So my upstairs neighbors are definitely trying to run me out of my apartment of almost 5 years!!! They have “accidentally” flooded my apt. via the ceiling twice in one year, causing major water damage. The most recent time, they even managed to soak half of my sofa!! Jack Asses! These are grown ass men! Who the hell, forgets and leaves the shower running or the h2o in the kitchen sink running??? Who does that? Apparently these asses do. But wait, this isn’t the worst of their infractions! For the past two months (and I’ll remind you they’ve been here for almost a year) someone up there has been sitting in that effin apartment smoking cigarettes all damn day & night!!! By the time I get home my crib smells like a damn saloon! I can’t effin breath; I gotta keep my windows open to get fresh air, burn candles and spray Febreeze! And I HATE the smell of cigarettes, DAMN IT! They are also the loudest effin people ever—at the most inopportune times!! At like 3 or 4 in the effin AM they’re loud as hell, with all types of floor traffic, furniture moving, and sex sounds! I swear, I think they make pornos up there! Did I mention that my Uggs were stolen just a month or so after they moved in (check last March’s posts)? I know they had something to do with it! I am so sure that this is a conspiracy against me. I don’t really know why they’d wanna run me outta here but they are definitely effin with me!

I’m wondering is this the sign I’ve been waiting for to tell me its time to move? I mean, I’ve been saying since I got here I needed more space. I mean I live in a box. I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong, some people don’t have a box of their own (see last post). I just know that I would enjoy having a bit more space in my daily life. Since I don’t have a lot of it at home it seems that I’m always on this quest to enjoy it while I’m not at the crib. I’ve taken some serious steps to try to acquire “personal space,” including sneezing and coughing, falling asleep and ignoring people. I’m sorry! I admit it. I was wrong and am ashamed! I blame it all on my lunatic neighbors though (who happen to be filming right now! As I type! With their Loud ASSES!)! It’s all their fault!

Anyway, speaking of space, about a month ago I read an article in the New York Times about personal space. It was talking about City Dwellers being on this never ending quest for more space. Subway rides, conversations, bathroom stalls, post office lines, and park benches are just a few places that people (especially New Yorkers are demanding more personal space—and room to breathe. This hit very close to home since, I’ve been on a mission for a few months now for the perfect seat on the Metro North (the commuter train that I use daily-for non NYC area folks). For me, the perfect seat for me would mean, personal space—no elbow to elbow or knee to knee touching, nobody in my face, and maybe a window. I’m really not asking for much! Anyway, each day I hop on grab my seat, and hope that no space invader will soon come and attempt to violate me with their personal cell conversation, morning breath, body weight, or just overall annoying ass! Please don’t get me wrong! I don’t want you to think that I don’t like people or something. (Well! To be honest, some days I don’t!) To borrow from one of my favorite shows still, “People are the worst!” I know that makes me sound miserable. So what? It’s nothing I can do about it. It’s the truth!! Some days I just don’t like people. Some days I’d prefer to just be left alone—in my own space, in my own skin. But you know it never happens that way! Those are the days when every lunatic in every effin borough & surrounding county seems to have it out for you!

Prime example, last winter, I’m on the train on my way to work (a job which I later quit-long story, for another post), not feeling the best about my day ahead, and not looking forward to the lunatic adults that I was getting ready to have to deal with. So the train is packed, it’s rush hour of course, but luckily I find one seat! One stop after I get on this chemically impaired woman gets on the train after physically pushing this woman out of the way that was trying to exit the train. She’s yelling and cussing, enough that this lunatic held up the train for about a minute because she’s kicking and yelling out the door. The door finally closes and where does she decide to stand? In front of me of course! She’s yelling at everybody and cussing, she’s a big mess! Then she begins to kick her left leg up in the air like the Karate Kid, twirling around holding on to the pole in the floor. By now most people have moved as far away from her as possible. Not me though. She twirls in my direction and kicks her leg up in the air again just to the right of me. I’m thinking now, “Ok. So this is the morning I get arrested, and end up as the headline “Crazed Teacher Got Tuff on Subway!” Because that’s what the papers here love to do.) I just knew this lunatic (one of my favorite words by the way) was going to f-ck with me! I was so ready. I guess the anger was evident in my face (brought on by my day job) must’ve had my maniac stare on, cause I looked her dead in the eye and she didn’t kick me. Maybe she thought I was as crazy as she was (maybe I was that morning). I probably looked like it, because a few people’s faces seemed to light up at the prospect of her kicking me in the face—I think they knew I would go off, and were waiting to see a subway rumble, and for me too to become a lunatic! Anyway, as the doors finally opened at my stop, she begins to kick her legs up repeatedly while spinning around in a circle, as if she’s fighting off a posse of ninjas. Well I figured I’d tempted fate enough that morning, and decided to follow the rest of the crowd and walk around the lunatic to the other end of the train and exit. I avoided that lunatic trap, but would later get snatched up in another a the J-O-B!

That’s the thing about NYC, it has a plethora of lunatics; there is surely no shortage of crazies here! And as each day goes by in this city, I come closer to joining the bunch!

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

Until.