Moving Hell 4: Denouement

In the past two weeks, maintenance was in the apartment fixing gas leaks and then getting the furnace to work a total of eight times and Laclede Gas was in six. Finally, at 1:15 yesterday afternoon as I was looking at a list of landlord-tenant lawyers I could call, the man turned the furnace on and it worked. My apartment was officially habitable again so I didn't have to go through the process of voiding the lease.

I insisted that they have it inspected by an independent contractor to make sure it was sound. To my surprise, the management fought me on this one, saying that the maintenance guy who worked most on it was a certified AC-Heating Tech. I answered, fine, but he had also assured me twice that what I smelled wasn't gas when  Laclede's methane detectors proved it was. Immediately, I regretted saying that. I didn't want the maintenance guy to get in trouble or lose his job, but I hadn't been prepared for them to argue against an independent inspection.

So, I'm finally ready to finish my move. I should have just about everything here by Sunday, and I'll be putting things away and organizing for the rest of next week. It should have never been this bad. I had this move figured out better than any other I've done. But a little bad judgment and a lot of bad luck will defeat you every time.

The Frustrations of Leftward Political Activism

I've had to put a moratorium on my political activism. Activist meetings now put me in despair. Here's the reason: the last one I went to, when we went around the table introducing ourselves, everyone had a different idea about what the priority was. One person, the person who had the highest standing, said that before we did anything else, we had to make Missouri food self-sufficient. (I wanted to ask why Missouri and not Eastern Missouri, Western Missouri, or Missouri, Iowa and Illinois together?) Another said the environment was the thing we had to work on first. A third said voting rights and balloting reforms were the most important, a fourth said clean energy was most important, and another said campaign finance reform was the most important. Than of course, there's jobs, there's education, there's healthcare, there's the war in Afghanistan . . .

It depressed me, but not because I disagreed with any of it. No, just the opposite. Except maybe for the food self-sufficiency one, (where I disagrees on the arbitrary particular but not the principle), they were all right about it. Those issues are all very important. They all critically need the work. What's more, any one of them could be the highest priority, they are all that important.

What makes me grieve about all of it and what all the other activists missed is this: all of those things going wrong at once means that this system, this nation, is finished. Because any government that has allowed that much, and more, to go wrong is not capable of correcting any of it. The socio-governing process in this country is broken beyond repair. Moreover, you can't correct that many serious problems in any reasonable time with our government now. Three or four of those are crippling. All of them at once are fatal. As the cliche says, I've read the writing on the wall. I don't like the news, but it's it's the truth.

I wish I knew what could possibly replace the United States, and I wish I thought the world without it would be better, at least within my remaining lifetime, but I don't. Our nation is finished, and I don't see anything good coming out of it. I also wish I knew exactly what I meant by saying "our nation is finished." What will happen? Will the Red States secede while the Blue States petition to join Canada? Will Texas secede from the Union and end up being ruled from Mexico? (In the short term, at least that would make Perry ineligible for the presidency). Will we fall into a Somali-type civil war while the federal government collapses? I don't know.

Rome fell, but Italy still existed afterward. Obviously something would still be here. Whether it's a bunch of separate nation-states or squalid hunter gatherer tribes at the end does matter.

I also wish I had a solution, that is, some marvelous socio-economic system that works great on paper and is ready for a field test. However, the trials and tribulations of the twentieth century makes me jaded about any such thing.

So, what would I suggest to the left now? Try to formulate and organize such a system while this one falls. Don't push it. Don't aggravate the wounded beast that is the US. Just stay out of its way until it stops moving and rebuild afterward. That's all I could suggest.

And meanwhile, find a way to mentally escape, such as in Brazil, and educate others as to what is unfolding.

Moving Hell 3: Anxiety and Despair

We all have had the argument with friend or family that starts with something minor. A criticism someone asserts out of the blue over something rude you did, something that, perhaps, didn't even involve them, but they've made a judgment based on it. You try to explain, because you first think, surely, they couldn't have all the details right.

In this case, after I made sure she had all the details right, her opinion is unchanged. Now, when that happened, I could handle it. Yes, I think, but don't say, maybe that was gauche and maybe I shouldn't have done that.  I won't do it like that again, but it was also a really small thing.

