright and a figure for some pity. I think that she makes me feel like a Republican because I think she needs to slow her role and stop assuming that the rest of us aren't out to murder small animals who might wander onto the property.
That apartment where she lives has always been occupied by a gay, or at least fey, man who becomes normally my temporary stylist and full-time wingman during the time while he lives there. Her hippy dresses and spying is nothing like what I need in a neighbor. Which is generally dance music and flamboyant friends gathering outside to smoke clove cigarettes and compare Madonna tattoos.
Hey, wait a minute! I think I might have just escaped my boredom.
I am going to bait her and prove to her that I am such a terror, I can't be watched because what she might see?.
It's not for human eyes.
I'm not sure how to pull it off.... but I am going to get her off my back once and for all so that I can return to enjoying my little courtyard all by myself once in awhile.
arizonasarah at 11:16 a.m.