Today I am going to complain about the phrase "cut him some slack" in order to a) get a grievance out of my head so it doesn't trample all over another post I'm trying to write, and b) stop myself getting involved in an online argument I would surely regret getting involved in. You're welcome.
(Note: "he" in the following list refers to whatever guy I was dealing with at the time rather than this whole post being about one very weird man. Just for clarity's sake.)
Times when I have been asked to "cut a guy some slack" because he is a guy and doesn't know any better/that's just the way they are/was trying to be nice and that's what counts:
When he shouted at me to "smile" from across the street
When he made a nasty joke that upset me
When he ignored everything I was saying only to readily accept the exact same points when made in the exact same way by a man
When he DANCED HIS CROTCH INTO ME FOR FIVE STRAIGHT MINUTES ARGHHH
When he objected to me talking to a male colleague whilst at work
When he, as the head of the company I worked for, congratulated me on my weight loss and warned me not to get fat again
When he phoned for advice and asked to be put through to a man
When he told me it was completely reasonable to refuse to hire any woman of childbearing age
When he ran up to me on the street, smacked me on the ass hard enough to bruise, then ran away again
When he sent me sixty text messages in two days
When he complained that women as a gender had really gone downhill in the last twenty years
When he locked me in the car and screamed at me for an hour
When he explained to me that I didn't actually want the things I thought I wanted and in fact wanted these other things instead
When he tried to carry my shopping for me, which consisted of one birthday card in an A5 size carrier bag, and got very upset when I told him I could probably handle the weight myself
When he told me that women were all whores but that I was special
When he tried to follow me home
When he continued to call me by a nickname I hate after I specifically and repeatedly asked him not to
When he laughed for twenty minutes about how indecisive women are whilst trying to sell me a mobile phone
When he made creepy-ass remarks in my ear every time he danced with me
When he tried to teach me to do something I had a qualification in
When he refused to let me make the three-minute walk from the pub to my house by myself EVER IN FOUR YEARS
I have many more, but I'm going to end it there for everyone's sake.
I am nearly thirty years old, and I have had enough of being told that I should assume the best of intentions on the part of any man who annoys me or makes me uncomfortable. I've had enough of being told that I've misinterpreted a thing that happened to me by people who weren't even fucking there, or that I may not have misinterpreted it but that my feelings about it are still wrong. I've had enough of people prioritising the intentions of a man they often don't know at all above the judgement of a woman they do know. It's insulting, and it's especially insulting to have this framed as the position of reason and logic.
Also, look at that list. "Cut him some slack" has become completely fucking meaningless. People say it to me when I'm mildly annoyed in the exact same way as they say it when I'm genuinely scared or hurt. They say "cut him some slack" when I'm griping about a mild sexist stereotype and they say "cut him some slack" when I've sustained actual physical injury from the man in question. So now the phrase means nothing, and it annoys me that much more when applied to the gripe because I remember it being applied to the bruises.
So I say to you, no. I will not cut that man some slack. I made a judgement call. I had this experience and I decided that this man did a shitty thing, or that I don't want to date this man, or that I'm taking my business to a different company. I get to be annoyed or uncomfortable if that's how I'm feeling, and you don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong. I am allowed to not like any given man for whatever frivolous reason (and in turn, people are free to not like me if that's what my frivolous reason inspires in them). I am a grown-ass woman and I am pig sick of having my opinions and boundaries and judgement ignored or disrespected just in case I hurt some poor man's feelings slightly. That man might mean well, in some cases. I fully accept that. But his meaning well does not compel me to accept or enjoy his behaviour, to date him or dance with him or otherwise spend time with him, to knowingly put myself in a situation I know I'm going to hate. Why should I? He wouldn't. It's more important for me to trust myself than to be nice to you, and no, I'm not sorry about it. I'm going to stop twisting myself into knots trying to work out how to not offend anyone and cut myself some slack for a goddamn change.
Thursday, 4 December 2014
Monday, 24 November 2014
adventures in housing, part four
[previously in this series: spurious reasons for keeping a deposit, sleeping on floors and a possible Murder House]
At this point, I'd been homeless for nearly a month and I'd exhausted all my offers of longer-term crash space in London. I would spend one night in a cheap hotel, the next on a friend's sofa, the next on my dance teachers' floor, the next on the floor of someone I barely knew at all. At the weekend I decamped to my little brother's place (oh, the 23-year-old with his mortgage and his spare room and his parking space and his two bathrooms in a two-bedroom flat). I was carrying my massive suitcase into work and back on the tube during rush hour every day. I was gradually taking over more and more cabinets at work to lock away things I wasn't going to need that night and lighten my load slightly. Most mornings I would wake up with no idea where I'd be sleeping that night. Nobody was responding to my messages online. The potential flatmates I'd found disappeared. All my muscles hurt, sleep had long since stopped being restful, and any time someone made a well-meaning joke about my situation I almost burst into tears. I needed a break. Just a few nights where I didn't have to do this.
It occurred to me that I could check into a guest house for a few days. It would be cheaper than a hotel, I could still have a room to myself, and I could get a bit of rest. I found somewhere a little way out and booked myself in for the best part of a week.
I left my brother's place on Sunday afternoon, got the train back to London, went dancing (because priorities) and trekked out to the further reaches of East London to get to the guest house, which was labelled as such by an almost imperceptible sign next to the door. There was no doorbell. I knocked, and a few minutes later a woman answered.
"Hi," I said. "I'm booked in for four nights."
"Oh." She laughed. "I don't work here. I'm staying here. You need to phone this guy's mobile and he comes round and gives you the keys."
"Um. OK then."
"Yeah, I know. I don't understand it either."
I made the call, and a man showed up with the keys. He showed me where the bathroom was, gave me the WiFi password, and told me I was free to make use of the kitchen. He showed me my room, which was huge and warm and nicely decorated. The internet worked. I dropped everything in a heap on the floor, collapsed into bed and slept for ten hours straight.
The next morning, I was woken up by one of the other residents knocking on my door. "Hi," she said, "I'm really sorry about this, but these guys from the electric company have shown up and I can't hang around to deal with them, I'm really late as it is. Would you mind?"
"Sure," I said and came out of my room.
On the doorstep were two men, one of them holding a search warrant. I ordered the small alarm going off in the back of my mind to shut up, everything was fine, there was no way that everything wasn't fine.
"We have a warrant to come in and have a look at your meter," said the man with the warrant. "We cut the electric to this property due to non-payment of bills, and we have reason to believe that it's now being accessed illegally. This your place?"
"No, I'm just renting a room for a few nights."
He gave me the most sceptical look I've ever seen in my entire life. "Renting a room."
"It's a guest house."
"It's not licensed to be a guest house."
