So today, I had made a bunch of brownies for a potluck at work. This was far and away the best potluck I've ever experienced. Anyway, the reason why I mention that is because the food was so splendidly good, that everyone ate so much of it that they didn't have any room left for any desserts. So I had a lot of brownies leftover. a full 9X9 try, and about 3/4 of a 13X9 tray. Mikey stopped by my room last night and asked if he could have any brownies. I told him he could help himself to the lasrger tray, and if he wanted, he could take them to work, and leave me the small tray. So Mikey took the large tray and said, "Thank you."
I went out to the kitchen later, after my nap, and Mikey, again, had left a mess. After the fiasco from yesterday, with the messy kitchen, I assumed that wa a one time thing. But I went out to the kitchen today, and he made another mess with just the brownie supplies. He took the aluminum foil off of the tray, and just placed it on the counter. Used two paper towels for something, and left those laying on the counter as well. The empty ziplock bag container was on the counter, as he used the last ziplock bag out of the pack to carry the brownies. Finally, the had placed the brownie tray in the sink and filled it up with water.
(In addition, like usual, the cabinets and drawers were left opened.)
It took me all of 5 minutes to clean up and wash the tray. Sure, not a huge deal, as it wasn't THAT much of an inconvenience to me. But being that it didn't take me that long, it wouldn't have taken him that long either.
At this point, he's just being flat out lazy. He's taking advantage of the fact that he knows I'll do it. How hard is it to throw a couple of napkins away and simply scrub a dish when you're done with it? Is this roommate setup really at the point where when he says, "I'll take care of my mess," it's really just code for "I'll consolidate it and let you clean it later"?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Tornado
So I have been very jet-lagged this whole week so far, and haven't been able to do much in the way of housework. Well, certainly more than Mikey has ever done, but not much according to my own standards. This is why there is no post from Monday the 29th, my first day back. I slept all day until 6pm, and then tried to go to bed 6 hours later at midnight to reset my schedule.
Anyway, I did clean the house from the giant mess Mikey had made while I was gone. I haven't however, had the opportunity to clean my bathroom, my room, or vacuum.
So I did a bit more tidying up today when I came home from work. Mikey had a giant stack of his mail on the dining table. I gave him from Sunday (the day I got back) until today to do something with it. That's a 3 day grace period, and he still failed to do something with it. So I moved it to his room. Well, I just noticed that in the hour and a half he just spent here he moved half the stack back to the dining table. Why? I don't know. It's all mail that's addressed to him. When I get my mail, I take it to my room, read it right away, throw it away, or store it in my desk immediately. Why he has dozens of letters that he keeps moving everywhere, I have no idea. But I'm going to go buy some sort of decoration for the dining room table, and hopefully, that will prevent him from putting his mail there anymore.
Well, like I said, he was here for an hour and a half just now. And like I said before that, I came home from work and did a bit of further cleaning. And by a bit, I mean I spent nearly an hour in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher and cleaning everything spic and span. I went to my room and started watching some YouTube videos. In about 10 minutes, Mikey came home from...doing whatever he was doing.
I heard him in the kitchen for about 20 minutes or so, then I heard the XBOX 360 turn on in the living room. He played XBOX for about an hour, then he played drums for 20 minutes. He stopped by my room, told me he was going to work, and told me to water the backyard.
I emerged form my room and went to the kitchen. And I saw an absolutely horrendous mess in the kitchen. Nearly as bad as the initial mess I came home to upon my return form Tokyo. And I had JUST finished cleaning and shining the whole kitchen. Took me an hour, or close to it, to do it. And it took Mikey a matter of 20 minutes to destroy the whole thing again. It looks as if someone came in here and cooked all three of their daily meals and didn't clean any of it:
Opened peanut butter and jelly jars in the sink. An opened milk container on the counter. All the pots and pans, dirty, on the stove, a grocery bag on the counter. dirty utensils and about half a dozen napkins strewn about. A chair from the dining room all the way in the living room in front of the TV.
Using a plate and not putting it in the dishwasher is one thing. That's not a big deal at all. But you're telling me that he made THIS much of a mess, had time to play an hour of XBOX and 20 minutes of playing the drums, but he couldn't clean up any of this?
I can't fucking believe this...
Anyway, I did clean the house from the giant mess Mikey had made while I was gone. I haven't however, had the opportunity to clean my bathroom, my room, or vacuum.
So I did a bit more tidying up today when I came home from work. Mikey had a giant stack of his mail on the dining table. I gave him from Sunday (the day I got back) until today to do something with it. That's a 3 day grace period, and he still failed to do something with it. So I moved it to his room. Well, I just noticed that in the hour and a half he just spent here he moved half the stack back to the dining table. Why? I don't know. It's all mail that's addressed to him. When I get my mail, I take it to my room, read it right away, throw it away, or store it in my desk immediately. Why he has dozens of letters that he keeps moving everywhere, I have no idea. But I'm going to go buy some sort of decoration for the dining room table, and hopefully, that will prevent him from putting his mail there anymore.
Well, like I said, he was here for an hour and a half just now. And like I said before that, I came home from work and did a bit of further cleaning. And by a bit, I mean I spent nearly an hour in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher and cleaning everything spic and span. I went to my room and started watching some YouTube videos. In about 10 minutes, Mikey came home from...doing whatever he was doing.
I heard him in the kitchen for about 20 minutes or so, then I heard the XBOX 360 turn on in the living room. He played XBOX for about an hour, then he played drums for 20 minutes. He stopped by my room, told me he was going to work, and told me to water the backyard.
I emerged form my room and went to the kitchen. And I saw an absolutely horrendous mess in the kitchen. Nearly as bad as the initial mess I came home to upon my return form Tokyo. And I had JUST finished cleaning and shining the whole kitchen. Took me an hour, or close to it, to do it. And it took Mikey a matter of 20 minutes to destroy the whole thing again. It looks as if someone came in here and cooked all three of their daily meals and didn't clean any of it:
Opened peanut butter and jelly jars in the sink. An opened milk container on the counter. All the pots and pans, dirty, on the stove, a grocery bag on the counter. dirty utensils and about half a dozen napkins strewn about. A chair from the dining room all the way in the living room in front of the TV.
Using a plate and not putting it in the dishwasher is one thing. That's not a big deal at all. But you're telling me that he made THIS much of a mess, had time to play an hour of XBOX and 20 minutes of playing the drums, but he couldn't clean up any of this?
I can't fucking believe this...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Return
Well, as I mentioned in the last blog, I went to Tokyo for a week. And as I expected, this house was an absolute wreck upon my return.
I won't post any pictures or anything, since I don't wish to post pictures of the house itself (minus the toilet pictures). But to draw a comparison, the mess in this house was just as bad, if not worse, than the mess that existed during the time when I did the first big clean which was a mess that had consisted of anything and everything the both of us failed to clean up that had collected for two months.
I will rephrase that just so that the severity of the actual mess sets in for you.
For two months after we first moved in, we both had messes we didn't clean up. Various things that had collected and not been picked up. It was a wretched mess. And it took me two weeks to clean up (of course, I had work, school, taekwondo, and guitar practices in between these cleans). It took the both of us and two months to create this mess.
Upon my return from my trip. The mess I encountered was just as bad. So the amount of mess and clutter that had previously taken the two of us two months to create took Mikey a week, alone in this house, to create on his own.
I am on my way to clean it up. He just left the house and I'm actually still afraid to do my cleaning while he's here. Because he actually will complain or make some sort of snide comment about it. But I've discovered that if I do my cleaning when he's not around, he no longer says anything about it when he comes home and finds things clean.
Perhaps that's improvement on our relationship as roommates.
I won't post any pictures or anything, since I don't wish to post pictures of the house itself (minus the toilet pictures). But to draw a comparison, the mess in this house was just as bad, if not worse, than the mess that existed during the time when I did the first big clean which was a mess that had consisted of anything and everything the both of us failed to clean up that had collected for two months.
I will rephrase that just so that the severity of the actual mess sets in for you.
For two months after we first moved in, we both had messes we didn't clean up. Various things that had collected and not been picked up. It was a wretched mess. And it took me two weeks to clean up (of course, I had work, school, taekwondo, and guitar practices in between these cleans). It took the both of us and two months to create this mess.
Upon my return from my trip. The mess I encountered was just as bad. So the amount of mess and clutter that had previously taken the two of us two months to create took Mikey a week, alone in this house, to create on his own.
I am on my way to clean it up. He just left the house and I'm actually still afraid to do my cleaning while he's here. Because he actually will complain or make some sort of snide comment about it. But I've discovered that if I do my cleaning when he's not around, he no longer says anything about it when he comes home and finds things clean.
Perhaps that's improvement on our relationship as roommates.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Week Without Me
Well, I mentioned it a while back, but I'm going to Tokyo for a week. I leave tomorrow morning and I won't be back until Sunday June 28th. I have a week vacation form work so my friend and I are going. It should be tons of fun!
It will be interesting, though, to see what happens to the house. Mikey will be here alone for an entire week. I've thought this place got very messy in a matter of one day if I didn't do anything to clean. So we'll see the state of this place when I get back after a week. My prediction is that he'll either let the place go completely to hell, not do anything, and I'll come home to a complete pigsty; or he'll let his mess collect but clean a bit just before I get home.
Since I am a man who likes science, I'll put this house in as much of a "control" state as I can. I'll completely go through this house today and clean, polish, shine, vacuum, and do absolutely any cleaning thing you could imagine can be done on a house. Just so I know it's all perfectly clean when I leave and I can more easily determine how much of a mess he let me come home to.
Goodbye for a week!
Only time will tell. So this will break the chain of me updating this blog everyday. I'm sure I'll have a bit to say when I get back.
It will be interesting, though, to see what happens to the house. Mikey will be here alone for an entire week. I've thought this place got very messy in a matter of one day if I didn't do anything to clean. So we'll see the state of this place when I get back after a week. My prediction is that he'll either let the place go completely to hell, not do anything, and I'll come home to a complete pigsty; or he'll let his mess collect but clean a bit just before I get home.
Since I am a man who likes science, I'll put this house in as much of a "control" state as I can. I'll completely go through this house today and clean, polish, shine, vacuum, and do absolutely any cleaning thing you could imagine can be done on a house. Just so I know it's all perfectly clean when I leave and I can more easily determine how much of a mess he let me come home to.
Goodbye for a week!
Only time will tell. So this will break the chain of me updating this blog everyday. I'm sure I'll have a bit to say when I get back.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A Simple Matter
If you've been reading this blog, you've noticed that what I've talked mostly about is me being very clean and Mikey, well, not being very clean. I find that is our biggest issue in living together.
When we first entertained the idea of moving in together, we both told each other the same thing. We were messy living at our parents' houses. Both of us wanted to turn that around. Start fresh. Make new habits, be clean, and take care of our house.
The reason why I wrote the blog was because after my whole depression, I took stock of myself. I realized was being messy, lazy, and becoming a slob. I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't being true to my word. I said I wanted to turn things around and I wasn't. It was time for a reality check. From that point forward, I've kept true to my own vow.
Mikey hasn't. From the very moment we moved in, his room has been an absolute mess. Even when he was first moving stuff in, he just kind of chucked it all into his room. He had the same piles of laundry (I'm not sure whether they're dirty or clean) on the floor of his room in this house that I would see whenever I went over to his mom's. I'm sure he told himself he'd clean it all later, but he still hasn't.
What he does with his room is fine. That's on him. If he wants to lock himself in there, shove potato chips up his ass and leave the crumbs on the bed, that's totally his decision. I don't care about the mess in his room. I only mention it as a reflection of him as a person. And because it's his mess that spills out to the rest of the house, which is problem for me.
He'll bring his headphones and iPod out to the front room when he's playing drums. Then he'll leave those items on the drums or on the table. He doesn't shut cabinets or drawers when he's done. Puts his dirty dishes in the sink or leaves them on the counter. He's had a mass of books spread out in the front room that he said he would take care of a month ago.
The other day, he even yelled at me because I was putting the frying pans in the same cabinet with the pots. He said to keep them in the oven, and we'll just take them out before we use the oven. However, when he cooks his copious amounts of eggs everyday, he'll leave the frying pan sitting on the stove instead of putting it in he oven where he specifically said it needs to go. Most of the time, too, he won't even wash the pan, but leave his egg residue in it.
He can be messy all he wants in his own room on his own time. But his mess becomes my mess. He teases me for being "gestapo" when it comes to this house being clean. But truth is, I'm not mad that he doesn't dust, vacuum, or scrub anything. What irritates me is the simple matter of not putting things in place, and not cleaning up after yourself when your done or putting stuff back when you're done with it. How hard is it to place the fan in the closet when you're done using it, instead of leaving it in front of the front door for someone to trip over? How hard is it to take an extra 10 seconds to place your dishes in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink? Is it really so difficult to take your headphones back into your room when you're done?
What's really irritating about it is that he'll do other things. So I know he has the time. He'll spend an hour playing on the XBOX, but he'll suddenly have to leave to go to work or somewhere else and doesn't clean up. Apprently he has enough time to dick around and play video games for hours on end, but doesn't have enough time to take a maximum of 30 seconds to simply throw his trash away or clean up after himself.
These are skills we are supposed to learn as children. And in that regard, his parents failed him. I pity Mikey's future wife.
When we first entertained the idea of moving in together, we both told each other the same thing. We were messy living at our parents' houses. Both of us wanted to turn that around. Start fresh. Make new habits, be clean, and take care of our house.
