Moving again

So, I will be moving from my current apartment into a room with some good friends of mine in Tumwater. I will be putting most of my stuff into storage, but I am hoping to be able to keep some of my personal stuff with me, just for the sake of feeling connected and not quite so ungrounded. Sammy will of course be coming with me, but since there is already a cat living where I am moving to, it will be an interesting situation since neither Sammy nor Mal (the other cat) have ever had to live with another animal. I expect I'll have some more scars before I'm done in the new place.

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up rather early, but decided to lie in bed for a while, lazily drifting in and out of sleep from about 5am. I was mostly sleeping in the beginning but as time wore on I was mostly awake, but didn't really feel like getting up. I still don't have a job, so I should have gotten up and gotten ready and been productive, but the last few days have been stressful, which I will explain shortly, so I felt a little rest would do me good.

As I lie there, I could tell that my roommates door was open because I could hear them talking, and after rolling over I could see it as well. They were up early and playing WoW. The kids were apparently still asleep, or at school. So around 9 I got up, I grabbed my towel, and I was hoping for a nice day, it wouldn't take much to make it nice I decided, just having no stress, emo-explosions, or shouting matches around the house would be all it took, and I would be satisfied. Unfortunately, shortly after my feet hit the carpet, my roommates door was closed.

This happens often. Almost every day when I get home from school, as I say hi to Sammy, who greets me at the door, I hear their bedroom door close. It is apparently fine to have open so long as I'm not around, but as soon as I am home, the door needs to be closed. Not because there's anything going on in there, mind you, all they are doing is playing WoW. that's pretty much all they ever do really, at least as far as I can tell. But it serves as a physical barrier from me, and a reminder that I am not welcome in the house, or at the very least, only welcome to live and sleep there, but not welcome enough to see or talk to anyone else that resides there.

So, the door closed before I even had my towel and soap in my hand to head across the hall to jump in the shower. I could tell the day was already off to a bad start. I had told myself to let everything die down from the shouting match from a few days ago, and that if we all just talked that it would be ok. But, I could see that talking was not an option. So, I resolved to fix the problem the only way I could see how. I needed to leave, to move out. I had already discussed with some friends of mine the possibility of staying at their place in the event that I actually needed to move out, but was hoping that I wouldn't need to move, since it's such a pain in the butt. Alas, I could see now that moving was really my only option if I wanted to salvage what was left of my friendship with my roommate. I had, by this point, given up on the idea of staying friends with my roommates wife, as she... well, she can't stand me.

I can see this is going to be a long post...

Anyway, so I took my shower, Got ready, checked my email, and then walked over to the apartment managers office and talked to them about what needed to be done so that I could move out with the least amount of inconvenience to my roommates, and the safest for me. you see, I am a bit concerned about my belongings since the vast majority of the apt is furnished with my stuff. They have a nice couch, and entertainment center and some end tables, along with their own beds and kitchen table, but the coffee table in the living room, the breakfast table and 2 matching chairs, kitchen shelving rack, most of the dishes, the entertainment center, bookshelf and coffee table in the kids room, and the 2 chairs, 1 dresser and 1 desk in their room are all mine. And everything in my room of course. I want to be sure that there will be no argument as to what belongs to me, and make sure that whats mine stays in good condition until I move out.

So the manager explains that all I need to do is sign a form, and get them to sign it too, which removes my name from the lease. What this basically does is says that after 20 days, I no longer have rights to enter the apt, no longer have any rights to any portion of the deposit and have to be gone in 20 days. All good news for her - I'll be history, and out of her hair, which is pretty much her dream come true near as I can tell. The form also relieves me of any legal obligations if they were to not pay rent for some reason in the future - since I wont be living there anymore.

So I take the form home. I sit for a moment and think about knocking on their door, but decide that might be a bad idea because it would feel like an invasion, so I wait a little while to see if anyone comes out. I had expected to be waiting for quite some time, but my friend came out of the room with some dishes, so I felt this was my chance to just give a quit heads up that we all needed to talk. I let him know that I was doing this out of a desire to retain our friendship as much as possible, such as it could be at this point, and to make the situation as easy as possible for everyone. I explained that basically his friendship was more important to me than having a place to live, and that I would be going elsewhere so as not to cause any other further conflicts which were, at this point, pretty much a given.

He asked where I would be staying or if I had a place to go, and I explained that I was going to have to put all my stuff in storage but that I had arranged for a place to stay temporarily. So he said ok, and went back into the room, and I went back to my room. A little while later, after they had time to talk, and had come out of the room and were in the kitchen, I came out with the form and asked that they sign it so we could get all this settled with as little pain as possible, and for the benefit and reduced stress of all.

I was of course treated like a child, as is her way with pretty much everyone I have ever seen her interact with. "Sign what?" - "The release of roommate form." - "Whats that?" - I explain - "Why would I sign that?" - "I thought he would have told you." - "Well you shouldn't assume" - and the bickering goes back and forth for a while of me trying to just ask politely if she would sign the paper and we could all move on with our lives like reasonable adults. She of course refused to sign. With a raised voice and temper, threatening me (who was about 6 feet away with a piece of paper in my hands, a level voice and being very polite) that if I didn't get out of her face she would punch me in mine. And further threatening to sue me for each month of rent that they had to pay where I was still on the lease if I tried to leave.