Oh, for fuck's sake. "I didn't check. I just booked a room on the internet."
"Hmmm."
I let the other man, the engineer, into the house to look at the meter, while I stood on the doorstep trying to convince the first guy I wasn't running a shady guest house that was at least three types of illegal and lying brazenly about it to his face. After offers to show multiple forms of ID, booking confirmations, the original online listing, and the contact information of the people who actually were running a shady operation, he decided to trust me. He took the phone numbers I offered and was about to make a call when the engineer came up out of the basement where the meter was. He looked ever so slightly shaken.
"Nothing we can do," he said to the first guy. "I am not touching that."
"What is it?"
"They've rigged it to get free electric like we thought, but the way they've done it... there's exposed wires everywhere, it looks like it might blow up any minute. I'm not touching it, it's not safe." He cast a glance at me.
"She doesn't live here," said the guy with the warrant.
"Get out," said the engineer. "I'm not kidding. That thing's a death trap."
As the engineer pulled out a phone to call his boss, the guy with the warrant took me to one side. "You need somewhere else to go. That guy's a qualified engineer, he's been doing the job ten years. If he won't touch it, it's dangerous. Legitimately this place might explode. You can't stay here, it's not safe."
Oh, for FUCK'S sake. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Find somewhere," he snapped.
They left, and I called the owners, wondering what on earth I could have done to invite this level of exhausting over-the-top stupidity into my life. "Hi, I'm renting a room from you at the moment. Um. The electric company showed up and said you're not a licensed guest house and you're accessing your electric illegally and that the house might explode."
"Oh," she said.
"So, obviously, I can't stay here."
"Why not?"
"Because the people who know about electricity said the house was going to explode?"
"Oh, that." She laughed. "No, it's fine."
"No, it's not fine. They said the house was going to explode!"
"No, it's fine."
"Look, I can't stay here. I've been told it's not safe."
"You can leave if you want to, but the place is fine, so you won't get a refund."
"You can't rent an exploding guest house!"
"It's not going to explode. No refunds."
I phoned the electric company.
"Hi. One of your engineers just came by the place I'm staying and said it was about to explode. Can I get that in writing so I can get a refund?"
"Uh... what?"
"Can you provide a written statement saying that this place is about to explode?"
"...I'm going to be honest, I've never been asked this question before. Can I get someone to call you back?"
I phoned my manager.
"Hi. So an engineer just showed up at the place I'm staying and said it might be about to explode and now I need to find somewhere else to live and am possibly having a mild panic attack."
I wish I could have seen his expression. I bet he would have beaten the guy with the warrant for Most Sceptical Look Ever on a Human Face. "So you're not coming in then."
"I would be of very little use, unless you need someone to sit under a desk and cry for five hours."
He sighed. "Fine."
I phoned my mother.
"Hi, Mum. This guest house is illegal and the engineer said it was going to explode and the people won't give me my money back and I don't know what to do."
"WHAT."
"What do I do?"
"YOU GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW WE WILL GET YOU A HOTEL BUT YOU NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO GET BLOWN UP."
"...okay."
My parents paid for two nights at a hotel, and my aching muscles gave me a talking-to. The chances of finding anywhere to stay in London within the next few days are slim to none, they told me, and you clearly, clearly cannot do this anymore. Stop it. My friends had been offering me their spare room for ages, but I'd kept turning it down because it was in Southend (and honestly, who lives in Southend? I know you're reading this, you're both ridiculous). I didn't want to have to commute into London every day, and I didn't want to be so far away from my social life, but I couldn't prioritise that anymore. The longer commute had to be better than lugging all of my things up and down escalators twice a day. A bed had to be better than a floor. Comfort and security had to be better than blindly hoping for somewhere to stay in zone 2. Staying with people I knew and liked and who probably weren't going to hate me after two weeks had to be worth leaving a few dances earlier than I'd have liked.
I took them up on their offer, and two days later my suitcase and I left London.
[in part five: the joys of commuting and a possible actual place to live]
At this point, I'd been homeless for nearly a month and I'd exhausted all my offers of longer-term crash space in London. I would spend one night in a cheap hotel, the next on a friend's sofa, the next on my dance teachers' floor, the next on the floor of someone I barely knew at all. At the weekend I decamped to my little brother's place (oh, the 23-year-old with his mortgage and his spare room and his parking space and his two bathrooms in a two-bedroom flat). I was carrying my massive suitcase into work and back on the tube during rush hour every day. I was gradually taking over more and more cabinets at work to lock away things I wasn't going to need that night and lighten my load slightly. Most mornings I would wake up with no idea where I'd be sleeping that night. Nobody was responding to my messages online. The potential flatmates I'd found disappeared. All my muscles hurt, sleep had long since stopped being restful, and any time someone made a well-meaning joke about my situation I almost burst into tears. I needed a break. Just a few nights where I didn't have to do this.
It occurred to me that I could check into a guest house for a few days. It would be cheaper than a hotel, I could still have a room to myself, and I could get a bit of rest. I found somewhere a little way out and booked myself in for the best part of a week.
I left my brother's place on Sunday afternoon, got the train back to London, went dancing (because priorities) and trekked out to the further reaches of East London to get to the guest house, which was labelled as such by an almost imperceptible sign next to the door. There was no doorbell. I knocked, and a few minutes later a woman answered.
"Hi," I said. "I'm booked in for four nights."
"Oh." She laughed. "I don't work here. I'm staying here. You need to phone this guy's mobile and he comes round and gives you the keys."
"Um. OK then."
"Yeah, I know. I don't understand it either."
I made the call, and a man showed up with the keys. He showed me where the bathroom was, gave me the WiFi password, and told me I was free to make use of the kitchen. He showed me my room, which was huge and warm and nicely decorated. The internet worked. I dropped everything in a heap on the floor, collapsed into bed and slept for ten hours straight.
The next morning, I was woken up by one of the other residents knocking on my door. "Hi," she said, "I'm really sorry about this, but these guys from the electric company have shown up and I can't hang around to deal with them, I'm really late as it is. Would you mind?"
"Sure," I said and came out of my room.
On the doorstep were two men, one of them holding a search warrant. I ordered the small alarm going off in the back of my mind to shut up, everything was fine, there was no way that everything wasn't fine.
"We have a warrant to come in and have a look at your meter," said the man with the warrant. "We cut the electric to this property due to non-payment of bills, and we have reason to believe that it's now being accessed illegally. This your place?"
"No, I'm just renting a room for a few nights."
He gave me the most sceptical look I've ever seen in my entire life. "Renting a room."
"It's a guest house."
"It's not licensed to be a guest house."
Oh, for fuck's sake. "I didn't check. I just booked a room on the internet."