The reason why I wrote the blog was because after my whole depression, I took stock of myself. I realized was being messy, lazy, and becoming a slob. I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't being true to my word. I said I wanted to turn things around and I wasn't. It was time for a reality check. From that point forward, I've kept true to my own vow.
Mikey hasn't. From the very moment we moved in, his room has been an absolute mess. Even when he was first moving stuff in, he just kind of chucked it all into his room. He had the same piles of laundry (I'm not sure whether they're dirty or clean) on the floor of his room in this house that I would see whenever I went over to his mom's. I'm sure he told himself he'd clean it all later, but he still hasn't.
What he does with his room is fine. That's on him. If he wants to lock himself in there, shove potato chips up his ass and leave the crumbs on the bed, that's totally his decision. I don't care about the mess in his room. I only mention it as a reflection of him as a person. And because it's his mess that spills out to the rest of the house, which is problem for me.
He'll bring his headphones and iPod out to the front room when he's playing drums. Then he'll leave those items on the drums or on the table. He doesn't shut cabinets or drawers when he's done. Puts his dirty dishes in the sink or leaves them on the counter. He's had a mass of books spread out in the front room that he said he would take care of a month ago.
The other day, he even yelled at me because I was putting the frying pans in the same cabinet with the pots. He said to keep them in the oven, and we'll just take them out before we use the oven. However, when he cooks his copious amounts of eggs everyday, he'll leave the frying pan sitting on the stove instead of putting it in he oven where he specifically said it needs to go. Most of the time, too, he won't even wash the pan, but leave his egg residue in it.
He can be messy all he wants in his own room on his own time. But his mess becomes my mess. He teases me for being "gestapo" when it comes to this house being clean. But truth is, I'm not mad that he doesn't dust, vacuum, or scrub anything. What irritates me is the simple matter of not putting things in place, and not cleaning up after yourself when your done or putting stuff back when you're done with it. How hard is it to place the fan in the closet when you're done using it, instead of leaving it in front of the front door for someone to trip over? How hard is it to take an extra 10 seconds to place your dishes in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink? Is it really so difficult to take your headphones back into your room when you're done?
What's really irritating about it is that he'll do other things. So I know he has the time. He'll spend an hour playing on the XBOX, but he'll suddenly have to leave to go to work or somewhere else and doesn't clean up. Apprently he has enough time to dick around and play video games for hours on end, but doesn't have enough time to take a maximum of 30 seconds to simply throw his trash away or clean up after himself.
These are skills we are supposed to learn as children. And in that regard, his parents failed him. I pity Mikey's future wife.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Innernets
I nearly forgot to mention the first conflict that occurred in this house!
It happened probably two weeks after we moved in. We had finally gotten the internet set up in the house. We were both sitting in the living room watching a Carter Beauford (Drummer of the Dave Matthews Band) drumming video. We were both on our computers and I was talking to my friend online.
About 20 minutes into the video, Mikey paused it, turned to me and said, "Do you realize how fucking loud that typing is?"
"Not really, but okay", I replied as I continued to type.
Mikey sat there just looking at me for about 10 seconds while I continued to IM with my friend.
He said, "Seriously, that's fucking annoying."
"Well, I'll try to type quieter, and you try to deal with it. We both want to watch this and I need to continue this conversation."
Mikey started at me wide-eyed. Apparently in disbelief that I wasn't following his wishes. Mikey played the DVD again and turned back toward the TV and his computer.
About two minutes later, my web pages stopped loading, and I was suddenly signed of from AIM. I clicked around a bit on the computer and noticed I still had a full signal. So I asked Mikey, "Uhh...did the Internet go out? I got disconnected."
Mikey responded, "I know."
I was able to look at his laptop screen. He logged onto the wireless network and changed the password.
I yelled, "What the hell?!"
Mikey said, "I told you that typing was fucking annoying!"
"Yeah, and I told you I was in the middle of an important conversation. Grow the fuck up!"
I stormed out of the living room and into my room. At that point, Mikey changed the password back to what it was.
How immature is that? He can't deal with me typing on the computer while we were sitting in the same room watching the same DVD?
Mikey is an only child. And it was at this point that his only child syndrome began to show. He's accustomed to having his needs suited by his parents. Getting his way all the time and not having to deal with and compromise with people his own age. Growing up with two brothers, I learned this skill. You aren't always going to get your way. Deal with it.
If I was more of a bitch, I'd seek revenge. I'd do something he doesn't agree with to get my own way and punish him if he didn't obey my wishes. But guess what? I'm more mature than that. I have the ability cope with life without always getting my way.
It happened probably two weeks after we moved in. We had finally gotten the internet set up in the house. We were both sitting in the living room watching a Carter Beauford (Drummer of the Dave Matthews Band) drumming video. We were both on our computers and I was talking to my friend online.
About 20 minutes into the video, Mikey paused it, turned to me and said, "Do you realize how fucking loud that typing is?"
"Not really, but okay", I replied as I continued to type.
Mikey sat there just looking at me for about 10 seconds while I continued to IM with my friend.
He said, "Seriously, that's fucking annoying."
"Well, I'll try to type quieter, and you try to deal with it. We both want to watch this and I need to continue this conversation."
Mikey started at me wide-eyed. Apparently in disbelief that I wasn't following his wishes. Mikey played the DVD again and turned back toward the TV and his computer.
About two minutes later, my web pages stopped loading, and I was suddenly signed of from AIM. I clicked around a bit on the computer and noticed I still had a full signal. So I asked Mikey, "Uhh...did the Internet go out? I got disconnected."
Mikey responded, "I know."
I was able to look at his laptop screen. He logged onto the wireless network and changed the password.
I yelled, "What the hell?!"
Mikey said, "I told you that typing was fucking annoying!"
"Yeah, and I told you I was in the middle of an important conversation. Grow the fuck up!"
I stormed out of the living room and into my room. At that point, Mikey changed the password back to what it was.
How immature is that? He can't deal with me typing on the computer while we were sitting in the same room watching the same DVD?
Mikey is an only child. And it was at this point that his only child syndrome began to show. He's accustomed to having his needs suited by his parents. Getting his way all the time and not having to deal with and compromise with people his own age. Growing up with two brothers, I learned this skill. You aren't always going to get your way. Deal with it.
If I was more of a bitch, I'd seek revenge. I'd do something he doesn't agree with to get my own way and punish him if he didn't obey my wishes. But guess what? I'm more mature than that. I have the ability cope with life without always getting my way.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Maid
I made a reference to what this blog is about in the last entry. Actually, I've been mentioning it all along.
I clean everything. Literally everything. Everything in this house that is put away in it's place, I did it. Cleaned, tidied, dusted, organized: all me. This whole house is in a constant state of cleanliness because I've made a habit of cleaning everything twice a day.
At first, it was completely okay with me. And to an extent, it still is okay with me. I can't stand looking at any messes, so it's better for my own sanity to just clean it myself than to bitch at him about it. If he happened to use a dish or make a bit of a mess but wasn't able to clean it up, I was okay with picking up after him.
However, it's gotten to the point now that I'm rightly certain he does it on purpose. I'll come home or wake up to trash and beer bottles on the counter, rather than in the trash that is right underneath the sink. He'll put his dishes in the sink run some water over them instead of putting them in the empty dishwasher, or instead of washing them by hand. And, as I mentioned, he'll leave stuff that belongs in his room just laying around about the house when he could have easily just put it back in his room himself.
I'm not sure if he's now just used to me picking up after him, and he knows he doesn't HAVE to do it himself, and he's just being lazy. Or, since he's complained about me being too clean, if he's just doing it to get to me. To see how much I can take. To justify the claim he made on the night of the aluminum can incident. That I'm going to get burnt out if I keep cleaning as much as I have been.
Whatever the reason is, I know he's doing it intentionally. And it's disrespectful and inconsiderate for him to just do that on purpose.
I clean everything. Literally everything. Everything in this house that is put away in it's place, I did it. Cleaned, tidied, dusted, organized: all me. This whole house is in a constant state of cleanliness because I've made a habit of cleaning everything twice a day.
At first, it was completely okay with me. And to an extent, it still is okay with me. I can't stand looking at any messes, so it's better for my own sanity to just clean it myself than to bitch at him about it. If he happened to use a dish or make a bit of a mess but wasn't able to clean it up, I was okay with picking up after him.
However, it's gotten to the point now that I'm rightly certain he does it on purpose. I'll come home or wake up to trash and beer bottles on the counter, rather than in the trash that is right underneath the sink. He'll put his dishes in the sink run some water over them instead of putting them in the empty dishwasher, or instead of washing them by hand. And, as I mentioned, he'll leave stuff that belongs in his room just laying around about the house when he could have easily just put it back in his room himself.
I'm not sure if he's now just used to me picking up after him, and he knows he doesn't HAVE to do it himself, and he's just being lazy. Or, since he's complained about me being too clean, if he's just doing it to get to me. To see how much I can take. To justify the claim he made on the night of the aluminum can incident. That I'm going to get burnt out if I keep cleaning as much as I have been.
Whatever the reason is, I know he's doing it intentionally. And it's disrespectful and inconsiderate for him to just do that on purpose.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Healthy Foods Are a Win-Win for Me
In "The Surgery", I mentioned that I had gotten applesauce and some other items for Mikey.
This was partly due to the fact he was incapacitated due to his recovery. But also because before we moved in, we decided we'd have a community food policy. Neither of us had ever moved out before, and we're used to all food in the entire house being up for grabs for anyone. We decided we'd go with this. The only issue we really talked about in-depth in regards to grocery shopping was that Mikey suggested we always have beer in the fridge. And if we have a beer, and it's not our own, we'd basically replace it. Just make sure it's always in there and that there's a general sense of balance and fairness in how much of each kind either of us consumes. I went along with this. I like beer.
Anyway, that's beside the point. After a month or two, I began to realize that this wasn't going to work out for me. Mikey, as it turns out, is a VERY picky eater. As I've been able to observe, his diet consists of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, copious amounts of eggs, milk, cheese, and once or twice a month, strawberries. Other than that, he picks up fast food.
So when Mikey goes grocery shopping, he gets milk, eggs, butter (if needed), cheese (if needed), beer, and, very infrequently, strawberries. He'll probably buy those only once a week. This means that per month, he's spending roughly $35. That's per month.
I, on the other hand, try to have a more balanced diet. I love food, and I love trying different varieties of food. So all buy larger amounts of stuff in greater variety to cover all the food groups. Whenever I shop, the groceries I buy generally last a week and a half to two weeks. So, each trip, I've spent anywhere from $60-$90 on groceries. Meaning I spend anywhere from $120-$180 per month on groceries.
Sometimes, I'll eat the stuff Mikey buys for the house. But since he has such a restricted diet and eats those things all the time, the thought of eating it myself makes me a bit nauseous. Sort of like hearing the same song everyday begins to drive you crazy.
But Mikey always eats the food I buy. I remember one time I bought a box of drumstick ice cram treats. I went to taekwondo for the evening after I put the groceries away, and by the time I got home 2 hours later, Mikey had already eaten two of the eight out of the pack. Even though we agreed to share all the food we bought, this irritated me. I mean, I just bought those mere hours earlier. And already 1/4 of them were gone? He eats the good stuff. The treats, the candy, the pizza, the fast food that I buy. And frankly, it's just flat out unfair. I'm spending four times as much money on groceries as he is. Not only am I cleaning up after him, I'm feeding him. I'm his fucking mother.
It's gotten to the point that my last shopping trip, a couple weeks ago, my mom and grandma, after hearing of the situations going on here, took me to Trader Joe's showed me what to buy, how to buy, etc. And they bought over $100 worth of groceries for me.
The next morning, when I woke up for work, I noticed that sometime during the night, Mikey had already dug into the frozen waffles in the freezer.
However, I noticed something. He only took two from the pack of six. This tells me that he probably didn't like it very much. Afterall, I did get the multigrain waffles. That's healthy.
On this trip to Trader Joes, mom and grandma had bought me lots of good, healthy stuff. Vegetables, hummus, multigrain crackers and waffles, almonds, artichoke hearts, tempura vegetables, pastas, turkey sausage...the list goes on.
After a couple days, I noticed that I had much more food per timeframe than in months prior to this. I noticed that since I didn't buy any of the "good", sweet, fat, unhealthy stuff, Mikey hasn't touched it.
So, instead of talking to him about rethinking our grocery shopping policy, I now have a new strategy. Keep the communal grocery policy in place, and I will simply keep buying the healthy foods that I love, but Mikey won't touch. This way, my food remains my food, and I'll still have access to the items that he buys!
The two fold winning piece of this plan is that if this forces me to buy healthy foods, then, obviously, I will cook and eat healthy foods.
Ever since this trip, I haven't really drank. I quit having the nightly beer, and the only times I've really drank were last night when Mikey and I had a shot of tequila in honor of an old high school buddy of ours who was murdered last week, and twice in the last month when I've gone out to the clubs with my friends. Other than that, I haven't touched booze. Combined with the fact that I am now eating healthier and I've stuck myself on a strict workout regime and routine is definitely making me feel better about myself. And I'm glad I've conjured a plan to benefit me and screw Mikey.
This was partly due to the fact he was incapacitated due to his recovery. But also because before we moved in, we decided we'd have a community food policy. Neither of us had ever moved out before, and we're used to all food in the entire house being up for grabs for anyone. We decided we'd go with this. The only issue we really talked about in-depth in regards to grocery shopping was that Mikey suggested we always have beer in the fridge. And if we have a beer, and it's not our own, we'd basically replace it. Just make sure it's always in there and that there's a general sense of balance and fairness in how much of each kind either of us consumes. I went along with this. I like beer.