However, I never get to say this, because while I was in the fact-checking stage of it, she brought up, just casually, much larger issues I know she's been holding in, and the subject was an entry point for her to express those.  These are things that I can't do anything about, not even after seeing therapists and psychiatrists over thirty years. Personality traits that are more like symptoms of mental illness than any preference I have. 

Let me explain one of these: hiding on my computer away from people.  I played alone a lot as a kid. So much so, my mother forced me to play with my brother. I can't tell you how much anxiety and anger I felt over that. I used to make up the stupidest games for him, just so he'd stop wanting to play with me. Not that I didn't like my brother either. I just needed to play alone at that time. I craved being alone the way an alcoholic craves vodka. The games I played, I couldn't even describe them to people. Just knowing people noticed me as I played them embarrassed and terrified me.

(Now, I did also play with other kids, but I spent a great and growing amount of my time solitary.) 

There were other bizarre fears. Like I hated to go to the barber. I just despised it. Not because long hair was in (though I pretended that was the reason later) but  just because I didn't like him behind me touching me on the head. Especially with the sound of the scissors. I spent my time in the barber chair holding back panic attacks. I'd leave with my clothes soaked in sweat.

I'm not trying to milk sympathy about this. I'm just saying my tendency to isolate myself is a behavior from childhood, probably in my genes, and it came with other peculiar behaviors. I've had it as long as I remember. It's not something I can do anything about. I know it's a symptom either of Asperger's or a personality disorder. For reasons I give below, I'll probably never know which.

I have tried to remedy it. I knew midway through adolescence that I had to do something about it. So, I tried to do more with people. I joined theater and cross-country in junior year high school. Both were disastrous setbacks. I was way too under-socialized by then. I told my parents I needed to see a counselor or something, and the response could be summed up with "Shrinks are phoney. Pray to the Virgin Mary." My mother had enough problems with her own psychosis, and by that I mean she was clinically psychotic and she felt the shrinks had screwed her over. Meanwhile, my father acted annoyed at the very thought. In hindsight, I think he didn't want to face failure, that my needing help reflected badly on him, though my problem wasn't his fault, wasn't his failure to commit, but it was certainly his failure to ignore my pleas and act like nothing was wrong. I found my own counselor through asking a kind girl I knew. He was a failed Catholic Brother and member of the Transactional Analysis cult, the Parent-Adult-Child nonsense, though it didn't seem like bullshit then. I was earnest to try anything.

He was a rank amateur, my association with him turned into a worse fiasco than anything in my life previously, while my parents pretended to support me, ad hoc. The state didn't require counselors to be certified then. I told them I was seeing him, that he was letting me pay for the sessions by working around his house. They didn't ask any questions about him, didn't check anything.

He and his TA books gave completely the wrong advice for an under-socialized kid trying to survive high school and college. Remember hitting the pillow when you're angry, and how they found later that it aggravated anger? Things like that. As I got worse, my parents suddenly thought he was wonderful and sent tons of insurance money his way as he retroactively added sessions we ever had to the record . He was phony, fraudulent, exploitative, unethical and greedy, and really didn't care about the desperate adolescents he saw. When none of his bullshit worked, he blamed me, and finally refused to see me. Stung, I left him feeling more lost and worse about myself when I arrived.

However, I will say in his favor, he never molested me. For a kid looking for help without parental assistance, it could have ended far worse.

Remember the beginning of The Sixth Sense? The guy who shot Malcolm "Bruce Willis" Crowe, his old, failed, counselor? I have to admit identifying with that guy. I'd have shown up in ninja gear instead of skivvies, though. I pride myself that my counselor was far worse, but I came out better than Dr. Crowe's patient. My resentment is mollified by sympathy. My counselor ran his business out of the house. So, I knew his family, too. I found out his wife and son, then a teenager, died in traffic accident. That's not a grief I would wish on anybody. 

So, late in adulthood, somehow I always spend most my day alone, much more so than I did as a child. It's not the way I prefer it. No, I am very lonely. But when I'm by myself concentrating on something, time just flies by, with no time left for anything social. It's the one thing I wish I could change, something I'm still trying to change, but every effort to do so has failed. Writing is perfect for me, though, but I have to temper the isolation if I'm going to survive.