"Hmmm."
I let the other man, the engineer, into the house to look at the meter, while I stood on the doorstep trying to convince the first guy I wasn't running a shady guest house that was at least three types of illegal and lying brazenly about it to his face. After offers to show multiple forms of ID, booking confirmations, the original online listing, and the contact information of the people who actually were running a shady operation, he decided to trust me. He took the phone numbers I offered and was about to make a call when the engineer came up out of the basement where the meter was. He looked ever so slightly shaken.
"Nothing we can do," he said to the first guy. "I am not touching that."
"What is it?"
"They've rigged it to get free electric like we thought, but the way they've done it... there's exposed wires everywhere, it looks like it might blow up any minute. I'm not touching it, it's not safe." He cast a glance at me.
"She doesn't live here," said the guy with the warrant.
"Get out," said the engineer. "I'm not kidding. That thing's a death trap."
As the engineer pulled out a phone to call his boss, the guy with the warrant took me to one side. "You need somewhere else to go. That guy's a qualified engineer, he's been doing the job ten years. If he won't touch it, it's dangerous. Legitimately this place might explode. You can't stay here, it's not safe."
Oh, for FUCK'S sake. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Find somewhere," he snapped.
They left, and I called the owners, wondering what on earth I could have done to invite this level of exhausting over-the-top stupidity into my life. "Hi, I'm renting a room from you at the moment. Um. The electric company showed up and said you're not a licensed guest house and you're accessing your electric illegally and that the house might explode."
"Oh," she said.
"So, obviously, I can't stay here."
"Why not?"
"Because the people who know about electricity said the house was going to explode?"
"Oh, that." She laughed. "No, it's fine."
"No, it's not fine. They said the house was going to explode!"
"No, it's fine."
"Look, I can't stay here. I've been told it's not safe."
"You can leave if you want to, but the place is fine, so you won't get a refund."
"You can't rent an exploding guest house!"
"It's not going to explode. No refunds."
I phoned the electric company.
"Hi. One of your engineers just came by the place I'm staying and said it was about to explode. Can I get that in writing so I can get a refund?"
"Uh... what?"
"Can you provide a written statement saying that this place is about to explode?"
"...I'm going to be honest, I've never been asked this question before. Can I get someone to call you back?"
I phoned my manager.
"Hi. So an engineer just showed up at the place I'm staying and said it might be about to explode and now I need to find somewhere else to live and am possibly having a mild panic attack."
I wish I could have seen his expression. I bet he would have beaten the guy with the warrant for Most Sceptical Look Ever on a Human Face. "So you're not coming in then."
"I would be of very little use, unless you need someone to sit under a desk and cry for five hours."
He sighed. "Fine."
I phoned my mother.
"Hi, Mum. This guest house is illegal and the engineer said it was going to explode and the people won't give me my money back and I don't know what to do."
"WHAT."
"What do I do?"
"YOU GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW WE WILL GET YOU A HOTEL BUT YOU NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO GET BLOWN UP."
"...okay."
My parents paid for two nights at a hotel, and my aching muscles gave me a talking-to. The chances of finding anywhere to stay in London within the next few days are slim to none, they told me, and you clearly, clearly cannot do this anymore. Stop it. My friends had been offering me their spare room for ages, but I'd kept turning it down because it was in Southend (and honestly, who lives in Southend? I know you're reading this, you're both ridiculous). I didn't want to have to commute into London every day, and I didn't want to be so far away from my social life, but I couldn't prioritise that anymore. The longer commute had to be better than lugging all of my things up and down escalators twice a day. A bed had to be better than a floor. Comfort and security had to be better than blindly hoping for somewhere to stay in zone 2. Staying with people I knew and liked and who probably weren't going to hate me after two weeks had to be worth leaving a few dances earlier than I'd have liked.
I took them up on their offer, and two days later my suitcase and I left London.
[in part five: the joys of commuting and a possible actual place to live]
Sunday, 23 November 2014
new
So NaNoWriMo didn't work. I'm not sure why. I got just about to my word count on the first day, skipped the second day, wrote 4,000 words on day three, and then got stuck. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say. I didn't have a character I felt connected to, I didn't have a plot point I wanted to get to, I didn't have a setting I wanted to describe, I didn't even have a snarky conversation that amused me enough to write down (I pretty much always have snarky conversations. Whatever else my story might be about, you can always count on snarky conversations at completely inappropriate moments). I gave up trying ages ago, but I wasn't going to come back here until November was over because blogging in November rather than writing a novel would be an admission of... something. I have no idea how my brain works. But I've decided to work on the basis that writing stuff gets me closer to being a writer than sitting around thinking about how I can't write a novel.
I've been thinking for a little while that I need something new to learn. I've stagnated. The things that were new to me aren't new anymore, they're just an accepted part of my life. Which is great, I love these things. But the highest points of my adult life have come when I'm discovering a passion I didn't know I had. It makes me happier, it makes me braver, it makes me friendlier, and because of that other good things start happening to me at the same time.
The first time this happened to me was with the camera. I'd hated cameras throughout my entire childhood and would run away and cry when I saw one. I got used to taking silly photos of my friends in the pub after I left school, but I couldn't understand why anyone would bother taking photos of things. It just seemed like a waste of film. (Yep, film.) I hung on to my crap film camera way after most people had switched to digital. I even tracked down another crap film camera after my original one broke, and that was not an easy thing to do in 2007. I'd taken maybe two rolls of film with it before I acknowledged that no, this really was a crap camera and all the photos looked terrible and maybe I should admit defeat and look into this digital nonsense.
I bought a digital camera and took it to the zoo. After about 20 minutes photographing seals and being increasingly thrilled and delighted with what was happening, I decided my new camera was the best thing ever and started carting it round with me everywhere. Everything was a photo opportunity and I loved it. I photographed everything in sight for about eight months, but I don't remember any photos I took until this one:
It's nothing much. But at the time, I genuinely thought this was the most impressive fucking thing I'd ever done in my life. It's not just a photo of a thing I saw, there's forethought and viewpoint and some measure of artistic fucking merit in that thing. I got myself a Flickr account for the express purpose of putting that picture on the internet, and though I've deleted a fair few of my older photos, that one is there for good. First photo on Flickr. It means something to me.
I started researching. For the next year or so, the internet was composed of three things: photography tutorials and advice; other people's photography; and diary sites where I could blither on about photography and how amazing it was. I quickly came up against the limits of my camera, which was on the fancy end of point-and-shoot, and when my parents offered me a graduation present I asked for a DSLR. My mother asked if I was sure I wouldn't prefer a piano (an instrument I'd had one lesson on and hadn't touched since), but they gave me what I asked for.