Anyway, that's beside the point. After a month or two, I began to realize that this wasn't going to work out for me. Mikey, as it turns out, is a VERY picky eater. As I've been able to observe, his diet consists of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, copious amounts of eggs, milk, cheese, and once or twice a month, strawberries. Other than that, he picks up fast food.
So when Mikey goes grocery shopping, he gets milk, eggs, butter (if needed), cheese (if needed), beer, and, very infrequently, strawberries. He'll probably buy those only once a week. This means that per month, he's spending roughly $35. That's per month.
I, on the other hand, try to have a more balanced diet. I love food, and I love trying different varieties of food. So all buy larger amounts of stuff in greater variety to cover all the food groups. Whenever I shop, the groceries I buy generally last a week and a half to two weeks. So, each trip, I've spent anywhere from $60-$90 on groceries. Meaning I spend anywhere from $120-$180 per month on groceries.
Sometimes, I'll eat the stuff Mikey buys for the house. But since he has such a restricted diet and eats those things all the time, the thought of eating it myself makes me a bit nauseous. Sort of like hearing the same song everyday begins to drive you crazy.
But Mikey always eats the food I buy. I remember one time I bought a box of drumstick ice cram treats. I went to taekwondo for the evening after I put the groceries away, and by the time I got home 2 hours later, Mikey had already eaten two of the eight out of the pack. Even though we agreed to share all the food we bought, this irritated me. I mean, I just bought those mere hours earlier. And already 1/4 of them were gone? He eats the good stuff. The treats, the candy, the pizza, the fast food that I buy. And frankly, it's just flat out unfair. I'm spending four times as much money on groceries as he is. Not only am I cleaning up after him, I'm feeding him. I'm his fucking mother.
It's gotten to the point that my last shopping trip, a couple weeks ago, my mom and grandma, after hearing of the situations going on here, took me to Trader Joe's showed me what to buy, how to buy, etc. And they bought over $100 worth of groceries for me.
The next morning, when I woke up for work, I noticed that sometime during the night, Mikey had already dug into the frozen waffles in the freezer.
However, I noticed something. He only took two from the pack of six. This tells me that he probably didn't like it very much. Afterall, I did get the multigrain waffles. That's healthy.
On this trip to Trader Joes, mom and grandma had bought me lots of good, healthy stuff. Vegetables, hummus, multigrain crackers and waffles, almonds, artichoke hearts, tempura vegetables, pastas, turkey sausage...the list goes on.
After a couple days, I noticed that I had much more food per timeframe than in months prior to this. I noticed that since I didn't buy any of the "good", sweet, fat, unhealthy stuff, Mikey hasn't touched it.
So, instead of talking to him about rethinking our grocery shopping policy, I now have a new strategy. Keep the communal grocery policy in place, and I will simply keep buying the healthy foods that I love, but Mikey won't touch. This way, my food remains my food, and I'll still have access to the items that he buys!
The two fold winning piece of this plan is that if this forces me to buy healthy foods, then, obviously, I will cook and eat healthy foods.
Ever since this trip, I haven't really drank. I quit having the nightly beer, and the only times I've really drank were last night when Mikey and I had a shot of tequila in honor of an old high school buddy of ours who was murdered last week, and twice in the last month when I've gone out to the clubs with my friends. Other than that, I haven't touched booze. Combined with the fact that I am now eating healthier and I've stuck myself on a strict workout regime and routine is definitely making me feel better about myself. And I'm glad I've conjured a plan to benefit me and screw Mikey.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
I Decide Where EVERYTHING Goes
I mentioned in "The Catalyst" that Mikey sat me down and lectured me about how he understands that I want everything to have a place, but, "It's not up to YOU to decide where EVERYTHING goes!"
This is one of many things he said that night in which he is full of shit. And I dwelt on this claim for many days following. One day, I even took a walk throughout the whole house, looking at each individual item and recollecting how it was decided that this particular item would be put in this particular place.
The answer, honestly, was nothing. Everything that had been placed in a certain spot in the house was either decided by him and him alone (such as his bookshelf and the drawer the Ziplock bags and aluminum foil are kept), or, for the most part, everything that was placed in this house, we discussed and decided together where they would be placed. Ironically, though, everything that we discussed the placement of, even after the discussion, it wound up being placed where Mikey suggested it should go.
The only thing that was placed where I wanted it to be placed is the drum set. Mikey suggested we place it in the media room. I suggested we place it in the front room. The media room is small. Front room has more room, ventilation, and places for people to sit, watch, listen, or even have a jam session. After a discussion of this, Mikey agreed to put the drums n the front room.
A few days after The Catalyst occurred, Mikey was, again, yelling at me for putting the XBOX controllers out of his immediate reach: on the other side of the couch in the nightstand. And again, he brought up the issue of where things in the house are place. And he emphasized that I can't keep deciding where "EVERYTHING" should be placed.
For once, I yelled back at him: "Okay, you keep saying that I can't decide on my own where EVERYTHING goes. What is this "everything" you speak of that I decided on my own where it all should go?"
I looked at me, angrily and confidently and said, "THAT!" as he pointed to the front door. By the front door, I had placed my shoes. 2 pairs of sneakers, my "nice shoes," and my flip flops (4 pairs of shoes total). Albeit, they were neatly lined up and very organized-looking. Just as I intentionally placed them.
You've got to be kidding me! These last few days you've continuously told me that I have been single-handedly deciding where EVERYTHING in this house should be placed. And this whole time you're talking about my shoes and that's IT?
Funny thing is, though. We both decided that we should put our shoes by the front door. The reason for this, we discussed, is that it's a nice carpet, and we want people to take their shoes off before coming into the house, including ourselves. If we took our shoes off and placed them by the front door, people would see that and automatically just know to take their shoes off without us having to ask. Additionally, every house I have been into my entire life where people want everyone to take off their shoes at the front door, all the shoes in the house are kept by said front door. Sometimes it's messy and tacky, sometimes it's neat and organized.
I told this to Mikey. And he said, "Yeah well I just meant for us to only have one or two pairs of shoes there fore people to see so they'd see that's where shoes go and for them to take them off. It's not a storage place for all your shoes!"
And it's funny how if I'm arguing with him, and I have some kind of Freudian slip, or I say something wrong by accident, and I go back to correct myself, he'll latch on to what I originally said. Then he'll say, "Yeah well you said this first" and instead of arguing the important point at hand, he'll attack me for "changing my story". Then the argument will become about that instead of the actual issue at hand. It's a distraction method. And I'm starting to notice that he only does this when he's backed himself into a corner and senses he's losing the argument.
I, however, understood immediately that his emphasis on the word "everything" was an overestimation. A hyperbole that he didn't mean literally. Though maybe I shouldn't have, I took the high ground and didn't resort to his method of arguing in latching on to his word, "everything" and cut him down for that. I should have though. Because I haven't decided where everything in this house should go. On the contrary, I've decided on nothing. It's all about him and it's constantly about how he wants to do it.
This is one of many things he said that night in which he is full of shit. And I dwelt on this claim for many days following. One day, I even took a walk throughout the whole house, looking at each individual item and recollecting how it was decided that this particular item would be put in this particular place.
The answer, honestly, was nothing. Everything that had been placed in a certain spot in the house was either decided by him and him alone (such as his bookshelf and the drawer the Ziplock bags and aluminum foil are kept), or, for the most part, everything that was placed in this house, we discussed and decided together where they would be placed. Ironically, though, everything that we discussed the placement of, even after the discussion, it wound up being placed where Mikey suggested it should go.
The only thing that was placed where I wanted it to be placed is the drum set. Mikey suggested we place it in the media room. I suggested we place it in the front room. The media room is small. Front room has more room, ventilation, and places for people to sit, watch, listen, or even have a jam session. After a discussion of this, Mikey agreed to put the drums n the front room.
A few days after The Catalyst occurred, Mikey was, again, yelling at me for putting the XBOX controllers out of his immediate reach: on the other side of the couch in the nightstand. And again, he brought up the issue of where things in the house are place. And he emphasized that I can't keep deciding where "EVERYTHING" should be placed.
For once, I yelled back at him: "Okay, you keep saying that I can't decide on my own where EVERYTHING goes. What is this "everything" you speak of that I decided on my own where it all should go?"
I looked at me, angrily and confidently and said, "THAT!" as he pointed to the front door. By the front door, I had placed my shoes. 2 pairs of sneakers, my "nice shoes," and my flip flops (4 pairs of shoes total). Albeit, they were neatly lined up and very organized-looking. Just as I intentionally placed them.
You've got to be kidding me! These last few days you've continuously told me that I have been single-handedly deciding where EVERYTHING in this house should be placed. And this whole time you're talking about my shoes and that's IT?
Funny thing is, though. We both decided that we should put our shoes by the front door. The reason for this, we discussed, is that it's a nice carpet, and we want people to take their shoes off before coming into the house, including ourselves. If we took our shoes off and placed them by the front door, people would see that and automatically just know to take their shoes off without us having to ask. Additionally, every house I have been into my entire life where people want everyone to take off their shoes at the front door, all the shoes in the house are kept by said front door. Sometimes it's messy and tacky, sometimes it's neat and organized.
I told this to Mikey. And he said, "Yeah well I just meant for us to only have one or two pairs of shoes there fore people to see so they'd see that's where shoes go and for them to take them off. It's not a storage place for all your shoes!"
And it's funny how if I'm arguing with him, and I have some kind of Freudian slip, or I say something wrong by accident, and I go back to correct myself, he'll latch on to what I originally said. Then he'll say, "Yeah well you said this first" and instead of arguing the important point at hand, he'll attack me for "changing my story". Then the argument will become about that instead of the actual issue at hand. It's a distraction method. And I'm starting to notice that he only does this when he's backed himself into a corner and senses he's losing the argument.
I, however, understood immediately that his emphasis on the word "everything" was an overestimation. A hyperbole that he didn't mean literally. Though maybe I shouldn't have, I took the high ground and didn't resort to his method of arguing in latching on to his word, "everything" and cut him down for that. I should have though. Because I haven't decided where everything in this house should go. On the contrary, I've decided on nothing. It's all about him and it's constantly about how he wants to do it.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Bathroom Situation
Mikey was determined to live in a house. Not an apartment. I was okay with this.
I wanted a two bedroom place. He wanted three bedrooms. This, I wasn't that enthusiastic about. The idea of having a room dedicated to video games and our musical instruments is cool and all, but is it really necessary? Is it really worth paying the extra rent for something like that?
Mikey thinks so. That's why I let him pay the extra money for the rent for that room (though, ironically, it's mostly my stuff that's in there).
I was okay living in a one bathroom place. But Mikey wanted a two bathroom place. Once he proposed the idea of us each having our own bathroom, I began to prefer this idea as well. Mikey is a big guy. I don't really feel like sharing a shitting space with him. We'll each have our own bathroom which we will be responsible for everything that goes in there and all the cleaning done in these bathrooms.
Almost immediately, though, Mikey started using my bathroom. It kind of makes sense in his point of view. His bathroom is in the master bedroom (he, obviously rents out the master bedroom). My bathroom is the guest bathroom. Or what you could call the "main" bathroom in the hallway that everyone who came over would use. So since this is the main bathroom, it makes sense that it would be the default bathroom to go to.
He began using my bathroom only for taking his shits. Why? My bathroom has a fan in it. His doesn't.
Get over it, buddy. My bathroom has a fan, yours has a giant window. That's the way it is.
Pretty quickly, it became obvious that the toilet paper, hand soap, and candles were being used up twice, three times as fast as in his bathroom. This is an issue with me that I still haven't brought up to him. When we have our next big blowout, I'll be sure to bring it up.
The other issue with this is that he never offers to clean my bathroom. Hell, he's never even remotely cleaned his own bathroom. Why would he help clean mine, even though he always uses it?
I came home the other day, he was gone to work already. I went into the bathroom lifted the seat and saw something gross. He had clearly taken a dump in this toilet. Though he had flushed, there were still little flakes and particles of crap still floating in the water. And on the seat was a liquid substance that I still cannot identify. It's a yellow-ish color, but it's also slightly tea-colored. So either it's his urine and his kidneys are failing, or it's something that dripped out of his asshole. Here's a picture of it (also, not pictured, is a collection of lint from his asscrack that came off as he was sitting on it that he didn't clean off...this happens frequently):
I took this picture. Picture messed it to him on his phone and asked, "What the fuck is that?" He still hasn't responded.
Well I'd be damned if I was going to sit on that toilet. Even after cleaning it. Whatever that is requires some heavy duty disinfectant work and a blessing from a priest. I decided, hey. He uses my toilet. I'll go use his.
But to my dismay, I think I may have discovered the reason why he now uses my bathroom only and never uses his own toilet. Here's another picture. This one is of the toilet in his bathroom.
Now, this isn't the first time I've seen that sight. Every once in a while, whenever he takes what he considers a "good shit", he'll take a picture of it and send it to me. About three weeks ago, around the time the aluminum can incident occurred, he sent this to me saying, "Beat that, Burnout". The only difference is, there was still fecal matter in the bowl in the picture. Apparently he had farted while he was pooping and it sprayed some on the side of the bowl. That "spray" is what is pictured here. It has been three weeks since he sent me that picture, and his fecal paint is still sprayed in the bowl of his toilet.