Moving Hell 2: Injury and Delay

The apartment manager told me that they were likely going to replace the range. Despite the fact that it would mean having wasted my time cleaning it, I hope that they do. I wouldn't doubt if this one goes back to '70s or even the '60s. The range isn't why I chose the apartment, but a newer one (I'm thinking they might buy used) would be a plus.

Let me be clear, it was clean on the surface. Under the top, though, it was filthy. When I saw all the old grease, I wondered if you put two cockroaches in there, how many more cockroaches would it create from that food source alone? I'd give it a ballpark of 5,000, but you might as well stop counting after 800. Considering one or two are enough to make me twitch when I see them, hundreds are seizure-inducing.

Last night, I twisted my ankle, an injury unconnected to the move. I was taking out the trash at Dad's house and stepped on a gumball from one of those trees. It hurts, but I've been elevating it, putting ice on it, been taking massive amounts of aspirin and have been walking with a cane. I've been rewarded that it hasn't swollen. Damage from the internal swelling, I'm told, can be worse than the initial sprain.

The truly heavy work of the move is days away. Sunday, I hope.  Then I'll actually be living in the place, of course. But I'll be packing up, sorting and moving smaller items for days or weeks. The good thing is, I have time to do it like this.

The bad thing is, of course, that even by the standards of taking my time and keeping it orderly, it's taking forever. I mean, the apartment wasn't extraordinarily dirty, far from it, but the cleaning is taking forever.

But that's part of me and part of my troubles on the job. It seems that everything I do takes longer than anyone else. I'm not saying that as just a gripe. It's true. Every boss, every coworker I've had has noted it. It's what led me to abuse amphetamine and caffeine and part of the reason I'm on disability now. It's not that I'm lazy about it either. I tend to space, my mind wanders or I overthink things. And it's one thing if you're doing it on the job, you might be accused of being lazy. It's quite another if you're moving into a place and it's taking forever because you're cleaning things too slowly.

What happens if I just go faster? I panic. I begin to abuse stimulants because I constantly fear that I'm not fast enough. In fact, I tend to panic and freeze up if anybody watches what I'm doing. I joined theater just to try to get over that, but it was a disaster. I have that problem, but then I also have marginal speech deafness. My hearing has been tested perfect, but I if there are any distractions in public, I can't understand people.  For most the time in my life, I wasn't able to hear music lyrics. ADD medications helped with that. I changed my music collection as it totally changed the way I appreciated music. As a child and adolescent, I had a terrible problem recognizing faces. That did begin to get better in my twenties, thank goodness.

That, and the fact that I preferred to play alone as a child makes me wonder about Asperger's Syndrome. But I didn't have parents who gave any credence to psychiatry or neurology, or medicine in general, and my next brother had profound retardation. It was a great irony of my parent's that they and their family were beset most by medical problems that they found dubious, for religious reasons. The upshot was, any problems I had were dwarfed by my brother's. He needed my parent's attention more. Their couldn't deny his problems, but they could they could deny mine.

I rambled. Yes because I'm up late, but I went to bed early and got up in the middle of the night. I'll get an early start tomorrow. Soon, I'll be moved, and soon after that, I'll be settled.

Panhandlers and beggers

I encountered two different panhandling situations in the last three days. In one, I gave. In the most recent one, I didn't. Why? Because in the first case, it seemed like it was likely true. In the case tonight, I knew it was a con. However, upon checking, it seems the first one was just a better designed con.

In the one on Sunday, which I reported on Twitter, a bunch of people were walking with collection cups in traffic with a sign up. It said they were collecting money for the funeral of Robert Floyd. I guess that one resonated with me because my family and I just buried my mother. The sticker shock for the funeral was extreme. I can't imagine a family without the means having to come up with $13,000. (The sticker said $6,000 at the cheapest, but when all the expenses were added up, it came to $13k. Mom had made it clear that cremation was not an option.) As my brother said, the funeral director should name his yacht after our mother. Me? I prefer to think his daughter went through freshmen year of college from my Mom's death. 