I got my D60 in June 2008 and it's probably still my favourite thing that I own. We still go on walkabouts together, and my photos get better as I sharpen my understanding of my camera and its relationship to the world. Over the last six and a half years, my D60 and I have taken photos of friends, of family, of fireworks, of woodlands, of weddings, christenings and graduations, of Rome and Venice and Prague and Cancun and Las Vegas and New York, of beaches and zoos and cemeteries and mountaintops and of me doing stupid things in any or all of these places. My love of photography is still one of the most important things in my life.
But it's not new anymore. I don't have the rush that I got when I first started learning photography (or dance, or practical employment law). Coming to a new skill with zero background knowledge means that literally everything there is to know about that thing is sitting there waiting and I try to take in as much of it at once because of course I do. Then once I have very basic knowledge I start discovering all the other interconnected spheres and I start studying fashion photography (or spending hours on end amassing an enormous collection of blues music, or reading all the unnecessary case law I can get my hands on). I don't have time for anxiety or to second-guess myself, because I need every spare brain cell to learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. But the point comes where I basically know how it works, and now I have to get good at it. And that doesn't feel like a world full of barely-tapped possibilities; it's a slog. An enjoyable slog, but still a slog. Progress slows down to the point where I can't see it for myself anymore, and I start to see my own intrinsic limitations - things which I could work on, but probably never get over to the degree I'd like. I have no intention of abandoning the things I've learned at the point where it gets difficult, but I miss the newness. And I feel that if anything's going to pull me out of a stagnant patch, it's the newness that'll do it.
So now I need something new, completely new, to learn. I'm taking suggestions.
I've been thinking for a little while that I need something new to learn. I've stagnated. The things that were new to me aren't new anymore, they're just an accepted part of my life. Which is great, I love these things. But the highest points of my adult life have come when I'm discovering a passion I didn't know I had. It makes me happier, it makes me braver, it makes me friendlier, and because of that other good things start happening to me at the same time.
The first time this happened to me was with the camera. I'd hated cameras throughout my entire childhood and would run away and cry when I saw one. I got used to taking silly photos of my friends in the pub after I left school, but I couldn't understand why anyone would bother taking photos of things. It just seemed like a waste of film. (Yep, film.) I hung on to my crap film camera way after most people had switched to digital. I even tracked down another crap film camera after my original one broke, and that was not an easy thing to do in 2007. I'd taken maybe two rolls of film with it before I acknowledged that no, this really was a crap camera and all the photos looked terrible and maybe I should admit defeat and look into this digital nonsense.
I bought a digital camera and took it to the zoo. After about 20 minutes photographing seals and being increasingly thrilled and delighted with what was happening, I decided my new camera was the best thing ever and started carting it round with me everywhere. Everything was a photo opportunity and I loved it. I photographed everything in sight for about eight months, but I don't remember any photos I took until this one:
It's nothing much. But at the time, I genuinely thought this was the most impressive fucking thing I'd ever done in my life. It's not just a photo of a thing I saw, there's forethought and viewpoint and some measure of artistic fucking merit in that thing. I got myself a Flickr account for the express purpose of putting that picture on the internet, and though I've deleted a fair few of my older photos, that one is there for good. First photo on Flickr. It means something to me.
I started researching. For the next year or so, the internet was composed of three things: photography tutorials and advice; other people's photography; and diary sites where I could blither on about photography and how amazing it was. I quickly came up against the limits of my camera, which was on the fancy end of point-and-shoot, and when my parents offered me a graduation present I asked for a DSLR. My mother asked if I was sure I wouldn't prefer a piano (an instrument I'd had one lesson on and hadn't touched since), but they gave me what I asked for.
I got my D60 in June 2008 and it's probably still my favourite thing that I own. We still go on walkabouts together, and my photos get better as I sharpen my understanding of my camera and its relationship to the world. Over the last six and a half years, my D60 and I have taken photos of friends, of family, of fireworks, of woodlands, of weddings, christenings and graduations, of Rome and Venice and Prague and Cancun and Las Vegas and New York, of beaches and zoos and cemeteries and mountaintops and of me doing stupid things in any or all of these places. My love of photography is still one of the most important things in my life.
But it's not new anymore. I don't have the rush that I got when I first started learning photography (or dance, or practical employment law). Coming to a new skill with zero background knowledge means that literally everything there is to know about that thing is sitting there waiting and I try to take in as much of it at once because of course I do. Then once I have very basic knowledge I start discovering all the other interconnected spheres and I start studying fashion photography (or spending hours on end amassing an enormous collection of blues music, or reading all the unnecessary case law I can get my hands on). I don't have time for anxiety or to second-guess myself, because I need every spare brain cell to learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. But the point comes where I basically know how it works, and now I have to get good at it. And that doesn't feel like a world full of barely-tapped possibilities; it's a slog. An enjoyable slog, but still a slog. Progress slows down to the point where I can't see it for myself anymore, and I start to see my own intrinsic limitations - things which I could work on, but probably never get over to the degree I'd like. I have no intention of abandoning the things I've learned at the point where it gets difficult, but I miss the newness. And I feel that if anything's going to pull me out of a stagnant patch, it's the newness that'll do it.
So now I need something new, completely new, to learn. I'm taking suggestions.
Monday, 20 October 2014
adventures in housing, part three
[Previously in the saga: unhinged landlord explains things, more Monologuing Through Doors, and finally moving out]
So then I was homeless.
After that one moment of doubt in the hotel on the first night, I never for a moment questioned whether I was right to move out of the House of Diluted Wine (there is a house in Pimlico, they caaaalll Diluted Wine, and it's been the ruin of many a young life, but God, it won't be mine...) (stupid rewritten song lyrics for every occasion, thank you very much). I didn't have a home, but I'd take that over a home with That Guy in it.
For the first few weeks, things weren't so bad. I stayed in some dancer friends' spare room for a week, then on another dancer friend's floor for two. It wasn't even close to ideal, but I knew where I'd be sleeping every night. I mostly coasted through on a sense of sheer amazement that I had people who'd take me in. Six months ago I'd had almost no support system in London at all, and now I was being offered spare beds and sofas and floors, sent likely-looking roommate ads that people had seen, and contacted by friends of friends who had been told that I would be an excellent person to fill their spare room. I'm not sure I'd have exchanged all that for secure housing.
There was still unfinished business with my newly ex-landlord. I'd sent him a message asking him to get in touch if there were any issues with the return of my deposit, and he had told me (in possibly the world's longest ever text message) that yes, there were issues with the return of my deposit, the issue being that he thought he should get to keep it. He gave me three reasons:
One, that I had given my month's notice at a time he found extremely inconvenient;
Two, that I hadn't bought enough loo roll and cleaning supplies;
Three, that I hadn't been cleaning to his satisfaction whilst I'd been living there.