Now I don't blame him for always using my bathroom. I clean my bathroom twice a week. Sometimes three if I'm bored and feel compelled to do so. My bathroom is always clean so he wouldn't have to deal with stuff like this. Hell, if, every time I opened my toilet I looked at shit spray in the toilet bowl, I wouldn't want to use it either. I'd rather use a public restroom at a truck stop.
So he's never cleaned his bathroom, and certainly never cleaned mine even though he now uses it constantly. I run out of toilet paper twice as fast as he does and have to buy new soap every two to three weeks.
This is another example of his extreme laziness. He uses my bathroom not only because it's cleaner, but because it's closer to the living room where he almost always resides. That bathroom is closer. So he uses it.
This is getting ridiculous. We got a two bathroom house for a reason. Use your own. And keep your bodily fluids on your side of the house. Get over the fact that your bathroom is further away from the living room. Take an extra 5 steps through the hallway to get there.
I don't care how messy you are, or how infrequently you clean. Any decent, civilized human being, if they spray their shit in their toilet, they clean it immediately! That's fucking disgusting!
He needs to stop using my bathroom. Plain and simple. What's the point of having a two bathroom house if only one bathroom gets used?
I wanted a two bedroom place. He wanted three bedrooms. This, I wasn't that enthusiastic about. The idea of having a room dedicated to video games and our musical instruments is cool and all, but is it really necessary? Is it really worth paying the extra rent for something like that?
Mikey thinks so. That's why I let him pay the extra money for the rent for that room (though, ironically, it's mostly my stuff that's in there).
I was okay living in a one bathroom place. But Mikey wanted a two bathroom place. Once he proposed the idea of us each having our own bathroom, I began to prefer this idea as well. Mikey is a big guy. I don't really feel like sharing a shitting space with him. We'll each have our own bathroom which we will be responsible for everything that goes in there and all the cleaning done in these bathrooms.
Almost immediately, though, Mikey started using my bathroom. It kind of makes sense in his point of view. His bathroom is in the master bedroom (he, obviously rents out the master bedroom). My bathroom is the guest bathroom. Or what you could call the "main" bathroom in the hallway that everyone who came over would use. So since this is the main bathroom, it makes sense that it would be the default bathroom to go to.
He began using my bathroom only for taking his shits. Why? My bathroom has a fan in it. His doesn't.
Get over it, buddy. My bathroom has a fan, yours has a giant window. That's the way it is.
Pretty quickly, it became obvious that the toilet paper, hand soap, and candles were being used up twice, three times as fast as in his bathroom. This is an issue with me that I still haven't brought up to him. When we have our next big blowout, I'll be sure to bring it up.
The other issue with this is that he never offers to clean my bathroom. Hell, he's never even remotely cleaned his own bathroom. Why would he help clean mine, even though he always uses it?
I came home the other day, he was gone to work already. I went into the bathroom lifted the seat and saw something gross. He had clearly taken a dump in this toilet. Though he had flushed, there were still little flakes and particles of crap still floating in the water. And on the seat was a liquid substance that I still cannot identify. It's a yellow-ish color, but it's also slightly tea-colored. So either it's his urine and his kidneys are failing, or it's something that dripped out of his asshole. Here's a picture of it (also, not pictured, is a collection of lint from his asscrack that came off as he was sitting on it that he didn't clean off...this happens frequently):
I took this picture. Picture messed it to him on his phone and asked, "What the fuck is that?" He still hasn't responded.
Well I'd be damned if I was going to sit on that toilet. Even after cleaning it. Whatever that is requires some heavy duty disinfectant work and a blessing from a priest. I decided, hey. He uses my toilet. I'll go use his.
But to my dismay, I think I may have discovered the reason why he now uses my bathroom only and never uses his own toilet. Here's another picture. This one is of the toilet in his bathroom.
Now, this isn't the first time I've seen that sight. Every once in a while, whenever he takes what he considers a "good shit", he'll take a picture of it and send it to me. About three weeks ago, around the time the aluminum can incident occurred, he sent this to me saying, "Beat that, Burnout". The only difference is, there was still fecal matter in the bowl in the picture. Apparently he had farted while he was pooping and it sprayed some on the side of the bowl. That "spray" is what is pictured here. It has been three weeks since he sent me that picture, and his fecal paint is still sprayed in the bowl of his toilet.
Now I don't blame him for always using my bathroom. I clean my bathroom twice a week. Sometimes three if I'm bored and feel compelled to do so. My bathroom is always clean so he wouldn't have to deal with stuff like this. Hell, if, every time I opened my toilet I looked at shit spray in the toilet bowl, I wouldn't want to use it either. I'd rather use a public restroom at a truck stop.
So he's never cleaned his bathroom, and certainly never cleaned mine even though he now uses it constantly. I run out of toilet paper twice as fast as he does and have to buy new soap every two to three weeks.
This is another example of his extreme laziness. He uses my bathroom not only because it's cleaner, but because it's closer to the living room where he almost always resides. That bathroom is closer. So he uses it.
This is getting ridiculous. We got a two bathroom house for a reason. Use your own. And keep your bodily fluids on your side of the house. Get over the fact that your bathroom is further away from the living room. Take an extra 5 steps through the hallway to get there.
I don't care how messy you are, or how infrequently you clean. Any decent, civilized human being, if they spray their shit in their toilet, they clean it immediately! That's fucking disgusting!
He needs to stop using my bathroom. Plain and simple. What's the point of having a two bathroom house if only one bathroom gets used?
Friday, June 12, 2009
It's the Little Things That Irritate Me
I am amazed. Truly amazed at the concept of someone complaining for a roommate being clean.
I've heard of many occasions where one roommate gets mad at the other one for leaving a mess. For being a slob, and being lazy, and the lazy roommate gets yelled at for being messy.
On the contrary, Mikey is very messy, which is what this blog is about. He leaves his messes everywhere. He puts his dishes in the sink instead of straight into the dishwasher (ironically, he yelled at me for this same thing when I was depressed and in my "lazy" phase since we both agreed we didn't like seeing dishes piled up in the sink). When he gets a cup or dish out of the cupboard, he leaves the cupboard open indefinitely. Same with the utensil drawer. He'll get a fork or spoon out of it and just leave the drawer open. When he's done playing his drums, he'll leave his headphones on the drumset instead of taking them back to his room. He'll leave the fan out by the door instead of putting it back in the closet right next to where he places it when he's using it. He'll leave his XBOX controller and headset sprawled out all over the coffee table.
He doesn't sweep, vaccum, mop, dust, or wash. He doesn't put away, organize, or lift a finger. His definition of "I'll take care of it" in terms of cleaning something up involve him just moving the mess from one place to another. Example:
A couple weeks ago, he purchased a drumset. This set came in many different boxes for all the pieces. As he started setting it up, I put all the bubble wrap and Styrofoam into the boxes to consolidate the mess for easier clean up later. He told me, "No, that's my mess. Leave it there, I'll take care of it."
So I left it there. And he did take care of it, in a manner of speaking. He placed everything in the biggest box, took it out to the garage, and placed it against the bumper of my car. That's his definition of cleaning it up. It was up to me to break down the boxes and recycle it all before the garbage man came by the next day.
A couple days ago, even, I was cleaning up after I cooked myself a meal. I noticed he had some Subway trash next to him on the coffee table which included, what I thought, was an empty soda cup. I walked up to him and said, "Hey. I'm taking the trash out. Can I take any of this out for you?"
"I'll take care of it", he responded sharply.
I pointed at the cup and said, "I can take that for you. Is it empty?"
Mikey leaned forward slightly, stared me down, and yelled, "I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT!"
Excuse me. I was taking the trash out anyway. I offered to do something nice for him so only one of us would have to make a trip out to the can in the backyard. And he yelled at me for offering to do something nice.
I took the trash out, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I walked out to the kitchen getting ready to go for my jog. And Mikey had done what he said he would do. He took care of it.
He took care of it by moving the cup and the wrappers from the coffee table to the counter. The trash can is right under the sink. Is it really so much effort that you can't just open up the cupboard and place your trash in the waste basket?
And that's the issue. He's looking for the easy way to do everything. He wants easier access to the XBOX controller. So instead of placing it where it belongs, in the nights stand on the other side of the couch, he just wants it to stay on the coffee table right in front of where he sits. He wants his games to be accessible at all times. Right next to where he sits in the living room. He wants easy and immediate access to the cupboards and drawers. It's WAY too much effort to open it up every time you want to get something out! Easier to just leave it open. Sweeping, mopping and vaccuming take way too much effort. Let's just let there be dust everywhere.
I don't like living in a house where things are strewn about, doors, cupboards, and closets left open. Things not put away when not in use. To me, that makes me feel lazy. And it is lazy. When other people walk in and see a tacky sight like a cupboard open, what does that say to those guests? "We're too lazy to simply shut the cupboards."
It's the small things that become the most obnoxious.
I've heard of many occasions where one roommate gets mad at the other one for leaving a mess. For being a slob, and being lazy, and the lazy roommate gets yelled at for being messy.
On the contrary, Mikey is very messy, which is what this blog is about. He leaves his messes everywhere. He puts his dishes in the sink instead of straight into the dishwasher (ironically, he yelled at me for this same thing when I was depressed and in my "lazy" phase since we both agreed we didn't like seeing dishes piled up in the sink). When he gets a cup or dish out of the cupboard, he leaves the cupboard open indefinitely. Same with the utensil drawer. He'll get a fork or spoon out of it and just leave the drawer open. When he's done playing his drums, he'll leave his headphones on the drumset instead of taking them back to his room. He'll leave the fan out by the door instead of putting it back in the closet right next to where he places it when he's using it. He'll leave his XBOX controller and headset sprawled out all over the coffee table.
He doesn't sweep, vaccum, mop, dust, or wash. He doesn't put away, organize, or lift a finger. His definition of "I'll take care of it" in terms of cleaning something up involve him just moving the mess from one place to another. Example:
A couple weeks ago, he purchased a drumset. This set came in many different boxes for all the pieces. As he started setting it up, I put all the bubble wrap and Styrofoam into the boxes to consolidate the mess for easier clean up later. He told me, "No, that's my mess. Leave it there, I'll take care of it."
So I left it there. And he did take care of it, in a manner of speaking. He placed everything in the biggest box, took it out to the garage, and placed it against the bumper of my car. That's his definition of cleaning it up. It was up to me to break down the boxes and recycle it all before the garbage man came by the next day.
A couple days ago, even, I was cleaning up after I cooked myself a meal. I noticed he had some Subway trash next to him on the coffee table which included, what I thought, was an empty soda cup. I walked up to him and said, "Hey. I'm taking the trash out. Can I take any of this out for you?"
"I'll take care of it", he responded sharply.
I pointed at the cup and said, "I can take that for you. Is it empty?"
Mikey leaned forward slightly, stared me down, and yelled, "I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT!"
Excuse me. I was taking the trash out anyway. I offered to do something nice for him so only one of us would have to make a trip out to the can in the backyard. And he yelled at me for offering to do something nice.
I took the trash out, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I walked out to the kitchen getting ready to go for my jog. And Mikey had done what he said he would do. He took care of it.
He took care of it by moving the cup and the wrappers from the coffee table to the counter. The trash can is right under the sink. Is it really so much effort that you can't just open up the cupboard and place your trash in the waste basket?
And that's the issue. He's looking for the easy way to do everything. He wants easier access to the XBOX controller. So instead of placing it where it belongs, in the nights stand on the other side of the couch, he just wants it to stay on the coffee table right in front of where he sits. He wants his games to be accessible at all times. Right next to where he sits in the living room. He wants easy and immediate access to the cupboards and drawers. It's WAY too much effort to open it up every time you want to get something out! Easier to just leave it open. Sweeping, mopping and vaccuming take way too much effort. Let's just let there be dust everywhere.
I don't like living in a house where things are strewn about, doors, cupboards, and closets left open. Things not put away when not in use. To me, that makes me feel lazy. And it is lazy. When other people walk in and see a tacky sight like a cupboard open, what does that say to those guests? "We're too lazy to simply shut the cupboards."
It's the small things that become the most obnoxious.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Nit-Picking Continues
As I mentioned, we haven't talked about the cans or the golf clubs ever since that night. And we've never talked about the conversation and hostility that occurred that night. The next day, everything was just normal for him.
I did process one thing that he said, that I absolutely agree with. We need to talk more. Hang out more. If we don't, we're just going to resent each other and come out of this lease hating each other. Neither one of us wants that. After all, despite how much bitching I'm doing about the guy, I love him. Like a brother. He's been like one to me as long as I can remember. He's a good friend. A great friend. And I don't mean to come off sounding like he's an all around shitty excuse for a human being. Because he's not. He's a great guy. Just a shitty roommate.
I haven't seen the cans since. I don't know if he ever did go get money for them, but they're gone. That's all I know. So I feel I was successful in the clean. I didn't want to see them anymore, I told him to take care of them or I'd throw them away. Ironically, what would have been the consequence for his lack of action wound up being what motivated him to take action.
That is the reason I started this blog. "The Catalyst" is what prompted me to start documenting all of this. Like I said, he just acted normal the next day. I had a friend over, and he sent me a friendly text asking, "You fucked her tits yet?" Vulgar, yes. But it's what is typically our kind of humor (and the answer was no, by the way).
