CRANKY OLD FART #269
leftovers & links
Monday, Jan. 30, 2023
Early this morning, I came out of my room to get a package Amazon said they'd left on the porch. Walking past Dean's closed door, I made an effort to avoid creaking the floorboards, but on my walk back he'd emerged into the kitchen, and asked how cold it was out on the porch.
"Cold," I said.
"The forecast is in the upper 20s," he said. If he knows how cold it is, why's he asking me?
Then he started talking about the restaurant where he works, as I closed my bedroom door and retreated to my beloved silence.
An hour later I came out for breakfast, which was a salad. He must've heard my footsteps, because soon as I'd snipped the plastic bag open and plopped the leaves into a plastic bowl, Dean's door opened and there he was again. "Oh, you're making a salad. What do you put on a salad?"
I didn't answer because fuck you, but he watched as I scissored some Buddig ham and added croutons. Then he started telling me what he was planning to prep for lunch, and I closed my bedroom door in his face.
After the salad I wanted two sugar-free popsicles for dessert. Clearly Dean's not working at his beloved restaurant today, so I listened from behind my door before opening it. The kitchen was silent so it was safe, right?
I came out, and as I grabbed the popsicles from the freezer, the bathroom door opened and it had to be Dean, and it was. He started telling me more about his lunch plans, and I closed my bedroom door in his face for the third time today. It was ten past 9 in the morning.
Several times I have told Dean that it's annoying when he wants a conversation every time he sees me, and yet he wants a conversation every time he sees me. But he is so damned puppy-dog earnest when he talks and talks and talks, I don't think he's fuckin' with me. I've decided that he's suffering from some form of mental illness.
Of course, so am I. His mental illness bothers me, and it's possible that one day soon my mental illness might bother or bloody him. Visions of retaliation have danced in my head like sugar-plums, but no — it's better to think of him as mildly retarded.
Maybe it's a workable truce — Dean talks and talks and talks, and I ignore and ignore and ignore him. I can survive being talked at, so long as I can walk away.
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Maybe I'm just a wussy, but life is short and then you're dead, and every battle you've won or lost is of no importance unless you're George Patton.
Dean's room is right across the kitchen, so peace is preferable. Avoiding a battle with my mentally ill flatmate will continue to be my strategy. At least until I snap.
News you need,
whether you know it or not
• Critical Race Theory has tiny Wisconsin town on edge
• Bones of "Irish Giant," who begged not to be a specimen, removed from display
• FDA finally gets over their 80s-era homophobia and eases blood donation guidelines
• The future of San Francisco's Castro Theater, and its role in the LGBTQ community, now at City Hall
Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going
• Click
• Click
• Click
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Clicks ahoy
• Plea bargains are a tool of racist mass incarceration
• The crackdown on Cop City protesters is so brutal because of the movement's success
• "Well then, that's all very nice and I'm glad to hear you're doing something you like."
• The MTA's new, very long escalators
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♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫
• A Means to an End — Joy Division
• What's Gnawing at Me? — Biff Rose
• When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'? — Sparks
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building
Dean is your best nemesis since Pike. Good luck.
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