These hardships, he thought, entitled him to keep nearly a thousand pounds of my money. I rather disagreed. I told him that none of those things were things you get compensation for, especially when you haven't at any point said, "hey, housemate, you're not buying enough loo roll", and that if these were his only issues then I expected all of my money back. We had a tedious and stressful back-and-forth where we fought, then he would say something nasty, then I would stop responding, then he would apologise. Eventually he suggested we "work something out that's fair to both of us", and I asked him to break down exactly what material losses he felt he had suffered and how much of my deposit he was proposing to keep for each of said losses, thinking that maybe it would be easier to negotiate with him if I could just get him to write the words "compensation for inconvenient timing of notice: £500" and read it back to himself a couple of times.
He didn't. A few days later, via email that radiated martyrdom, he told me that he'd returned my deposit in full, because it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. I gave him a forwarding address (my parents') for any mail, and never heard from him again.
It felt like one of my greatest triumphs. I'd got my money back, without having to involve any professionals, and I didn't have to deal with That Guy anymore. But I still had nowhere to live. I was running out of options that would give me a place to sleep for more than two nights and dancer goodwill was drying up rapidly.
I redoubled my efforts to find somewhere and went to a speed flatmating event. Everyone with a room going wanted over £1000 a month for it, but I found a couple of potential flatmates to team up with. We viewed one place, which was in Clapham but also somehow in the middle of a wood, had a pitch-dark stairwell, contained only severely water-damaged furnishings, but was, we were assured, completely safe because "anybody looking to start trouble usually goes to one of the other flats."
I checked into a hotel.
[in part four: exhaustion and the exploding guest house]
So then I was homeless.
After that one moment of doubt in the hotel on the first night, I never for a moment questioned whether I was right to move out of the House of Diluted Wine (there is a house in Pimlico, they caaaalll Diluted Wine, and it's been the ruin of many a young life, but God, it won't be mine...) (stupid rewritten song lyrics for every occasion, thank you very much). I didn't have a home, but I'd take that over a home with That Guy in it.
For the first few weeks, things weren't so bad. I stayed in some dancer friends' spare room for a week, then on another dancer friend's floor for two. It wasn't even close to ideal, but I knew where I'd be sleeping every night. I mostly coasted through on a sense of sheer amazement that I had people who'd take me in. Six months ago I'd had almost no support system in London at all, and now I was being offered spare beds and sofas and floors, sent likely-looking roommate ads that people had seen, and contacted by friends of friends who had been told that I would be an excellent person to fill their spare room. I'm not sure I'd have exchanged all that for secure housing.
There was still unfinished business with my newly ex-landlord. I'd sent him a message asking him to get in touch if there were any issues with the return of my deposit, and he had told me (in possibly the world's longest ever text message) that yes, there were issues with the return of my deposit, the issue being that he thought he should get to keep it. He gave me three reasons:
One, that I had given my month's notice at a time he found extremely inconvenient;
Two, that I hadn't bought enough loo roll and cleaning supplies;
Three, that I hadn't been cleaning to his satisfaction whilst I'd been living there.
These hardships, he thought, entitled him to keep nearly a thousand pounds of my money. I rather disagreed. I told him that none of those things were things you get compensation for, especially when you haven't at any point said, "hey, housemate, you're not buying enough loo roll", and that if these were his only issues then I expected all of my money back. We had a tedious and stressful back-and-forth where we fought, then he would say something nasty, then I would stop responding, then he would apologise. Eventually he suggested we "work something out that's fair to both of us", and I asked him to break down exactly what material losses he felt he had suffered and how much of my deposit he was proposing to keep for each of said losses, thinking that maybe it would be easier to negotiate with him if I could just get him to write the words "compensation for inconvenient timing of notice: £500" and read it back to himself a couple of times.
He didn't. A few days later, via email that radiated martyrdom, he told me that he'd returned my deposit in full, because it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. I gave him a forwarding address (my parents') for any mail, and never heard from him again.
It felt like one of my greatest triumphs. I'd got my money back, without having to involve any professionals, and I didn't have to deal with That Guy anymore. But I still had nowhere to live. I was running out of options that would give me a place to sleep for more than two nights and dancer goodwill was drying up rapidly.
I redoubled my efforts to find somewhere and went to a speed flatmating event. Everyone with a room going wanted over £1000 a month for it, but I found a couple of potential flatmates to team up with. We viewed one place, which was in Clapham but also somehow in the middle of a wood, had a pitch-dark stairwell, contained only severely water-damaged furnishings, but was, we were assured, completely safe because "anybody looking to start trouble usually goes to one of the other flats."
I checked into a hotel.
[in part four: exhaustion and the exploding guest house]
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
adventures in housing, part two
[Previously in this story: a break-up, a new landlord, diluted wine, and the first instance of Monologuing Through Doors]
I knew within the first week of moving to this place that it wasn't a long-term option, but I thought I could probably stick it out for six months. My post-break-up social life had taken off in a way I'd never expected, so I wasn't in very much and he didn't try to communicate with me that often, so I just wouldn't go in the communal areas and we could ignore each other until Christmas. I could handle that, I told myself.
Six weeks later, I told everyone else that I was handing in my notice at the end of the month. I had nowhere else lined up, but I didn't care. I couldn't hang on til Christmas, I couldn't hang on til I had another option secured. I had to get out and get out now, before I woke up to find him in my room, draining my blood into a recycling bin because he was worried about the mess I might make on his carpets if I ever happened to cut myself. I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't stand living with someone who panicked so hard whenever anything was out of place. I couldn't stand being spoken to like a fourteen-year-old girl who knew nothing about the world. I couldn't stand having him repeatedly condescend to me about my own areas of expertise. I couldn't stand having any more basic concepts or household items being explained to me in ridiculous detail.
"Now, I'll show you something that's really useful. These are excellent." [produces a roll of paper towels] "And all you do is tear off a sheet, like this - see? - and then you use it to wipe up any stain on the counter top..."
"Yes, I bought those."
Once he heard me singing and thought it was the radio. He argued with me for five straight minutes that I couldn't possibly have been singing, and finally walked away confused as to how he'd been unable to make me understand that I hadn't been making that noise. Every interaction I had with him was stressful, and I came to dread the mere sound of his voice or his footsteps, even his breathing.
When my fainting problem started to get worse, I was off sick and stuck in the flat more often than I'd like. My tolerance for the man reduced to essentially zero, and I tried harder than ever to keep out of his way. Once when I was off sick, he asked me what the matter was. I explained it - I faint, it's a long term problem, it's my blood pressure, it's a pain but there's not much that can be done about it.