However, he was wrong about many things in that yelling rant he went on that night. I'm not getting burnt out from all the cleaning. Far from it. To this day, I've actually made it a routine. I wake up at 6am, go for a jog, stretch, do my ab workout routine, then my chest workout routine, put the coffee pot on, take a shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee, prepare my lunch, clean up whatever mess I made and whatever mess of Mikey's is left over from the night before, leave the house at 7:45 in time to walk to work to make it there by 8.
Then when I come home, I put away whatever stuff I took to work with me, change out of my work clothes, and clean whatever mess Mikey made during the day when I wasn't there before proceeding to be lazy, watch TV, or play video games.
I feel I won't get burnt out by this at all. As I may have mentioned, I am a very routine, ritualistic person, and I function best when I'm in a clean, organized environment. I'm happier that way too. Ever since that night, whenever I do my bi-daily sweep through the house to clean, everything has wound up in the exact same place.
And here lies another problem in Mikey's eyes.
We have what's called the "Media room". This is the third bedroom where we keep my TV and XBOX 360, all our movies, all our video games, and our guitars. We both decided, and agreed, this is where all of our movies and video games would go when not in use.
Contrary to this, Mikey would go in there, pick a video game, take it to the main entertainment center in the living room, and leave the games and/or cases laying around in various parts of the room and entertainment center. Very messy, as I saw it. So I'd clean up by putting the games back in the media room. Where we both, as I mentioned, agreed video games would go. In addition, I also placed the game controllers, headsets, and accessories he left laying on the coffee table neatly in the nightstand we have placed on the opposite side of the couch (where we both, again, agreed these items would be stored).
Mikey and I decided to play Left 4 Dead. He couldn't find the game in the living room, for reasons I mentioned. And he yelled, "Goddammit, Burnout! Quit putting shit away so quickly all the time!"
"I put it back where you and I said games would go: in the media room."
"We don't HAVE to keep ALL games in there at all times! We can keep a few games out here that we play all the time!"
"Well, it looked messy that way, and I put them back where they belong."
"Well fuck, stop doing that! Now I have to walk all the way into the other room to get it! Stop doing that or you're going to drive me insane!"
After getting his game from the media room, he proceeded to likewise yell at me for the fact that I put the controller away and he had to reach ALL the way to the other side of the couch (about 5 feet) to get it.
2 minutes later, he called me back into the room to show me something cool. It was the preview for XBOX 360's Project Natal (which is really cool). But the reason why I mention this is because he suddenly wasn't mad or irritated with me anymore. He was talking to me like normal. Showing off this video as if we were sitting at a bar, just talking and shooting the shit. As if he hadn't just exploded at me and literally yelled at me for being clean.
I'm beginning to think he's a bit bipolar.
I did process one thing that he said, that I absolutely agree with. We need to talk more. Hang out more. If we don't, we're just going to resent each other and come out of this lease hating each other. Neither one of us wants that. After all, despite how much bitching I'm doing about the guy, I love him. Like a brother. He's been like one to me as long as I can remember. He's a good friend. A great friend. And I don't mean to come off sounding like he's an all around shitty excuse for a human being. Because he's not. He's a great guy. Just a shitty roommate.
I haven't seen the cans since. I don't know if he ever did go get money for them, but they're gone. That's all I know. So I feel I was successful in the clean. I didn't want to see them anymore, I told him to take care of them or I'd throw them away. Ironically, what would have been the consequence for his lack of action wound up being what motivated him to take action.
That is the reason I started this blog. "The Catalyst" is what prompted me to start documenting all of this. Like I said, he just acted normal the next day. I had a friend over, and he sent me a friendly text asking, "You fucked her tits yet?" Vulgar, yes. But it's what is typically our kind of humor (and the answer was no, by the way).
However, he was wrong about many things in that yelling rant he went on that night. I'm not getting burnt out from all the cleaning. Far from it. To this day, I've actually made it a routine. I wake up at 6am, go for a jog, stretch, do my ab workout routine, then my chest workout routine, put the coffee pot on, take a shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee, prepare my lunch, clean up whatever mess I made and whatever mess of Mikey's is left over from the night before, leave the house at 7:45 in time to walk to work to make it there by 8.
Then when I come home, I put away whatever stuff I took to work with me, change out of my work clothes, and clean whatever mess Mikey made during the day when I wasn't there before proceeding to be lazy, watch TV, or play video games.
I feel I won't get burnt out by this at all. As I may have mentioned, I am a very routine, ritualistic person, and I function best when I'm in a clean, organized environment. I'm happier that way too. Ever since that night, whenever I do my bi-daily sweep through the house to clean, everything has wound up in the exact same place.
And here lies another problem in Mikey's eyes.
We have what's called the "Media room". This is the third bedroom where we keep my TV and XBOX 360, all our movies, all our video games, and our guitars. We both decided, and agreed, this is where all of our movies and video games would go when not in use.
Contrary to this, Mikey would go in there, pick a video game, take it to the main entertainment center in the living room, and leave the games and/or cases laying around in various parts of the room and entertainment center. Very messy, as I saw it. So I'd clean up by putting the games back in the media room. Where we both, as I mentioned, agreed video games would go. In addition, I also placed the game controllers, headsets, and accessories he left laying on the coffee table neatly in the nightstand we have placed on the opposite side of the couch (where we both, again, agreed these items would be stored).
Mikey and I decided to play Left 4 Dead. He couldn't find the game in the living room, for reasons I mentioned. And he yelled, "Goddammit, Burnout! Quit putting shit away so quickly all the time!"
"I put it back where you and I said games would go: in the media room."
"We don't HAVE to keep ALL games in there at all times! We can keep a few games out here that we play all the time!"
"Well, it looked messy that way, and I put them back where they belong."
"Well fuck, stop doing that! Now I have to walk all the way into the other room to get it! Stop doing that or you're going to drive me insane!"
After getting his game from the media room, he proceeded to likewise yell at me for the fact that I put the controller away and he had to reach ALL the way to the other side of the couch (about 5 feet) to get it.
2 minutes later, he called me back into the room to show me something cool. It was the preview for XBOX 360's Project Natal (which is really cool). But the reason why I mention this is because he suddenly wasn't mad or irritated with me anymore. He was talking to me like normal. Showing off this video as if we were sitting at a bar, just talking and shooting the shit. As if he hadn't just exploded at me and literally yelled at me for being clean.
I'm beginning to think he's a bit bipolar.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Catalyst
The next two weeks or so went by much the same as they had. He'd yell at me, and whine, about some small thing or other, I'd continue to clean up small messes and keep the house generally tidy. My room, though, was still a mess.
Then, in the middle of May, I got the clean bug. My blog, and my vow, had finally sunk in. I made a goal for myself, and in order to fulfill that goal of staying clean, I needed to just do it.
For a week, I did nothing but clean. In all my free time, I was cleaning. Each afternoon was dedicated to a different room. The living room and kitchen, the front room, the media room, the garage, and my bathroom.
I was tedious and meticulous. Vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, spraying, wiping, disinfecting, washing, and organizing. Even days when I came home completely exhausted from work, and wanted nothing more than to take a nap, I would spend 2-3 hours each afternoon cleaning each individual room. I was dreadfully tired, since I still had a bad habit of going to bed at 2-3am, but this was important to me, and I needed to see it through. And to be completely honest, I very much enjoyed it. I'd see the end result and proudly tell myself, "Yeah. I did that."
Thursday of that week came around, and I decided I would clean the garage.
But before I get to that, I need to mention the night before. We have a whiteboard that I brought over, and we've both started writing things down that, whoever goes shopping next, should get from the store. I wrote that we needed Raid, since we were out of it from the last time we needed it.
Mikey came into my room and whined, "Why the fuck do we need more Raid?"
"Because we're out," I responded.
"Well goddammit! How much of it did you use?"
"Apparently we used all of it. We had a lot of ants and spiders around."
He walked away still yelling and cursing, apparently in disbelief that the Raid was gone. What's the big deal, man?! The cans of Raid cost $4 down at Save Mart. Going out and buying a new can is no big deal. And it certainly isn't something you need to whine to me about.
I wrote down the need for Raid because I found a black widow in the garage (but left it alone). In addition to that, Mikey had placed his golf clubs on my side of the garage, and I nearly ran them over. I looked at the state of the garage in its entirety and decided I wasn't happy with how disheveled it looked. So I decided to clean it the next day.
The date is now May 28, 2009.
I emptied out the whole garage and swept it. Then I sprayed down all the walls with Raid (and totally shit-killed that black widow along with its eggs!), and began rearranging everything. Then it came time to do something with the massive amounts of trash bags full of aluminum cans that were out there. Mikey, when we first moved in, decided he wanted to save any and all aluminum cans we used in the house and go recycle them for money to take off of rent. This was 3 months worth of cans stacked, approximately 3 feet high and 4 feet wide. A massive amount of trash bags I honestly didn't want to look at anymore.
Mikey was at work and I sent him a text that said, "Hey, is anything happening with these cans? I know you said you wanted to get money for them. Is that still happening? If not, the recycling goes to the curb tomorrow and I'll put them out with it."
He never responded to this.
However, about 20 minutes later, I saw he posted a tweet on Twitter. And I sent him another text saying, "Also, I moved your golf clubs to your side of the garage. I almost ran them over last night back in the garage and I'd rather not run the risk of hitting them and having to buy you new ones."
He immediately responded to this saying, "It should be flush with the lawnmower. Put it back please."
I told myself, okay fine. He has a problem with that. I'll put them back for now, and we'll talk about it when he gets home.
Like I said, though, he never responded to the text about the cans. Midnight came around (approximately 9 hours later), so I told myself, "Hey, he had time to respond to the issue of the golf clubs immediately, and he had time to post a useless tweet. So the cans must not be important. I decided to put them in the recycle bin to be picked up in the morning.
1:38am rolls around. I hear the garage door open. I thought this was particularly weird since Mikey gets off work at 1:30, and he never gets home until sometime between 1:45 and 2. Instead, it took him 8 minutes to get home. Immediately, I hear him roll the recycle bin up to the garage. Then I heard this loud BANG!
I became concerned because based on the time, I thought there was a chance this wasn't Mikey. And I was hearing noises I never heard before. I cracked the door to the garage open and peeked out. The bang that I heard had come from the large lid of the recycle bin being slammed onto the trunk of my car. I saw Mikey digging through the recycle bin digging the bags of aluminum cans out of it.
I went back to my room, turned the light off and sat on my computer.
Then I heard a loud knock. Actually, it was not a knock. It sounded more like he punched my door. Literally a split second later, without even waiting for an answer from me, he barged into my room and yells, "WE NEED TO TALK!"
Two minutes later we are out at the dining room table. He has a beer in hand and he is lecturing me.
"I can understand you wanting everything to have a place. But it's not up to you to decide where EVERYTHING in this house goes. I'm worried because this is just going to become another thing in your life that you get all gung-ho about, go whole-hog into it and then get burnt out from it. Like the 30 day challenge. Like you always do!"
Mikey ranted on and on. Without acknowledging much of what he said, I nodded and shrugged him off . It was 1:45 in the morning and it was not the time to be talking about this bullshit. He came home angry. He came home in a bad mood. And I'm rightly certain he came home EXPECTING to be mad about the cans. But here's the thing. I gave him plenty of notice. All he had to do was respond to me saying that he was still going to do something with them. He had time to text other things to me and other people, so I assumed the cans weren't important to him. And I told him what I was going to do if nothing was going to be done with them. He hd no right to be angry about that.
Most importantly, I was legitimately afraid of him that night. I had been having the vibe that this is his house and I'm just a guest in it for a long time. But with him sitting there, in a ratty old t-shirt, drinking a beer, yelling at me for insignificant things reminded me of a bad alcoholic husband getting ready to beat his wife (yes, in this analogy I am a woman and Mikey and I are married. Deal with it.) I had all these thoughts in my head. All these issues I was having with him that I wanted to call him out on. Rebuttals to his accusations toward me. But I went blank. I forgot them all. And when I tried to say something, I just wound up stuttering and stammering incomprehensibly. So I just said, "Okay" and went to bed.
We haven't talked about that night, the cans, or the golf clubs ever since then. And that's the way it is. The next day he, again, acted completely normal towards me. As if nothing happened.
Two days later, I actually did run over the golf clubs.
Then, in the middle of May, I got the clean bug. My blog, and my vow, had finally sunk in. I made a goal for myself, and in order to fulfill that goal of staying clean, I needed to just do it.
For a week, I did nothing but clean. In all my free time, I was cleaning. Each afternoon was dedicated to a different room. The living room and kitchen, the front room, the media room, the garage, and my bathroom.
I was tedious and meticulous. Vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, spraying, wiping, disinfecting, washing, and organizing. Even days when I came home completely exhausted from work, and wanted nothing more than to take a nap, I would spend 2-3 hours each afternoon cleaning each individual room. I was dreadfully tired, since I still had a bad habit of going to bed at 2-3am, but this was important to me, and I needed to see it through. And to be completely honest, I very much enjoyed it. I'd see the end result and proudly tell myself, "Yeah. I did that."
Thursday of that week came around, and I decided I would clean the garage.
But before I get to that, I need to mention the night before. We have a whiteboard that I brought over, and we've both started writing things down that, whoever goes shopping next, should get from the store. I wrote that we needed Raid, since we were out of it from the last time we needed it.
Mikey came into my room and whined, "Why the fuck do we need more Raid?"
"Because we're out," I responded.
"Well goddammit! How much of it did you use?"