So, I guess it was the right con at the right time for the right mark. Not only did I give, I pulled out of traffic into a Rent-a-Center parking lot and gave five dollars. The teenage girl said it was to bury their uncle Robert Floyd. When I said I just buried my mother, I got no response to speak of. 

Tonight I look up the obituary of Robert Floyd, and guess what? Either he's being stored in the closet until the family could afford to disclose his demise and bury him, or no such person died in my area, or seemingly, nationwide in the last week. Or in the last year. A dupe. A con. Or perhaps it could be called "an imaginative beggar's pitch." Buy our fantasy and you'll feel generous. 

I gave $5 to those grifters. I should have called the police on them.

Tonight in front of a discount store, I ran into a different grifter with a different beggar's pitch. Unlucky for him, I heard the pitch before, by a guy who got caught in the lie. Moreover, tonight's grifter dressed his story in so many pathetic curlicues that he red flagged his it with less credibility. What are the odds that he's lost, looking for a large municipality (not a street), just got out of the hospital (wearing a bracelet, you see) just blew his money on a prescription (when he walked up to me from the opposite direction of the drug store he pointed to), desperately needs to pick up some kids (in his car, you hope) but his car is out of gas and he only has $1.13 in his pocket? Come on, guy, find one story and stick to it. When I told him no and walked away he said "God bother you." I've never heard that curse before. Hearing that line made the entire thing worthwhile. 

The car broke down/out of gas bit I've heard before. It's familiar like a Nigerian Scapam to me. I was with some friends one night in front of a coffee house more than a decade ago when I guy walked up to us and said he needed to pick up his daughter who was in a somewhat seedy part of town, but he was out of gas. One of us actually gave him money. I don't remember precisely, but maybe it was me. 

Not even a week later one of my friends who had been present told me that the same grifter came in the front door at his work asking for money for the same reason: grifter's car was out of gas and he needed to pick up his daughter  from a somewhat seedy part of town. Again, the guy mentioned the exact amount of money in his pocket. This time, his mark, or at least his host, was a heartless, soulless corporation, with a guy there who had heard the pitch and recognized Mr. Tough-luck, who then went to jail.

I'll readily admit that I might beg at some time in my life. I mean to say I'm not too proud to avoid it if I need the help, but the line between begging and conning can become very thin. You have no way of knowing if anything they're saying is true. The fact they give precise details without being asked tells you something. People's desire to help can become a magnet for psychopaths. Also, in tough economic times, despearate people tend to listen to the psychopaths. That's how an entire family can be made to beg and walk out in traffic and raise money to bury their nonexistent dead relative, throwing all safety and dignity aside. A family was doing it, and somebody in the family was behind it. 

What's sad is there a people who really need the money and help but won't ask for it. The Rush Limbaugh's of the world will say it's shameful whether you need it or not, and whether in crosses the line into grifting or not. No, it's those who use it as a racket who make it shameful for everybody else, and it's it's a shame that the best people should be made to starve, while the worst people are the wheels that squeak the loudest and therefore support themselves very well with begging.  

Moving Hell

For the work that I've done, I haven't got a lot to show for it. The only things I've been able to do so far is buy and move cleaning supplies in, find places to put them and add some extra lighting. Hard to believe that seems to have taken up two days. Of course, delays due to the lock and gas emergency led to some of it. I did get diverted today to looking at the neighborhood's famous open-air market. I bought lunch for three dollars, a bowl of rice and beans. It's a wonderful neighborhood to walk in with plenty of houses similar to the French Quarter in New Orleans, except in brick. Once I'm settled, hopefully before it gets cold, I should have fun just walking it and taking pictures.

I didn't realize how similar these houses were to dreams I've always had. It comes from my grandmother's old neighborhood, where huge spectacular houses of this style, practically mansions in their day, were abandoned, neglected and left to decay. It's the setting in my horror story Wil-o'-wisp. These, however, are mostly the idealized version of that architectural stereotype. As I post pictures, and I will soon, you'll see the idealized and the nightmare version.

The houses on my grandmother's street were mansions by 1860s standards. Unfortunately, after the Civil War, people began to abandon St. Louis. The city had already peaked, in population and importance, by the 1870s. After that, came Kirkwood, which was the first commuter suburb.The wealthy began to abandon Park Avenue near downtown for Kirkwood, the first community of its kind, and other suburbs like it. So, Park Avenue became the poor neighborhood. When it came time to set up public housing, they placed one of the biggest projects, the Darst-Webbe-Peabody project, right on Park & 12th (Tucker).