He said, "Maybe it's epilepsy."
"No, it's not epilepsy. They know what it is."
"But if it was epilepsy," he said, "that would be great, because then you could be cured. Maybe you should test for epilepsy."
I struggled past the sheer volume of wrong in those two sentences and told him that no, it wasn't epilepsy, I'd seen specialists, the problem had been diagnosed, and I'd appreciate him not trying to diagnose me.
"Oh no," he said, "I'll still keep thinking of things, and coming to you with ideas." He gave me a satisfied smile. "I'm a journalist, you see."
DUDE. YOU FREELANCE FOR CANMAKERS MONTHLY.
"Yeah. Please don't," I said, and scuttled back to my room.
I sat around running through a list of excuses for moving out, trying to find the one that might cause the least amount of drama. I've lost my job. I'm emigrating. I'm dying. I've been accepted onto a reality show. I've converted to a niche religion which requires me to live in a commune. The one thing I really didn't want to have to do was tell him I was leaving because of him and have him explain to me why it was wrong of me to not be compatible with his personality.
In the end, I told him I was leaving because I couldn't afford to live there, and because I was ill. He suggested that both problems could be solved if I just stopped dancing, which is very much the wrong thing to suggest to me. He fought me on my decision to leave for a little while, and eventually I lied, appealed to his perception of me as an irresponsible child, and told him I was moving back home. From then on he stopped trying to convince me to stay, and communicated with me pretty much solely by Monologuing Through Doors from that point on, or by sending me text messages that said nothing except "PLEASE REPLY TO THIS TEXT MESSAGE." He would kick me out of the house whenever he was conducting a viewing no matter how sick I was and complain (Through Doors) about what terrible timing all of this was.
Finding somewhere else to live would be easy enough, I was sure. After all, there were hundreds of places last time. I just needed to find one that was slightly cheaper and preferably not owner-occupier and I'd be set. I fairly quickly discovered the actual truth about the London rental market: at any given time, there are approximately four habitable places for rent, and eighty-six thousand people applying for each one. Almost everything was extortionate, or infectious, or not in London at all. None of the semi-decent places I wrote to replied to me. None of my friends knew of anybody looking for a flatmate. My notice ran out and I still had nowhere to go and no leads at all.
I booked into a hotel for the night after moving day. My father came to help me move out, and to take most of my belongings back home. When he got out of the car I could see he was judging me; he thought I was being melodramatic and that I probably could have stuck this out a bit longer, at least until I'd found somewhere else to live. After all, the guy had seemed perfectly nice before. An hour or so later, Through Doors, he got to experience the landlord I'd been living with.
"Jen. I'm very concerned because I don't know when you'll be moving out."
"We'll be gone by 6.30 at the latest."
"Because I have other things to do and it's very difficult not to know when you'll be going."
"It'll be 6.30 at the latest."
"This whole thing has been very difficult for me, you know, with you giving notice and leaving when I'm having a very stressful time with my work and when I don't know when you're leaving - "
"Yeah. 6.30."
"Because I'm not able to plan the rest of my day, not knowing when you're - "
"I have said THREE. TIMES. We're leaving at 6.30."
"...oh. OK."
My dad, who asssesses everything and everybody on a scale of "not bad, actually" to "not quite the thing, really" looked at the door, then at me, then back at the door. "Yeah, he is a bit of a funny bugger, isn't he?"
As we drove away from the flat for the last time, he said, "Jesus Christ. No wonder his wife left him."
He dropped me off at my hotel with a suitcase and a laptop bag and left with everything else that I owned. I had a bed for the night, but no idea at all where I'd be going tomorrow. Maybe all the sensible people were right, and I should have stuck it out a bit longer. Maybe I should have waited until I knew I had somewhere else to go.
That night as I slept, my brain registered a clattering from the hotel kitchen and I sat bolt upright and shaking in the bed, terrified that I'd just dreamed the part where I moved out and I was actually still living in the flat. I looked down at the hotel bedsheets, at my suitcase on the floor, at my keycard on the table next to me, and fell into the most comfortable sleep I'd had in months.
No, they weren't right.
[in part three: dancers' floors and the fight for the deposit]
I knew within the first week of moving to this place that it wasn't a long-term option, but I thought I could probably stick it out for six months. My post-break-up social life had taken off in a way I'd never expected, so I wasn't in very much and he didn't try to communicate with me that often, so I just wouldn't go in the communal areas and we could ignore each other until Christmas. I could handle that, I told myself.
Six weeks later, I told everyone else that I was handing in my notice at the end of the month. I had nowhere else lined up, but I didn't care. I couldn't hang on til Christmas, I couldn't hang on til I had another option secured. I had to get out and get out now, before I woke up to find him in my room, draining my blood into a recycling bin because he was worried about the mess I might make on his carpets if I ever happened to cut myself. I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't stand living with someone who panicked so hard whenever anything was out of place. I couldn't stand being spoken to like a fourteen-year-old girl who knew nothing about the world. I couldn't stand having him repeatedly condescend to me about my own areas of expertise. I couldn't stand having any more basic concepts or household items being explained to me in ridiculous detail.
"Now, I'll show you something that's really useful. These are excellent." [produces a roll of paper towels] "And all you do is tear off a sheet, like this - see? - and then you use it to wipe up any stain on the counter top..."
"Yes, I bought those."
Once he heard me singing and thought it was the radio. He argued with me for five straight minutes that I couldn't possibly have been singing, and finally walked away confused as to how he'd been unable to make me understand that I hadn't been making that noise. Every interaction I had with him was stressful, and I came to dread the mere sound of his voice or his footsteps, even his breathing.
When my fainting problem started to get worse, I was off sick and stuck in the flat more often than I'd like. My tolerance for the man reduced to essentially zero, and I tried harder than ever to keep out of his way. Once when I was off sick, he asked me what the matter was. I explained it - I faint, it's a long term problem, it's my blood pressure, it's a pain but there's not much that can be done about it.
He said, "Maybe it's epilepsy."
"No, it's not epilepsy. They know what it is."
"But if it was epilepsy," he said, "that would be great, because then you could be cured. Maybe you should test for epilepsy."
I struggled past the sheer volume of wrong in those two sentences and told him that no, it wasn't epilepsy, I'd seen specialists, the problem had been diagnosed, and I'd appreciate him not trying to diagnose me.
"Oh no," he said, "I'll still keep thinking of things, and coming to you with ideas." He gave me a satisfied smile. "I'm a journalist, you see."
DUDE. YOU FREELANCE FOR CANMAKERS MONTHLY.
"Yeah. Please don't," I said, and scuttled back to my room.