"Apparently we used all of it. We had a lot of ants and spiders around."
He walked away still yelling and cursing, apparently in disbelief that the Raid was gone. What's the big deal, man?! The cans of Raid cost $4 down at Save Mart. Going out and buying a new can is no big deal. And it certainly isn't something you need to whine to me about.
I wrote down the need for Raid because I found a black widow in the garage (but left it alone). In addition to that, Mikey had placed his golf clubs on my side of the garage, and I nearly ran them over. I looked at the state of the garage in its entirety and decided I wasn't happy with how disheveled it looked. So I decided to clean it the next day.
The date is now May 28, 2009.
I emptied out the whole garage and swept it. Then I sprayed down all the walls with Raid (and totally shit-killed that black widow along with its eggs!), and began rearranging everything. Then it came time to do something with the massive amounts of trash bags full of aluminum cans that were out there. Mikey, when we first moved in, decided he wanted to save any and all aluminum cans we used in the house and go recycle them for money to take off of rent. This was 3 months worth of cans stacked, approximately 3 feet high and 4 feet wide. A massive amount of trash bags I honestly didn't want to look at anymore.
Mikey was at work and I sent him a text that said, "Hey, is anything happening with these cans? I know you said you wanted to get money for them. Is that still happening? If not, the recycling goes to the curb tomorrow and I'll put them out with it."
He never responded to this.
However, about 20 minutes later, I saw he posted a tweet on Twitter. And I sent him another text saying, "Also, I moved your golf clubs to your side of the garage. I almost ran them over last night back in the garage and I'd rather not run the risk of hitting them and having to buy you new ones."
He immediately responded to this saying, "It should be flush with the lawnmower. Put it back please."
I told myself, okay fine. He has a problem with that. I'll put them back for now, and we'll talk about it when he gets home.
Like I said, though, he never responded to the text about the cans. Midnight came around (approximately 9 hours later), so I told myself, "Hey, he had time to respond to the issue of the golf clubs immediately, and he had time to post a useless tweet. So the cans must not be important. I decided to put them in the recycle bin to be picked up in the morning.
1:38am rolls around. I hear the garage door open. I thought this was particularly weird since Mikey gets off work at 1:30, and he never gets home until sometime between 1:45 and 2. Instead, it took him 8 minutes to get home. Immediately, I hear him roll the recycle bin up to the garage. Then I heard this loud BANG!
I became concerned because based on the time, I thought there was a chance this wasn't Mikey. And I was hearing noises I never heard before. I cracked the door to the garage open and peeked out. The bang that I heard had come from the large lid of the recycle bin being slammed onto the trunk of my car. I saw Mikey digging through the recycle bin digging the bags of aluminum cans out of it.
I went back to my room, turned the light off and sat on my computer.
Then I heard a loud knock. Actually, it was not a knock. It sounded more like he punched my door. Literally a split second later, without even waiting for an answer from me, he barged into my room and yells, "WE NEED TO TALK!"
Two minutes later we are out at the dining room table. He has a beer in hand and he is lecturing me.
"I can understand you wanting everything to have a place. But it's not up to you to decide where EVERYTHING in this house goes. I'm worried because this is just going to become another thing in your life that you get all gung-ho about, go whole-hog into it and then get burnt out from it. Like the 30 day challenge. Like you always do!"
Mikey ranted on and on. Without acknowledging much of what he said, I nodded and shrugged him off . It was 1:45 in the morning and it was not the time to be talking about this bullshit. He came home angry. He came home in a bad mood. And I'm rightly certain he came home EXPECTING to be mad about the cans. But here's the thing. I gave him plenty of notice. All he had to do was respond to me saying that he was still going to do something with them. He had time to text other things to me and other people, so I assumed the cans weren't important to him. And I told him what I was going to do if nothing was going to be done with them. He hd no right to be angry about that.
Most importantly, I was legitimately afraid of him that night. I had been having the vibe that this is his house and I'm just a guest in it for a long time. But with him sitting there, in a ratty old t-shirt, drinking a beer, yelling at me for insignificant things reminded me of a bad alcoholic husband getting ready to beat his wife (yes, in this analogy I am a woman and Mikey and I are married. Deal with it.) I had all these thoughts in my head. All these issues I was having with him that I wanted to call him out on. Rebuttals to his accusations toward me. But I went blank. I forgot them all. And when I tried to say something, I just wound up stuttering and stammering incomprehensibly. So I just said, "Okay" and went to bed.
We haven't talked about that night, the cans, or the golf clubs ever since then. And that's the way it is. The next day he, again, acted completely normal towards me. As if nothing happened.
Two days later, I actually did run over the golf clubs.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
My Blog
After a while of being on a bender, I snapped out of it. I quit smoking, just because I got tired of it, I quit drinking as much (quantity-wise), and I had become aware of how much of a slob I was being. So, little by little, I started getting cleaner and cleaner. I regularly cleaned up my messes in the general living areas (ie kitchen and living room), and I regularly did my own dishes. And, little by little, I started keeping the general living areas cleaner and cleaner. Sometimes I had to clean up some of Mikey's stuff too. Not big things, but if he left a cup on the coffee table, I'd clean it up.
The timeline is now at May 12, 2009. I posted a blog on my MySpace titled My Health. You can click on the link there to read the blog. The jist of it was how I was becoming aware of my laziness. How I had not been following through on my vow to myself to keep my place clean, and to stay healthy. In it, as you'll be able to read, I briefly mentioned how I was so burnt out from keeping the general living areas clean, including cleaning up my own messes along with sometimes Mikey's, and the mess in my room was so great that I just didn't have the energy to do a clean sweep in my own bedroom.
Despite the point of this blog being meta-awareness, coming to an epiphany of sorts, and renewing my vow of cleanliness for my own self-improvement, Mikey left the following comment:
"Don't kid yourself dude. You aren't the only one who's been picking up the other person's mess..."
I was appalled by this comment. My immediate reaction was that I had burst out into laughter. Throughout our entire time at this house, he had not once picked up anything that belonged to me.
Then I looked in my room. In my laundry basket was some clean laundry of mine I had thrown in the dryer on my way out the door going to work. He moved my clothes from the dryer to my laundry hamper. This, to date, is the only "mess" of mine he cleaned up. And the only reason why he bothered to do it was because he needed to do his own laundry (which he, in turn, left his clothes sitting in the dryer for 2 additional days...I kept track).
Here, I had been cleaning up his messes in the living room for weeks. I threw trash away he may have left laying around, I did any and all of his dishses he hadn't cleaned up from the night before, and I even took the huge mess that was a giant pile of his mail that was sitting on the dining room table and organized it into neat little piles to make it easier for him to clean up (those neat piles I made had stayed there for 3 days until, finally, I moved them to his room). For weeks I had been picking up after him (and myself) DAILY. And here, one time in the entire 3 months we had been living in this house, he takes my laundry out of the dryer. And he has the gall to tell me that he has been picking up after my messes just as I had been doing for him?
This is where all the trouble really started.
The timeline is now at May 12, 2009. I posted a blog on my MySpace titled My Health. You can click on the link there to read the blog. The jist of it was how I was becoming aware of my laziness. How I had not been following through on my vow to myself to keep my place clean, and to stay healthy. In it, as you'll be able to read, I briefly mentioned how I was so burnt out from keeping the general living areas clean, including cleaning up my own messes along with sometimes Mikey's, and the mess in my room was so great that I just didn't have the energy to do a clean sweep in my own bedroom.
Despite the point of this blog being meta-awareness, coming to an epiphany of sorts, and renewing my vow of cleanliness for my own self-improvement, Mikey left the following comment:
"Don't kid yourself dude. You aren't the only one who's been picking up the other person's mess..."
I was appalled by this comment. My immediate reaction was that I had burst out into laughter. Throughout our entire time at this house, he had not once picked up anything that belonged to me.
Then I looked in my room. In my laundry basket was some clean laundry of mine I had thrown in the dryer on my way out the door going to work. He moved my clothes from the dryer to my laundry hamper. This, to date, is the only "mess" of mine he cleaned up. And the only reason why he bothered to do it was because he needed to do his own laundry (which he, in turn, left his clothes sitting in the dryer for 2 additional days...I kept track).
Here, I had been cleaning up his messes in the living room for weeks. I threw trash away he may have left laying around, I did any and all of his dishses he hadn't cleaned up from the night before, and I even took the huge mess that was a giant pile of his mail that was sitting on the dining room table and organized it into neat little piles to make it easier for him to clean up (those neat piles I made had stayed there for 3 days until, finally, I moved them to his room). For weeks I had been picking up after him (and myself) DAILY. And here, one time in the entire 3 months we had been living in this house, he takes my laundry out of the dryer. And he has the gall to tell me that he has been picking up after my messes just as I had been doing for him?
This is where all the trouble really started.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Smoking
As I said in the last post, I was incredibly stressed out and depressed at the time. I started picking up some bad habits. Though I had considered myself a drinker before, I never actually drank regularly. There's just something about living at your mom's house that does that. I got drunk with my friends once, maybe twice a month. And would go out for a causal drink once every couple weeks. No big thing. I just never go around to having a daily beer, as some people do, living at my mom's.
Moving in with Mikey, there hasn't been a time when we haven't had beer in the refrigerator. And there is more liquor here than I've ever seen in one house. So because my mom isn't around with her judgment and disappointment, I've been free to drink all I want. So I had the nightly beer a couple times a week when we first moved in.
Stress and depression offers a great opportunity for alcohol to seem like a really good friend. During that month, I was having two, maybe three beers a night. Even on work nights, and school nights. I began smoking. Now, I've had a few cigarettes in my day. But I'd pretty much only have one if I was really drunk, and only if they were readily available. So I think since I was 17 and had my first one, I've had less than 30 cigarettes in my entire life. But during this time, it became somewhat of a routine for me.
There'd be nights where I'd have 3 beers, and I'd be up until 3, maybe 4 in the morning. Even on a work night when I'd have a shift at 8am. And I'd go out and have a cigarette. And it helped me relax, and helped me get my mind off the crap in my life and actually get to sleep.
Now, I subscribe to social networking sites. Livejournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Xanga...I'm on all that. And I write about my entire life on my livejournal. I've taken pride in the fact that despite having a close circle of friends who reads it, I write about my business in there as if nobody was reading it except me.
I made a journal entry about taking up smoking. About how it's not becoming a habit for me, and I don't forsee it becoming one. And I wrote about my whole depression and everything. Mikey read it and left this comment:
"no more smoking. absolutely none at or outside the house, ever. so probably a good idea to just straight up stop."
He deleted this comment immediately. So that anyone who read the post wouldn't see the comment. But I was able to see the comment because livejournal notifies me by email when I have a comment.
Here's the point. We signed the lease as non-smokers. Which we are. But Mikey is a paranoid guy. We live in a very nice, very suburbanized, relatively new housing development. You could leave the doors unlocked, windows open, with a flat screen TV in plain view, and nobody would come into or near the house. But Mikey insists on locking all the doors at all times, and always leaving the blinds shut so nobody sees what kind of stuff we have and get any bright ideas.
But his paranoia is to the point where he actually thinks that the landlord has "spies" or "informants" living in the neighborhood. Or that she drives by the house on a regular, random basis. and he thinks that if she sees us, or anyone smoking anything near or anround the house, we'll get evicted.
No smoking in the house? Absolutely. I'm with you 100% on that one. No smoking in the backyard? Well, AT LEAST it's outside, but it's still within the property. So fine, I'll agree on that one too. But he also insists that nobody smokes in front of the house, even on the public street, because even that would be grounds for our immediate eviction.
That's just a sample of how he tries to control me, tell me what to do, and how to live. And how he does it with such force as if he is an absolute authority figure over my life.
Moving in with Mikey, there hasn't been a time when we haven't had beer in the refrigerator. And there is more liquor here than I've ever seen in one house. So because my mom isn't around with her judgment and disappointment, I've been free to drink all I want. So I had the nightly beer a couple times a week when we first moved in.
Stress and depression offers a great opportunity for alcohol to seem like a really good friend. During that month, I was having two, maybe three beers a night. Even on work nights, and school nights. I began smoking. Now, I've had a few cigarettes in my day. But I'd pretty much only have one if I was really drunk, and only if they were readily available. So I think since I was 17 and had my first one, I've had less than 30 cigarettes in my entire life. But during this time, it became somewhat of a routine for me.
There'd be nights where I'd have 3 beers, and I'd be up until 3, maybe 4 in the morning. Even on a work night when I'd have a shift at 8am. And I'd go out and have a cigarette. And it helped me relax, and helped me get my mind off the crap in my life and actually get to sleep.
Now, I subscribe to social networking sites. Livejournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Xanga...I'm on all that. And I write about my entire life on my livejournal. I've taken pride in the fact that despite having a close circle of friends who reads it, I write about my business in there as if nobody was reading it except me.
I made a journal entry about taking up smoking. About how it's not becoming a habit for me, and I don't forsee it becoming one. And I wrote about my whole depression and everything. Mikey read it and left this comment:
"no more smoking. absolutely none at or outside the house, ever. so probably a good idea to just straight up stop."
He deleted this comment immediately. So that anyone who read the post wouldn't see the comment. But I was able to see the comment because livejournal notifies me by email when I have a comment.
Here's the point. We signed the lease as non-smokers. Which we are. But Mikey is a paranoid guy. We live in a very nice, very suburbanized, relatively new housing development. You could leave the doors unlocked, windows open, with a flat screen TV in plain view, and nobody would come into or near the house. But Mikey insists on locking all the doors at all times, and always leaving the blinds shut so nobody sees what kind of stuff we have and get any bright ideas.
