Rent paid.
I have one more rent payment to go here and then I’m done. There was brief word of possibly renewing but after that, I was informed that she’d like to move a relative in here. She did not give me a timeframe — she could mean in December, she could mean in the spring; she never specified — but I’m not going to force her to give me one. Along with earning for the November rent I’ll be spending the next couple of months getting this place nicer as sort of a thank-you. Things weren’t exactly clean when I moved in. I’ll be able to get them clean. CleanER, anyway.
But that’s all I’m doing. And I have a feeling I will not be getting the deposit back because all this time she’s been talking about getting the electric bill to me but has not done so. I will be telling her when I move out that if she wants to pay my part off with the deposit she is perfectly within her rights to do so but that if the amount is more than $1000 for the six months, I will need documentation before she gets any more out of me. That’ll be in writing, too. Might as well cover my tracks.
(From what I understand, electric utility rates have really skyrocketed since 2009, the last time I had an electric bill to pay. If that’s true, surely I ran up more than $1000 in those six months. She will have had literally six months to get that information to me and I’m literally across the driveway from her. It is not at all difficult to reach me and she can tell when I’m home. I have no sympathy whatsoever. If people want medals for helping me, they need to actually help, not add drama where previously there wasn’t any. I’m done with that bullshit.)
I’ve been reading the Baggage Reclaim blog a little bit again. Have loved that blog for years and at some point would like to buy at least some of her books to thank her for putting all that out here where I could find it. Today it was an article about stonewalling. Now, the thing with Matt two years ago was not a breakup. I do understand that, but aside from that he pretty much fit the pattern of letting me think things were one way and then suddenly yanking the rug out from under me, then refusing to discuss it. Something was going on there and the only question is which possibility it was:
– He knew suddenly changing the situation would piss me off, and if I got pissed off I would rant, and he would automatically become the Good Guy as a result
– We already had a rapidly destabilizing situation thanks to what was going on with Thea and he didn’t want things to go to complete shambles before he had time to move Crys here
It was one or the other. It’s easy to beat myself up because if it’s the first option then I played right into his hands, but at this point all I can do is look back at the situation and all the people who went silent and think, Wow, are you ever fucking gullible. Why do I care about the opinions of stupid, mean people? Because they are stupid, mean people, or else they would have asked me for my side of the story and not been so quick to turn their backs. It seems facile looking at it that way, it seems childish, and I suppose it’s possible I’m just making excuses but given the facts of the case, what the fuck else would you call it. All along I was willing to explain my side to anyone who would listen. I have never said otherwise. If someone offers you something and you turn away, that’s on you. They tried to meet in the middle. You would not even budge.
So… No great loss, I guess.
And actually it could have been both options, come to think of it. I’m never going to know, of course. He once mentioned he wanted to write me something about the whole situation and his perspective but I told him I knew he wouldn’t do it; he is very fond of promising me reasonable things and then not fucking bothering since he’s “busy.” Over-promise, under-deliver. I do not know why he still has any friends.
And that made me think of something else. “People care more about how you make them feel” probably applies to this too. As in, “People care more about how you make them feel than about how many promises you keep.” If you can make them feel good about you lying to them, they’ll forgive anything, I guess.
But again… No great loss. I don’t even want to be friends with people like that. They prove unreliable and untrustworthy. It’s not because I think friends are a Resource To Get Things Out Of, either. It’s because no one can go it 100% alone in life and we’re supposed to help one another. “Help,” of course, NOT meaning turning people who are supposed to be your friends and support circle into your own personal servant class who does nothing but worship you. Because apparently that needs pointed out. For some reason.
Ugh. Anyway. Getting laundry done. Need to do sheets too — that’s laundry but when I say “laundry” I usually mean “clothes and towels.” I don’t like my chances of finding another apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer, damn it. I don’t mind laundromats, but these days with bed bugs becoming such a problem I do worry somewhat. I wish renting houses weren’t so fucking prohibitive. It is just an apartment not stuck to another apartment. What the hell? But here we are. I will just have to adjust.
It’s all academic if I don’t find a job and therefore I wind up at Weekly-Rate Suites again, which is highly likely. Or if I do find a job and it doesn’t pay enough and I end up there anyway. I suppose the good news is I won’t owe utilities on top of that, and this time I’ll be somewhere walkable. I did a little research into Chain Discount Store where I worked more than 20 years ago and it turns out their rehire policy will work very much in my favor. And there’s one right there across the road. So in a pinch, especially with the holidays coming on, there’s that. I’ll hate it, but I won’t hate having money. And the stakes are not as high as they were at Quantum.
It’s October and I’m going to miss Inktober again. I hate those challenges anyway because I run out of things to draw. But it’s no fun drawing half the time because it feels like standing alone in the middle of an empty room with no windows or doors, babbling at myself. I don’t need validation — I know who I am and I know what I can do — but for me to get along in humanity, somebody’s got to actually notice I’m here. And they usually don’t, and didn’t even before the current mess started. You lose heart after a while. It’s been a long process for me. I need to turn it around and reclaim, and I don’t even know where to begin.
Elizabeth wants to talk again. Am pretending I did not see it. I will give her thirty days’ notice at the end of the month and that’s the best she’s going to get. If she happens to catch me out between now and then, great. If not, oh fucking well. “I’ve got connections”… “I can help you find something”… “I’ll get you the electric bill”… “You can renew the lease.” Pull the other one. It’s got bells on. One more disappointment in a long line of them. This one doesn’t sting as much, or really at all, at least.