I sat around running through a list of excuses for moving out, trying to find the one that might cause the least amount of drama. I've lost my job. I'm emigrating. I'm dying. I've been accepted onto a reality show. I've converted to a niche religion which requires me to live in a commune. The one thing I really didn't want to have to do was tell him I was leaving because of him and have him explain to me why it was wrong of me to not be compatible with his personality.
In the end, I told him I was leaving because I couldn't afford to live there, and because I was ill. He suggested that both problems could be solved if I just stopped dancing, which is very much the wrong thing to suggest to me. He fought me on my decision to leave for a little while, and eventually I lied, appealed to his perception of me as an irresponsible child, and told him I was moving back home. From then on he stopped trying to convince me to stay, and communicated with me pretty much solely by Monologuing Through Doors from that point on, or by sending me text messages that said nothing except "PLEASE REPLY TO THIS TEXT MESSAGE." He would kick me out of the house whenever he was conducting a viewing no matter how sick I was and complain (Through Doors) about what terrible timing all of this was.
Finding somewhere else to live would be easy enough, I was sure. After all, there were hundreds of places last time. I just needed to find one that was slightly cheaper and preferably not owner-occupier and I'd be set. I fairly quickly discovered the actual truth about the London rental market: at any given time, there are approximately four habitable places for rent, and eighty-six thousand people applying for each one. Almost everything was extortionate, or infectious, or not in London at all. None of the semi-decent places I wrote to replied to me. None of my friends knew of anybody looking for a flatmate. My notice ran out and I still had nowhere to go and no leads at all.
I booked into a hotel for the night after moving day. My father came to help me move out, and to take most of my belongings back home. When he got out of the car I could see he was judging me; he thought I was being melodramatic and that I probably could have stuck this out a bit longer, at least until I'd found somewhere else to live. After all, the guy had seemed perfectly nice before. An hour or so later, Through Doors, he got to experience the landlord I'd been living with.
"Jen. I'm very concerned because I don't know when you'll be moving out."
"We'll be gone by 6.30 at the latest."
"Because I have other things to do and it's very difficult not to know when you'll be going."
"It'll be 6.30 at the latest."
"This whole thing has been very difficult for me, you know, with you giving notice and leaving when I'm having a very stressful time with my work and when I don't know when you're leaving - "
"Yeah. 6.30."
"Because I'm not able to plan the rest of my day, not knowing when you're - "
"I have said THREE. TIMES. We're leaving at 6.30."
"...oh. OK."
My dad, who asssesses everything and everybody on a scale of "not bad, actually" to "not quite the thing, really" looked at the door, then at me, then back at the door. "Yeah, he is a bit of a funny bugger, isn't he?"
As we drove away from the flat for the last time, he said, "Jesus Christ. No wonder his wife left him."
He dropped me off at my hotel with a suitcase and a laptop bag and left with everything else that I owned. I had a bed for the night, but no idea at all where I'd be going tomorrow. Maybe all the sensible people were right, and I should have stuck it out a bit longer. Maybe I should have waited until I knew I had somewhere else to go.
That night as I slept, my brain registered a clattering from the hotel kitchen and I sat bolt upright and shaking in the bed, terrified that I'd just dreamed the part where I moved out and I was actually still living in the flat. I looked down at the hotel bedsheets, at my suitcase on the floor, at my keycard on the table next to me, and fell into the most comfortable sleep I'd had in months.
No, they weren't right.
[in part three: dancers' floors and the fight for the deposit]
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
adventures in housing, part one
[People have been suggesting for some time that I write about this, because it is completely ridiculous, so I'm having a go. This will be a saga in several parts. Everything in this story is true; names have been omitted for the sake of plausible deniability]
For my first two years in London, I lived with my partner. We had a slightly scruffy flat that I loved fiercely. I loved the chipped tiles on the front step. I loved the awkwardly positioned bathroom. I loved the garden we could never get anything to grow in. I loved the living room that could comfortably sleep my whole family, I loved the loo roll holder that fell off the wall literally any time anybody touched it, I loved the needlessly complicated back door, I loved the kitchen that just felt like mine. I loved the six-minute walk to the tube, I loved the Saturday farmer's market, I loved the cooked breakfasts at the café across the road. I loved our landlords, who rarely bothered us but would sort out any problems as soon as we asked (I miss them. Oh God, I miss them).
But living together got harder. We fought, and I hid, and he would ask me what the problem was and I would tell him and he would try to fix it by explaining to me why that thing wasn't actually a problem, and then we would fight and I would hide some more. When we split up he seemed surprised; like he hadn't seen it coming.
We had a big flat in zone 2 with a cellar and a garden, and I was the well-paid one (which is saying something). There was only one bedroom. Neither of us could keep it. We gave notice to our regretful but understanding landlords, and lived in a state of incredibly confused normalcy for a month, where it took two weeks for us to realise we shouldn't be sharing a bed anymore, because we'd been lying next to each other and not touching for six months already. I set up an ad and started looking for a room.
I was spoilt by that first flat hunt. Everywhere I viewed was at least decent. Everyone I met seemed nice. There must have been an unusual shortage of people looking for rooms that month, because I got dozens of messages every week from people wanting me to come and live with them (spoilers: you will not be reading that again). I found somewhere without too much hassle: not the prettiest but incredibly well-located, with two guys: the landlord, who seemed perfectly nice and easy-going, and another man who was in London maybe three nights a month at most. It seemed fine.
I had my first clue that things weren't fine on my first night there. He suggested we have dinner together, and offered me a glass of wine. When I accepted, he poured half an inch of wine into two tumblers and walked over to the sink.
"Do you want yours diluted?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Do you want your wine diluted?"
"Diluted? ...no thanks."
"Oh. I'm having mine diluted. It's how the Romans drank it."
"No thanks."
So he handed me the glass with half an inch of liquid in it and sipped, slightly defensively, at his strange alcoholic squash drink. I knew that a man who a) dilutes his wine and b) is quite comfortable giving someone half an inch of drink to show his disapproval of her excessive ways was not likely to be a soulmate of mine. (He then told me that he'd "observed that some of our greatest literature... is about change" and I think I deserve some kind of award for not telling him that yes, essentially, that is what a plot is.)
He told me he worked in PR. My next clue that this was not my forever home came during my first week in the flat, when he went out to a launch of some unspecified thing and returned with tales of free alcohol and a really interesting bar. "I've been telling everyone all night, 'My flatmate's a novelist'," he told me, with the air of a fully satisfied man. "I think that bar would be a great place for your book launch. I know exactly how I'm going to organise it."