But his paranoia is to the point where he actually thinks that the landlord has "spies" or "informants" living in the neighborhood. Or that she drives by the house on a regular, random basis. and he thinks that if she sees us, or anyone smoking anything near or anround the house, we'll get evicted.
No smoking in the house? Absolutely. I'm with you 100% on that one. No smoking in the backyard? Well, AT LEAST it's outside, but it's still within the property. So fine, I'll agree on that one too. But he also insists that nobody smokes in front of the house, even on the public street, because even that would be grounds for our immediate eviction.
That's just a sample of how he tries to control me, tell me what to do, and how to live. And how he does it with such force as if he is an absolute authority figure over my life.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Lazy Spell
At this point in the rooming history, I started going through some really heavy personal issues. During the month of February, I had gotten involved in a relationship. Well, not really a relationship. It was more like an affair. This girl I take taekwondo class with told me that she had feelings for me. And I had had a crush on her for about a year. I never made a move because she had a boyfriend of 7 years with whom she also has a 6-year-old son. It's a different topic altogether, but, stupidly, I got involved with her, and we had an affair for about a month. But I broke things off because we had a mutual feeling on not wanting to sneak around behind her boyfriend's back, and she didn't want to leave him. At first, I expected us to go back to being friends. It didn't work out that way and around early to mid-March, things between me, her, and the boyfriend got very messy, A LOT of drama ensued, and even some threats.
At this time, I was having midterms and a lot of school work. So the combination of moving out and all this drama, with my schoolwork, made my life very stressful. I began to get lazy and let my mess go. I had a constant state of laundry all over my floor. I let my dishes stack up in the sink. And I was overall just very unclean.
I had also been switched to a new room at work, working with a different group of kids. I had been working in my previous room for my entire duration of my employment there. Kids I had worked with since I started. Who I had grown to know, appreciate, and (as cheesy as it sounds) feel like they were "my own". I was put in a different room, with kids I didn't know, who were entirely different. I was upset, and sad about not being able to work with "my" kids anymore.
In the heat of all that, I was looking for a rebound, and a way to relieve stress. So I began to self-destruct. And I wound up getting a pretty significant infection as a result.
How does all this relate to Mikey and me? I was coming off of a terrible relationship with a terrible situation. I was barely scraping by with my performance at work. I had loads of schoolwork that I had never experienced before. And to top it off, I had a disease. Though it is easily treatable, and curable, I was very depressed over that situation. I was more stressed and depressed than I had ever been in my life. With barely making it by in those other important areas of my life, doing menial household chores just seemed completely trivial and unimportant.
For about a month, I only cleaned enough to not get yelled at. This means I pretty much just did my own dishes and that was that. Nothing else. April was a bad month for me.
At this time, I was having midterms and a lot of school work. So the combination of moving out and all this drama, with my schoolwork, made my life very stressful. I began to get lazy and let my mess go. I had a constant state of laundry all over my floor. I let my dishes stack up in the sink. And I was overall just very unclean.
I had also been switched to a new room at work, working with a different group of kids. I had been working in my previous room for my entire duration of my employment there. Kids I had worked with since I started. Who I had grown to know, appreciate, and (as cheesy as it sounds) feel like they were "my own". I was put in a different room, with kids I didn't know, who were entirely different. I was upset, and sad about not being able to work with "my" kids anymore.
In the heat of all that, I was looking for a rebound, and a way to relieve stress. So I began to self-destruct. And I wound up getting a pretty significant infection as a result.
How does all this relate to Mikey and me? I was coming off of a terrible relationship with a terrible situation. I was barely scraping by with my performance at work. I had loads of schoolwork that I had never experienced before. And to top it off, I had a disease. Though it is easily treatable, and curable, I was very depressed over that situation. I was more stressed and depressed than I had ever been in my life. With barely making it by in those other important areas of my life, doing menial household chores just seemed completely trivial and unimportant.
For about a month, I only cleaned enough to not get yelled at. This means I pretty much just did my own dishes and that was that. Nothing else. April was a bad month for me.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Nit-Picking
If all the other stuff hadn't been trivial enough, at this point in our time living together, Mikey began this daily routine where he would tell me to do something, or not do something. Nearly every time he would stop by my room and tell me on his way out the door. Some of the time he would tell me in a civil way. Such as, "Hey, when the dishwasher is done, could you empty it?"
However, most of the time, he came to me yelling, or what's worse, he would whine to me about something. Such as, "What the fuck? Why do you have the A/C set for 73?! It should be no lower that 74!!"
No. That was not made up. That actually happened.
This happened daily. Though it doesn't happen daily anymore, it does happen pretty frequently. It was at this time (circa late March-early April) that I considered starting this blog. Just so I could keep daily track of everything. A friend of mine advised me against that idea, though. Just because if he ever found it, it wouldn't be good. But at this point, I wish I had started it then.
At this point, things began to change.
However, most of the time, he came to me yelling, or what's worse, he would whine to me about something. Such as, "What the fuck? Why do you have the A/C set for 73?! It should be no lower that 74!!"
No. That was not made up. That actually happened.
This happened daily. Though it doesn't happen daily anymore, it does happen pretty frequently. It was at this time (circa late March-early April) that I considered starting this blog. Just so I could keep daily track of everything. A friend of mine advised me against that idea, though. Just because if he ever found it, it wouldn't be good. But at this point, I wish I had started it then.
At this point, things began to change.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The First Clean and the Space Heater
So after a couple weeks, we had let ourselves fall into old habits. There'd be a constant small clutter of stuff around the living room. Mikey was still recovering from his surgery, but he was able to get up, go out and do certain things.
One day I came home from work, didn't have class that day, and I was bored so I decided to do a cleaning sweep.
Everything in the house was perfectly clean when I was done. I decided to take a load off and write a letter to a friend of mine who was going through Army basic training. I brought my backpack out to the living room to get some paper from the notebook, sit on the couch, and write. I did just that. When I was done writing, I put the notebook in my backpack, placed it up against the couch, and started to watch TV.
After a half hour or so, Mikey came home from doing whatever he was doing. He walked into the living room, saw me sitting there, saw the cleanliness, and said, "Do your fucking homework!"
"What?" I responded
"Do your homework!"
"Okay, DAD, I don't have any homework tonight."
"Well then get your backpack out of here, I don't want to see that shit", he yelled as he walked away and out of the room.
I was confused. Sure, I had been used to us being "fake" hostile and cutting each other down, but I hadn't ever experienced him being so angry about something so trivial. Here, I had just spent the whole afternoon putting things away, dusting, cleaning, and polishing the table and stands, and vacuuming the house. And here, I had brought out my backpack when I was done, with it sitting right next to me, and he straight up just yelled at me to put it away in my room, without even acknowledging that the rest of the house was completely spotless for the first time since we moved in.
This confused me, but I shrugged it off. Little did I know, this would be a foreshadow for things to come.
Another day, I was home alone. Mikey was at work, and I had the weekend off. We had mentioned to each other that we wanted to avid using the central air a whole lot, so I brought over a space heater from my mom's. I had the central air on earlier in the day, and that put the heat in the room up to 72 degrees. At about 1am, I was still in the living room watching TV and it had started to cool down, so I brought the space heater and sat it next to me by the couch. Mikey came home at 2am, walked into the kitchen and saw the thermostat. Even though the heat had been off for many hours, but the temperature had held at 71 degrees. For this, he yelled at me for several minutes. Then he walked into the living room and saw the space heater. He continued to yell about how much of a "fucking yeti" I am being cold and still having the space heater on right next to me even though the temperature was at 71.
Unfortunately, I can't remember all of what he was specifically saying. But he was actually yelling for several minutes. He had an issue with iteven though he hadn't been home and I explained to him that that the heater was only on for an hour that day. The space heater wasn't affecting him in anyway, but he was pissed off about me using it.
A few minutes later, he came back out and it was though nothing had happened. He sat down on his chair, had a drink, and began watching TV with me.
That would have been the end of it, but he kept bringing it up. Not just to me, once a day for a week, but that next weekend we had two fridns of ours over. The first thing Mikey mentioned to them when they walked in was about the space heater situation. They began making fun of me for it.
And again, about three weeks later, I had a friend over. A friend Mikey barely knows. When he showed up, Mikey said, "Well, just don't let him turn on the space heater or he'll melt you!"
To begin with, this wasn't even a situation where he needed to yell at me in the first place. If he had an issue with it, he could have simply told me in a civil way. But he chose to yell at me for it the second he walked in the door. He also didn't need to keep bringing it up everyday for an entire week. Lastly, I certainly don't think he is, at all, justified to complain to our friends about it. This really is a NOTHING situation and he blew it way out of proportion.
One day I came home from work, didn't have class that day, and I was bored so I decided to do a cleaning sweep.
Everything in the house was perfectly clean when I was done. I decided to take a load off and write a letter to a friend of mine who was going through Army basic training. I brought my backpack out to the living room to get some paper from the notebook, sit on the couch, and write. I did just that. When I was done writing, I put the notebook in my backpack, placed it up against the couch, and started to watch TV.
After a half hour or so, Mikey came home from doing whatever he was doing. He walked into the living room, saw me sitting there, saw the cleanliness, and said, "Do your fucking homework!"
"What?" I responded
"Do your homework!"
"Okay, DAD, I don't have any homework tonight."
"Well then get your backpack out of here, I don't want to see that shit", he yelled as he walked away and out of the room.
I was confused. Sure, I had been used to us being "fake" hostile and cutting each other down, but I hadn't ever experienced him being so angry about something so trivial. Here, I had just spent the whole afternoon putting things away, dusting, cleaning, and polishing the table and stands, and vacuuming the house. And here, I had brought out my backpack when I was done, with it sitting right next to me, and he straight up just yelled at me to put it away in my room, without even acknowledging that the rest of the house was completely spotless for the first time since we moved in.
This confused me, but I shrugged it off. Little did I know, this would be a foreshadow for things to come.
Another day, I was home alone. Mikey was at work, and I had the weekend off. We had mentioned to each other that we wanted to avid using the central air a whole lot, so I brought over a space heater from my mom's. I had the central air on earlier in the day, and that put the heat in the room up to 72 degrees. At about 1am, I was still in the living room watching TV and it had started to cool down, so I brought the space heater and sat it next to me by the couch. Mikey came home at 2am, walked into the kitchen and saw the thermostat. Even though the heat had been off for many hours, but the temperature had held at 71 degrees. For this, he yelled at me for several minutes. Then he walked into the living room and saw the space heater. He continued to yell about how much of a "fucking yeti" I am being cold and still having the space heater on right next to me even though the temperature was at 71.
Unfortunately, I can't remember all of what he was specifically saying. But he was actually yelling for several minutes. He had an issue with iteven though he hadn't been home and I explained to him that that the heater was only on for an hour that day. The space heater wasn't affecting him in anyway, but he was pissed off about me using it.
A few minutes later, he came back out and it was though nothing had happened. He sat down on his chair, had a drink, and began watching TV with me.
That would have been the end of it, but he kept bringing it up. Not just to me, once a day for a week, but that next weekend we had two fridns of ours over. The first thing Mikey mentioned to them when they walked in was about the space heater situation. They began making fun of me for it.
And again, about three weeks later, I had a friend over. A friend Mikey barely knows. When he showed up, Mikey said, "Well, just don't let him turn on the space heater or he'll melt you!"
To begin with, this wasn't even a situation where he needed to yell at me in the first place. If he had an issue with it, he could have simply told me in a civil way. But he chose to yell at me for it the second he walked in the door. He also didn't need to keep bringing it up everyday for an entire week. Lastly, I certainly don't think he is, at all, justified to complain to our friends about it. This really is a NOTHING situation and he blew it way out of proportion.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The Surgery
Just before Mikey switched shifts, he had a minor operation. Just for the sake of further anonymity I won't mention what kind. But it was just a minor outpatient procedure which he needed. He informed me of this well ahead of time for my information about his condition, and so that I wouldn't have anyone over while he was recovering, since he would be drugged up on painkillers. Before this happened I also informed him that if he needed anything, even something small from the store, to just let me know, and I was happy to do it for him.
And that's just the kind of guy I am. I've always been the guy who does things for people. My friends in particular. I have a few theories as to why I do it. One is that I like people to like me. Though this characteristic isn't as prominent in my life today, it still exists, and I'm honest enough to admit this quality about myself. Most people wouldn't. So early on in life, I had this desire for people to like me, and early on, I interpreted this as "If I do things for people, and if I'm nice to people, then they will like me." This has been more subconscious in the last 8 years or so, but it's pretty much how all my friendships dating back from grade school and high school were established. But more importantly, I enjoy doing things for people. I've just always had this innate satisfaction from someone simply saying, "Thank you". And it makes me feel good to know I helped someone out.
So I went to the store for him and got him a few things. More 7up and ginger ale than we already had, crackers, and, via his special request, applesauce.
Now, I haven't had applesauce in years. probably not since I was a kid. But when I went to the store and got it, I remembered how much I enjoy it. And I wanted some. But this was his applesauce. Other than buying it and bringing it home, I couldn't touch it. Or any of the other stuff that had his name on it. And this is an understandable roommate pact that I think is more or less universal. If it has someone else's name on it, don't touch it.