For me, though, I'm living in a cheap, decent apartment in Soulard, a great old neighborhood. The ghetto spot in the ritzy district. Despite all the troubles I've been having, it's well worth the wait, and I don't think I could have done better.

Fatalities averted

The move's not a total disaster, yet. Today I had to call in a gas emergency. The gas man came out and discovered two leaks, plus that the stove was not up to code.

To give a little background, this management company doesn't really "show" people apartments for rent. Instead, the management gives them keys and let them look by themselves, with a stipulation that they'd report something wrong, like a burned out bulb and such.

When I first saw the apartment, I noticed an odor that reminded me of gas. Now, I was immediately skeptical, because I thought this management company couldn't be sending people into enclosed, vacant apartments that are full of gas. But, I did report it on the day I turned in the credit check application, which was a Saturday. I reported it as a smell that was "like gas," but probably not. The regular manager for that apartment wasn't there. The woman I reported it to said that I should tell the manager on Monday. She added that they hadn't got done cleaning it and bringing it up to spec.

Good, I thought, they would find the source of that probably not-quite-gas smell, which I thought was probably the result of grime under the stove-top. I trusted, though, that it would be taken care of, that the woman I talked to would leave a message for the manager, or that the maintenance crew would go through and clean. Then I went on vacation.

I thought no one would rent out an apartment that had an obvious gas leak, and that was a grave, though not fatal mistake. Yesterday I could still detect the smell, though I didn't feel light headed or get a headache or anything like that. Besides, on the stove, the pilot lights were on. No way would there be free gas with that. Wrong again, using errors to support errors.

Last night, I probably would have felt the effects, except instead of staying there and cleaning, I got locked out when the lock jammed first time I locked it. So, I waited for the locksmith and didn't get to clean. Today, I had planned to clean that stove under the surface, and first I was going to shut off those pilots. I don't like pilots on stoves anyway, I was going to use a striker.

I opened the top, and the air conditioner blew the pilots out. I don't smoke. I wasn't planning on relighting them, so I didn't bring a striker yet. Instead, I tried to shut off the pilot valves with the tiny screwdriver I brought. If only I had brought some pliers, because the valves were frozen. I looked for a valve to shut off the gas to the stove, and that was frozen, too. Now I knew the place had gas escaping into it, there was nothing to do but get out and call a gas emergency and then call management and give them the short version of what had happened.  I set my card table up outside in the gangway, out in the heat, but it was very shady, if laden with mosquitoes. I sat on the stool I brought and it was that way that I met my neighbors.

The gas man came and I told him what happened with the pilot lights and he then he looks at the stove and tells me the pilot lights were out. I began to think he hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before, or something. Then he discovered that the line going to the stove was brass and not up to spec. He checked the furnace, detecting a gas leak there and also detected another one in the basement.  By then, the maintenance man arrived. Apparently, it's up to maintenance now to track down the exact location of the leak and replace the line running to the stove. Meanwhile, I can't use the stove.

However, this management company wasn't only sending prospective tenants into a life-threatening situation, but it was endangering the other four people living in the building, including an infant. The apartment manager is there on Tuesday or maybe Monday, I'm going to talk to her. Meanwhile, I'm going to do some research on tenants rights and other legal issues that could be involved.

Of course, I'm not naming this company here. Anything I do depends on what they do next.

Inauspicious new start

Signed the lease at 5, got the key, and immediately the lock jammed. I locked myself out after I emptied my pockets. I left my cellphone and wallet inside. I had the key, but it wouldn't operate the lock.

In a panic, I drove back to the management office. She said she would open it with the master key but she had to wait for a prospective tenant who was viewing another apartment in the neighborhood. So, I went back and waited for her, and in the meantime took some pictures of houses on the street, but more and more time passed and I got bored. I went back to the office hoping that I wouldn't miss her driving out to me. Remember, my cellphone was trapped in the apartment, along with my drivers' license.