I am proud of myself, I didn't get upset, I remained calm, and composed. I wanted to get pissed, I wanted to shout back, but I knew that no amount of reason, fact or logic would help, and shouting and yelling would just make matters worse, so I just remained quiet while she yelled and threatened, and then ultimately went to her bedroom and slammed the door. Again.

I wonder if there's a character count limit on these posts.

So I went back to the rental office, let them know that she wouldn't sign it, and asked what to do after explaining what had just happened. They said I needed to call the police because it was a hostile situation and I had been threatened. They also explained that there was absolutely nothing they could do to help. The only thing they could do was to reexplain that everything rested on the signing of that form. And they insisted that I call the cops.

So, I went back to the apt with the form. Came in the front door and was able to observe a rant being directed at her brother (who also lives here) about how I walked all over her like a rug and she was tired of being treated like a throw rug and how I was such a bad person and a piece of garbage of a person. After letting her talk a bit, since she didn't know I had come back, I found a break in her ranting and interjected that if I'm such a horrible person, and she can't stand me, then sign the paper and be rid of me, and all her problems would be solved.

She of course still refused citing how dare I presume to get out of the lease agreement, and that she wouldn't sign on principal. "It's the idea of it." I believe were the exact words. After which she stormed off and slammed the bedroom door again. No amount of me talking calmly and asking questions, and treating her like an adult had any sway at all. this was not like talking to a rational adult, it wasn't even like talking to an irrational child. It was more akin to attempting to establish a meaningful discourse with a crazy person. Literally - a paranoid, delusional, crazy person. You may say I'm over reacting or name calling, but I actually do have some experience with this, I have dealt with someone who was exactly that before, and it was causing an odd sense of deja vu.

I could see that this was going nowhere, and so explained to my friend that the managers wanted me to call the cops and I really didn't want to do that. I felt it was over the top and didn't see where it would help the situation at all, but that I was worried and concerned for my rights, and would really appreciate it if he could talk to her, and get her to sign it so that we wouldn't have to deal with all the messiness of involving police in what should be a very simple and easy matter.

She of course freaked out at that and accused me of trying to blackmail her. Claiming I was threatening to call the cops if she didn't sign. Which, I suppose in a round about sort of way was true if you looked at it from a rather skewed point of view, it really didn't hold water, and was the final straw that made me realize that this was never going to work out amicably. So I kissed my kitty and patted him on the head and told him i would be back soon, and left. I stopped by the school to turn in my puny award letter, which said I would be getting less than a third of what I needed and was used to getting, due to the budget cuts in this state (that's a different story). Then I headed down to the police station. I talked with a nice, albeit standoffish officer, who after taking my statement said that she would need to call and talk to her (my friends wife) and it would most likely result in me needing to press charges and/or call 911 if it escalated again when I got back home.

There was a definite air about the conversation that made it obvious to me that what my friends wife had done was about to land her in really really hot water. So, being the (too) nice guy that I am, I explained that the situation should be ok and that I didn't want her to get in any trouble and that I would go back home and try to reason with her one more time, and if there was any other problems that we could deal with them when the time came and to please not talk to or arrest my friends wife. She said ok, but let me know that all I had to do was call and they would come out and "mediate" the situation.

My hands are getting tired.

I came home, and got a phone call. From the girl from previous posts, the one who I still care about but didn't "pick" me. We talked for a long time. It was a good talk. I feel like maybe I did a little too much talking and should've done more listening, but I was so happy to actually talk to her again that I couldn't seem to stop myself. Anyway, it was a good chat, and I really hope that she and I can talk again sometime real soon. And if I'm super duper lucky, maybe I'll see her soon. Anyway, so after walking around the parking lot and talking to her for about an hour or so, I went home. Lo and behold, the form was sitting on my desk signed. We wont get into the fact that they routinely invade my privacy by going into and looking around in my room. I was just happy it was signed. So I went and turned it in to the office, who was very happy to see that the drama had been resolved, for now, more or less.

I got a few copies of the form, put one on the counter for them, and I am now looking for boxes so I can start packing and moving. I never imagined that moving in with, or out from, my friend would be such a pain. I had no idea the extent to which some people are just downright ... disagreeable. I have no idea what she thinks I did to make her feel like I "walked all over her", or talked shit about her behind her back (that was the emo-explosion from a few days ago), or did anything wrong in any way.

I keep all my dirty clothes and dishes in my room, I wash them all myself, by hand as soon as I'm done with them, as well as dry them and put them away immediately, I never leave messes of any sort anywhere in the house at all. I'm quiet, generally stay in my room, and use headphones when listening to music or watching movies, both of which are also done in my room. I keep my towels from taking showers in my room to dry, since there is often not room in the bathroom to hang them. I'm just stumped. I guess there is truth in that old cliche that you just cant please some people no matter what you do.

I could keep ranting about how crazy she is and how she all paranoid and delusional and crotchety and stuff with space madness, and how it breaks the heart, but that isnt gonna help anyone, and probably wont be very interesting to read, or write, so... meh.

Now I just need to focus on packing, moving, finding a job, and figuring out what to do about my increasingly horrendous money issues. And then can't forget to stay in that frame of mind once I get there, because I'll need to find a new place to live and a new place to work in Seattle in a few short months, all over again.