Storefront Friday

The logic behind taking a Friday off is to get chores done. There’s really no such thing as a mental health day these days, because I’ve found myself doing much more in my personal life than I do at work.

So I took today off, woke up at 5am, and by 10am I had put 100 miles on the car and had run a two page list worth of errands. Which is brave, because some of that saw me on the Beltway. I’ve always hated driving, and the Beltway helps remind me why.

I’ve often mentioned my storage cleanout plan. I have two storage units far upcounty crammed full of Far Too Much Shit. So, slowly, I’m hauling carload after carload of that shit back to my little paradise apartment. Most of it is trashed – and it’s greatly rewarding to do so. Though, instead of trashing all the old books I have, I’m sticking them up on Amazon. Here’s my storefront, where you now have the chance to inherit my childhood fantasy and sci-fi collection for pennies. Right now, there are over 100 titles there…most of them basically up there for the cost of shipping.

Of course, I’m shipping through my office mail. That’s what we call a profitable scheme. Or, several beers later, a just reward for making $15,000 below the average income for my position in the DC area.

Tell you what – contact me through Amazon there and let me know that you’re ordering through Greatsociety. I might send extra gifts to you. I have lots of books that seem to pre-date the idea of an ISBN. Mostly vintage sci-fi crap. But I might also send some free copies of newer books that are filling up ALL THE SPACE EVERYWHERE AROUND ME.

Yeah, Too Much shit. Between the storage cleanout and my strange friends from Spain storing what I can only assume are stolen items from IKEA in the back bedroom, my fancy apartment is starting to get crowded.

But I really like it here. It’s peaceful, comfortable, far enough away from real traffic and crazy people, and has lots of wide open space. I’m even developing strange little connections with my neighbors. Though I’ve never formally introduced myself, I watch them from my balcony up on the fourth floor. I crouch behind the plants and chairs I’ve hauled out onto the unforgiving concrete and keep notes on what all my little neighbors do. Mainly, I’m watching my car. Because fuck these people.

There’s the weird Chinese guy who walks like he has a cock in his ass and eats fast food all the time. Like, every day, every meal. There’s the old guy who owns six cars. There’s the crazy Spanish family below me and their fluffy dog. There’s the marine in the apartment across the hall who always has his marine buddies showing up in fatigues and carrying kegs. There’s the old lady and her grandson, who’s always in trouble with the cops. There’s Trashman, who seems to have a new puppy every day and always leaves his trash out on the landing. There’s an Asian couple who seem very nice and very scared of people. Then there’s either an empty apartment or a serial killer’s den on the first floor.

The building is “sound proof,” or, if you’re fighting the management company in court, “sound resistant.” For the most part, it’s true. You get in the back bedroom and close the door and you can sleep like the queen of the damned until Saturday morning at goddamned motherfucking 7am when the truck comes to empty the dumpsters right outside the window.

The unfortunate side effect of sound proofing – or sound resisting – is that it seems to kill all the magic waves that make cell phones work. Comcast is all gay for setting up wireless, and it works, but the signal degrades from the modem in the kitchen to the laptop in the back bedroom where I may or may not be watching porn more often than I should.

When it comes to cell phones, forget it. There are a few hotspots, and you can press your head against the window, or come out onto the balcony, but that’s it. Every cell is dead as soon as it hits the apartment.

Now that the 80 degree days are upon us, and spring in Washington prepares for what the experts predict will be a summer of tropical death, all of my neighbors spend more time out in the parking lot than they do inside. That’s the best way to make and receive cell phone calls. So now I can crouch behind the plants at night when I get home and watch a sort of herd flow back and forth around the parking lot and accompanying green space. The neighbors on their phones, all shouting to be heard. Some sit, most stand and wander. Sometimes they’ll wander far, hang up, then appear to be confused. Like, “How’d I get outside?”

Friday’s a fun day to take off. I can observe my neighbors as they behave normally. Shuffling out of here in the AM, dragging back in the PM. Instead of defeatism, though, there’s weekend life in the evening. The marine’s friends will arrive around 6pm with enough beer to kill Osama, the weird Chinese fast food guy will wander out all dick-assed around that same time, painfully get in his car, drive away, then return with four bags of KFC. The Spanish below me will probably go somewhere. The mother will pull up around 7pm (the kids get home around 3pm), roll down the window of her beater minivan, then scream her head off for the kids to come out.

Typically, the little daughter will come out with the fluffy dog. I witness this exchange almost every night. The mother says, no, leave the dog at home. The little girl protests. The mother loses her shit. The little girl returns the dog to the apartment then, dejectedly, shuffles back out. (I can, then, lean over the railing and watch the dog come out onto the balcony below and stick its head between the bars, sadly watching as the minivan takes off. Sometimes I talk to the dog, but it just stares up at me like I’m some sort of alien.)

The marine has a troublesome girlfriend. On Friday or Saturday night, they’ll get in a huge fight in the early AM. I don’t notice it if I’m all sound-resisted in the back bedroom but, if I’m sleeping out in the living room (by sleeping, I mean passed out), or just up for some reason, I can hear the whole thing. The fight will last 10 minutes, then she’ll slam and stomp her way out to the parking lot and make for the dark, scary woods. These are woods where, during the winter, you can look through the bare trees and see lean-to’s and other signs of homeless habitation. So I’m surprised she’s still alive. Though, if I were a homeless rapist lurking in the woods and I saw a squad of marines come out after the pretty girl going “Come on, baby,” I’d leave her alone. That bitch has back-up.