When I got there, she told me they had called a locksmith and that he should be there in fifteen more minutes. I went back to wait. Fifteen minutes came and went. I began to wonder if I missed the locksmith as I drove to the office. Maybe he arrived early. I listened to the car radio. Then, I had to take a piss. With me, sometimes it hits suddenly and extremely. I didn't want the neighbor's first impression of me to be the guy who was caught urinating in public. However, I have to admit, I was scouting around.

Meanwhile, it's 6:30 p.m. and 101 degrees outside. It's good to know humankind has accidentally brought us Hell on earth. How have we offended the earth to cause that shit? In heat like this, even putting the key in the lock causes a flood of sweating.

Well, of course the locksmith arrived and he unfroze the lock immediately and moved the hasp. Then it worked as smooth as butter, or perhaps Astroglide.

It pretty much blew my plan for the evening, though, which was to clean it. With record heat, though, the window AC unit has to work extra hard to cool the place. I think I'll drop by early in the morning to activate it so it's cool later in the day when I come by to start cleaning.

I'm taking pictures of some of the houses around the neighborhood. I love the architecture here. It's the only place in town that reminds me of French Quarter, New Orleans, but there are differences that make it even better. (I'm not talking about the sex industry, or lack thereof, either way.) I'll post the pictures I have in a few days.

Happy heart, nervous, abused stomach

Sometimes when I'm nervous with anticipation, I don't eat wisely, in fact, I get eccentric. That happened yesterday, and my stomach is suffering today.

I changed my diet recently anyway. I've gone on a variant of the Adkins Diet. My Dad asked me why, and I said, "Because if you're a male over the age of fifty, your chances of developing heart disease are over ninety percent." He looked at me startled, like Mr. Three Heart Attacks, two stints and quadruple bypass thought I had nothing to worry about. Immediately he realized how weak his argument would be and let it drop.

 The attitude seems to be in my family, and actually in a lot of families, that one shouldn't show that much concern for one's health. There's a shame involved, or perhaps a concern for being thought a hypochondriac (and I've psychosomatic illnesses before). Or that diseases should be regarded as God's choice. That translates to mean "random and out of our control." Trust prayer for your health. What's left unsaid is, trust laziness for your health.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world. No, it's not exactly the result of the Western Diet, though the Western McDonald's diet might bring it on sooner. In physical terms, there's a major engineering/logistics challenge to providing trillions of cells with oxygen and nutrients. Probably the evolution of the circulatory system to solve it was the reason for the old "Cambrian explosion," where thousands of macroscopic animal species of novel variations suddenly evolved 530 million of years ago.

However, this means that the circulatory system is also the weak link in animal physiology. It's most important and most prone to catastrophic failure. Though cardiovascular disease is random, it's random like poker and not like roulette. You do have some control, some actions you can take to effect the outcome. Diet is known to be important. Controlling inflammation in the the blood vessels is also important. It's important not to eat things, like trans-fats or excessive sugar, that actually irritate the artery walls. Of course it's also important to control weight for many reasons. I won't even go into smoking and the ways it sabotages your circulatory system.

 The Adkins diet is almost all fruits and vegetables. You keep calories from fat to less than ten percent total calories consumed, and avoid poly-saturated and trans-fats. This makes it almost totally vegan, the only animal product you're allowed to eat are egg whites. It restricts you on grains. You could snack as much as you want on fruits and vegetables. However, the diet is designed specifically for people who have had heart attacks and need to reverse cardio-vascular disease. That doesn't include me, so, I'm not that restricted. I'll eat a serving of meat once every other day. I don't totally avoid dairy, and add the occasional egg yolk to my food. I don't avoid high fat vegetables like olives or avocados. Instead of less than ten percent of calories from fat, I'll go with twenty, especially when I snack of vegetables that have far less fat content than ten percent.

 With the move on my mind, where did this get me into trouble? By snacking on carrots, radishes, adding some pickled okra (high salt, I know) and olives to the mix. (Bean-O or anything with simethicone is a must with this diet anyway, otherwise you become a pariah.)

I chowed all this down at bed time and when I woke up, I knew my stomach had penciled in half my day for intimate time. The toilet has become my workbench for at least a few more hours.

 Except for that damn okra, I know my heart is joyful at least. Oh, what price love. .