To this day, that applesauce is still in our pantry. Unopened. Taunting me. And it's been over 2 months since I bought it for him. And I swear, when I come back from my vacation to Tokyo (end of June...going for a week) and that applesauce is still there, I'm digging in.
But that's kind of how things started around here. And I think subconsciously, he just likes having a claim staked on things. He knows I want that applesauce, and I think he is leaving it in there just to kind of say, "Haha, this is mine, not yours!"
But the most important thing about this time period is that I think it established our dynamic for the future. So far I had been succumbing to his will. Remembering to stay quiet and not have anyone over when he was asleep (though it was the middle of the daytime for me), this should go here, that should go there. All his ideas. This should be done this way or that. All decided by him. And I went along with it all, mostly because I either was comfortable with where he wanted to place things, or just didn't care about other stuff. And he seemed so sure about it all, and himself, that I just figured that he knows what he's doing and I should follow his lead.
However, of all the ideas I've had, only one has gone my way (which I'll describe in a later post). All my other ideas have either been ignored or shot down for arbitrary reasons, or simply because he didn't like it.
And it's only recently that I've come to realize that the dynamic we've established is this: though we both pay rent, this is his house, and I'm just a guest in it.
And that's just the kind of guy I am. I've always been the guy who does things for people. My friends in particular. I have a few theories as to why I do it. One is that I like people to like me. Though this characteristic isn't as prominent in my life today, it still exists, and I'm honest enough to admit this quality about myself. Most people wouldn't. So early on in life, I had this desire for people to like me, and early on, I interpreted this as "If I do things for people, and if I'm nice to people, then they will like me." This has been more subconscious in the last 8 years or so, but it's pretty much how all my friendships dating back from grade school and high school were established. But more importantly, I enjoy doing things for people. I've just always had this innate satisfaction from someone simply saying, "Thank you". And it makes me feel good to know I helped someone out.
So I went to the store for him and got him a few things. More 7up and ginger ale than we already had, crackers, and, via his special request, applesauce.
Now, I haven't had applesauce in years. probably not since I was a kid. But when I went to the store and got it, I remembered how much I enjoy it. And I wanted some. But this was his applesauce. Other than buying it and bringing it home, I couldn't touch it. Or any of the other stuff that had his name on it. And this is an understandable roommate pact that I think is more or less universal. If it has someone else's name on it, don't touch it.
To this day, that applesauce is still in our pantry. Unopened. Taunting me. And it's been over 2 months since I bought it for him. And I swear, when I come back from my vacation to Tokyo (end of June...going for a week) and that applesauce is still there, I'm digging in.
But that's kind of how things started around here. And I think subconsciously, he just likes having a claim staked on things. He knows I want that applesauce, and I think he is leaving it in there just to kind of say, "Haha, this is mine, not yours!"
But the most important thing about this time period is that I think it established our dynamic for the future. So far I had been succumbing to his will. Remembering to stay quiet and not have anyone over when he was asleep (though it was the middle of the daytime for me), this should go here, that should go there. All his ideas. This should be done this way or that. All decided by him. And I went along with it all, mostly because I either was comfortable with where he wanted to place things, or just didn't care about other stuff. And he seemed so sure about it all, and himself, that I just figured that he knows what he's doing and I should follow his lead.
However, of all the ideas I've had, only one has gone my way (which I'll describe in a later post). All my other ideas have either been ignored or shot down for arbitrary reasons, or simply because he didn't like it.
And it's only recently that I've come to realize that the dynamic we've established is this: though we both pay rent, this is his house, and I'm just a guest in it.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The First Few Weeks
The first few weeks of living here was a tolerable adjustment period. Mikey and I have been friends for years, so we were definitely used to each other and got along great. I guess we had sort of a love/hate relationship. Though we don't open up much about our feelings (how many guys do that with their boys?), we know that we can come to each other with anything, and we'd be as sympathetic as the situation called for. But for the most part, our friendship has revolved around Chipotle, watching movies/TV shows together, Chipotle, Dave Matthews Band, Chipotle, playing music, more Chipotle, and cutting each other down. Not in a mean, hurtful way, but in a light-hearted, joking manner.
No, we had to get used to each other in the context of living together. Sure, we previously hung out all the time, but nothing prepares you for the fact that when you come home, they're there. When you go to bed, they're there. When you wake up in the morning, they're there. When you're eating dinner, breakfast, or lunch in the house, they're there. You get the picture.
Now, I work a consistent schedule. 8am-2:30pm every Tuesday-Friday. When we first moved in, he was going to be in the process of changing shifts. He worked the day shift, 6am-4pm. And he would be changing to the afternoon/night shift of 3:30pm-1:30am. But his days off remaine the same. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Now for the first few weeks, he was still on the day shift and had to wake up at 4am, and would require a full night's sleep before waking up. This means he was going to bed anywhere from 7pm-9pm. And he's the type of sleeper who, if he is awoken by anything, he can't get back to sleep. So I had to be absolutely quiet. I could watch movies, TV, or video games, but it had to be at a level to which I could barely hear it so as to ensure he wouldn't wake up. Even on weekends. And I remember thinking about how badly I wanted this period to be over because I had to be quieter and more careful than I was at my mom's house. In fact, at my mom's, I could comfortably play Rock Band, on the drums, and now have to worry about volume too much. My first impression: though it's awesome having my own place, it is currently worse than living at home.
No, we had to get used to each other in the context of living together. Sure, we previously hung out all the time, but nothing prepares you for the fact that when you come home, they're there. When you go to bed, they're there. When you wake up in the morning, they're there. When you're eating dinner, breakfast, or lunch in the house, they're there. You get the picture.
Now, I work a consistent schedule. 8am-2:30pm every Tuesday-Friday. When we first moved in, he was going to be in the process of changing shifts. He worked the day shift, 6am-4pm. And he would be changing to the afternoon/night shift of 3:30pm-1:30am. But his days off remaine the same. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Now for the first few weeks, he was still on the day shift and had to wake up at 4am, and would require a full night's sleep before waking up. This means he was going to bed anywhere from 7pm-9pm. And he's the type of sleeper who, if he is awoken by anything, he can't get back to sleep. So I had to be absolutely quiet. I could watch movies, TV, or video games, but it had to be at a level to which I could barely hear it so as to ensure he wouldn't wake up. Even on weekends. And I remember thinking about how badly I wanted this period to be over because I had to be quieter and more careful than I was at my mom's house. In fact, at my mom's, I could comfortably play Rock Band, on the drums, and now have to worry about volume too much. My first impression: though it's awesome having my own place, it is currently worse than living at home.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Introduction
I've started this blog for a good reason. The goal of this is to express my personal stories involving horrible roommate issues that occur within a household. Being that this is an anecdotal blog, I'm probably not going to post too many facts regarding what certain combinations of people yield which certain kinds of conflict. This is simply meant to vent my frustrations regarding issues I have with my roommate, and to whomever reads this, to let everyone know why I will never again live with someone who is a friend. First, a little introduction.
In this blog, I will go by the name of Burnout. It's a nickname my roommate knows, but the purpose of giving myself an alias is not to keep this a secret from him since, if he stumbles across this, he'll know based on the stories I write that this is me writing (though I'm not going to outright tell him I have a blog where I tell the world about how much he sucks), but just for the sake on anonymity in the Innernets. I am 22-years-old and I'm a college student. I'll finish up my BA in December. I currently work with children with special needs and I always talk about how much I love my job. I won't talk about that here, but for furture reference, it may be pertinent to know that I do absolutely love my job and there's nothing I'd rather be doing with my life than to serve this population. I am also a single guy. 6 feet tall, and I practice taekwondo, a sport I've grown to love.
My roommate is 23-years-old. He is not currently in school since he works long hours for a local law enforcement agency. I won't say in what capacity, though. He's a huge guy. 6'8" 300+ pounds. I'm pretty sure he really likes his job too, though he probably isn't as passionate about it as I am with mine. In this blog, I will give him the alias: Mikey.
We have been friends since we were kids. We went to the same elementary school, the same high school, and we were in the same church and youth group all throughout our lives (though, now, we are both Atheists). He taught me how to play guitar, we hike together, we played paintball together (when we could afford it) and we always go on Dave Matthews Band road trips to see them live. It's cliche, but it's true when I say, "We've been through a lot together". We are, what you would call, best friends. In fact, we call ourselves "Hetero Life Mates".
That's the brief history of our friendship. Onto the rooming issues:
Up until now, we've both lived with our parents our whole lives. We've actually been talking about moving out for a couple years now, but things keep getting in the way. We were about to in the summer of 2007, then his dad passed away, so that busted that plan. After that subsided, we couldn't find a place that we both wanted that was affordable for us. And the fact was that we were both so comfortable living at home that we didn't put a whole lot of effort into going out and hardcore trying to find a place.
Then, one day, in late February 2009, Mikey calls me and asks if I'm still interested in moving out. I told him yes. He found a couple places in our price range. On a Monday, I went to check them out to see what they looked like on my way to work one day. We both decided on one place we liked (though I would have been cool living in an apartment, he really didn't want to. But that was okay with me since I would rather rent a house anyway. More room. More privacy). On Tuesday we called the landlord and said we were interested. Wednesday we took a tour and signed the lease. Thursday we paid our deposit. That weekend, we moved in. It was that quick.
Now, we had both heard stories of people moving in with their best friends. They go into it totally getting along, but by the end of their lease, they hate each other. And, in fact, when I turned 18 and first wanted to move out, he rejected the idea of us living together for that very reason. It wasn't until 2 years later that we started entertaining the idea. Yes, we had heard of people, even friends of ours, who had been through this sort of thing. But I had actually tried moving in with a group of people last August. A group of people I did not know. And that REALLY didn't work out. After that experience, I knew I wanted to live with someone I know just because of the trust issues. We knew that, no matter what, we wouldn't try to screw each other in one fashion or another. We knew that we'd respect each others' stuff, we knew we were both reliable enough to pay the bills on time, and we knew we wouldn't bail on the other. This is what it boiled down to. Living with someone familiar, that I trusted. This outweighed the prospect of finding someone on craigslist who I did not know.
That's the introduction. That's who we are. And that's the beginning of the end. Since then, it's been, not all downhill, but mostly downhill. I will update again soon.
In this blog, I will go by the name of Burnout. It's a nickname my roommate knows, but the purpose of giving myself an alias is not to keep this a secret from him since, if he stumbles across this, he'll know based on the stories I write that this is me writing (though I'm not going to outright tell him I have a blog where I tell the world about how much he sucks), but just for the sake on anonymity in the Innernets. I am 22-years-old and I'm a college student. I'll finish up my BA in December. I currently work with children with special needs and I always talk about how much I love my job. I won't talk about that here, but for furture reference, it may be pertinent to know that I do absolutely love my job and there's nothing I'd rather be doing with my life than to serve this population. I am also a single guy. 6 feet tall, and I practice taekwondo, a sport I've grown to love.
My roommate is 23-years-old. He is not currently in school since he works long hours for a local law enforcement agency. I won't say in what capacity, though. He's a huge guy. 6'8" 300+ pounds. I'm pretty sure he really likes his job too, though he probably isn't as passionate about it as I am with mine. In this blog, I will give him the alias: Mikey.
We have been friends since we were kids. We went to the same elementary school, the same high school, and we were in the same church and youth group all throughout our lives (though, now, we are both Atheists). He taught me how to play guitar, we hike together, we played paintball together (when we could afford it) and we always go on Dave Matthews Band road trips to see them live. It's cliche, but it's true when I say, "We've been through a lot together". We are, what you would call, best friends. In fact, we call ourselves "Hetero Life Mates".
That's the brief history of our friendship. Onto the rooming issues:
Up until now, we've both lived with our parents our whole lives. We've actually been talking about moving out for a couple years now, but things keep getting in the way. We were about to in the summer of 2007, then his dad passed away, so that busted that plan. After that subsided, we couldn't find a place that we both wanted that was affordable for us. And the fact was that we were both so comfortable living at home that we didn't put a whole lot of effort into going out and hardcore trying to find a place.
Then, one day, in late February 2009, Mikey calls me and asks if I'm still interested in moving out. I told him yes. He found a couple places in our price range. On a Monday, I went to check them out to see what they looked like on my way to work one day. We both decided on one place we liked (though I would have been cool living in an apartment, he really didn't want to. But that was okay with me since I would rather rent a house anyway. More room. More privacy). On Tuesday we called the landlord and said we were interested. Wednesday we took a tour and signed the lease. Thursday we paid our deposit. That weekend, we moved in. It was that quick.
Now, we had both heard stories of people moving in with their best friends. They go into it totally getting along, but by the end of their lease, they hate each other. And, in fact, when I turned 18 and first wanted to move out, he rejected the idea of us living together for that very reason. It wasn't until 2 years later that we started entertaining the idea. Yes, we had heard of people, even friends of ours, who had been through this sort of thing. But I had actually tried moving in with a group of people last August. A group of people I did not know. And that REALLY didn't work out. After that experience, I knew I wanted to live with someone I know just because of the trust issues. We knew that, no matter what, we wouldn't try to screw each other in one fashion or another. We knew that we'd respect each others' stuff, we knew we were both reliable enough to pay the bills on time, and we knew we wouldn't bail on the other. This is what it boiled down to. Living with someone familiar, that I trusted. This outweighed the prospect of finding someone on craigslist who I did not know.
That's the introduction. That's who we are. And that's the beginning of the end. Since then, it's been, not all downhill, but mostly downhill. I will update again soon.
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