I am a novelist, in the sense that there are half a dozen or so first draft novels sitting on my hard drive. I am not a novelist in the sense of having published anything, or having anything about to be published, or having an agent, or having sent anything off to anybody ever. I am certainly not a novelist in the sense of appointing a PR guy to do my launch party. It was a small incident, and not really enough to point to any conclusions - either that he liked to bullshit, and might have been doing so during the viewing, or he really thought this was reasonable, and maybe his grip on reality wasn't quite what it could be - and so I let it go. By the time I noticed that he hadn't left the house for anything besides food shopping in the month since that launch, and was possibly both bullshitting and delusional, other signs had begun to pop up all over the place.
It had become clear pretty quickly that he didn't want anyone, least of all me, in his house. He was used to the other guy paying him silly money for a barely-used room, and every time he saw me in the kitchen in the morning it was an unpleasant surprise. He wanted to talk about the things he'd heard on the radio or seen on the internet, but he couldn't bring himself to have a conversation about them. He regarded me as though I was a friend's teenage daughter that he'd taken in as a favour, and couldn't comprehend that I'd have anything to contribute to anything.
Once I came home late, had a pizza, and left the box on the table. The next morning I came into the kitchen to find him staring at it with an expression of sheer despair on his face.
"You left this on the table," he said.
"I came in late. I was going to - "
"You see," he said desperately, "it's best - it really is best - if you fold it up immediately and put it in the recycling. It's best to do it immediately. You see, if you fold it up like this - " as he demonstrated exactly how best to fold up a cardboard box " - and put it away in the recycling immediately, that really is best, if that's OK. Is that OK? Because it really is best - "
"I have to get to work."
We repeated this any time I left evidence of my existence out. If I left a cup in the living room, if there was a fingernail-sized blob of tomato sauce next to the stove, if I had a shower and prioritised drying myself above giving the bathroom an immediate and thorough clean. Because I'd just come out of the shower, was lacking in clothes and therefore keeping my bedroom door shut, he developed one of his weirder habits, Monologuing Through Doors.
"Ah, hah, Jen, you are going to clean the bath, aren't you?"
"Yes, when I'm dry."
"Because it's a mess, you know, it's a mess. I can see - there's shampoo - I can see a blob of shampoo in the bath. And I know - I know it's you, because you're the only one in the house with any hair..."
"I'll clean the bath when I've dried my hair."
"Because I can see it, you know, the shampoo, and I don't mind cleaning the bath, I don't mind it, but I think really if you could clean the bath when you've used it, if we could all clean the bath when we've used it, I think we - we should all clean the bath... there's shampoo."
"When. I'm. Dry."
"Shampoo... in the bath."
"I'm turning my hairdryer on now."
"...shampoo..."
[in part two: "if you had epilepsy, they could cure it", and how to leave your scary shut-in landlord]
For my first two years in London, I lived with my partner. We had a slightly scruffy flat that I loved fiercely. I loved the chipped tiles on the front step. I loved the awkwardly positioned bathroom. I loved the garden we could never get anything to grow in. I loved the living room that could comfortably sleep my whole family, I loved the loo roll holder that fell off the wall literally any time anybody touched it, I loved the needlessly complicated back door, I loved the kitchen that just felt like mine. I loved the six-minute walk to the tube, I loved the Saturday farmer's market, I loved the cooked breakfasts at the café across the road. I loved our landlords, who rarely bothered us but would sort out any problems as soon as we asked (I miss them. Oh God, I miss them).
But living together got harder. We fought, and I hid, and he would ask me what the problem was and I would tell him and he would try to fix it by explaining to me why that thing wasn't actually a problem, and then we would fight and I would hide some more. When we split up he seemed surprised; like he hadn't seen it coming.
We had a big flat in zone 2 with a cellar and a garden, and I was the well-paid one (which is saying something). There was only one bedroom. Neither of us could keep it. We gave notice to our regretful but understanding landlords, and lived in a state of incredibly confused normalcy for a month, where it took two weeks for us to realise we shouldn't be sharing a bed anymore, because we'd been lying next to each other and not touching for six months already. I set up an ad and started looking for a room.
I was spoilt by that first flat hunt. Everywhere I viewed was at least decent. Everyone I met seemed nice. There must have been an unusual shortage of people looking for rooms that month, because I got dozens of messages every week from people wanting me to come and live with them (spoilers: you will not be reading that again). I found somewhere without too much hassle: not the prettiest but incredibly well-located, with two guys: the landlord, who seemed perfectly nice and easy-going, and another man who was in London maybe three nights a month at most. It seemed fine.
I had my first clue that things weren't fine on my first night there. He suggested we have dinner together, and offered me a glass of wine. When I accepted, he poured half an inch of wine into two tumblers and walked over to the sink.
"Do you want yours diluted?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Do you want your wine diluted?"
"Diluted? ...no thanks."
"Oh. I'm having mine diluted. It's how the Romans drank it."
"No thanks."
So he handed me the glass with half an inch of liquid in it and sipped, slightly defensively, at his strange alcoholic squash drink. I knew that a man who a) dilutes his wine and b) is quite comfortable giving someone half an inch of drink to show his disapproval of her excessive ways was not likely to be a soulmate of mine. (He then told me that he'd "observed that some of our greatest literature... is about change" and I think I deserve some kind of award for not telling him that yes, essentially, that is what a plot is.)
He told me he worked in PR. My next clue that this was not my forever home came during my first week in the flat, when he went out to a launch of some unspecified thing and returned with tales of free alcohol and a really interesting bar. "I've been telling everyone all night, 'My flatmate's a novelist'," he told me, with the air of a fully satisfied man. "I think that bar would be a great place for your book launch. I know exactly how I'm going to organise it."
I am a novelist, in the sense that there are half a dozen or so first draft novels sitting on my hard drive. I am not a novelist in the sense of having published anything, or having anything about to be published, or having an agent, or having sent anything off to anybody ever. I am certainly not a novelist in the sense of appointing a PR guy to do my launch party. It was a small incident, and not really enough to point to any conclusions - either that he liked to bullshit, and might have been doing so during the viewing, or he really thought this was reasonable, and maybe his grip on reality wasn't quite what it could be - and so I let it go. By the time I noticed that he hadn't left the house for anything besides food shopping in the month since that launch, and was possibly both bullshitting and delusional, other signs had begun to pop up all over the place.
It had become clear pretty quickly that he didn't want anyone, least of all me, in his house. He was used to the other guy paying him silly money for a barely-used room, and every time he saw me in the kitchen in the morning it was an unpleasant surprise. He wanted to talk about the things he'd heard on the radio or seen on the internet, but he couldn't bring himself to have a conversation about them. He regarded me as though I was a friend's teenage daughter that he'd taken in as a favour, and couldn't comprehend that I'd have anything to contribute to anything.
Once I came home late, had a pizza, and left the box on the table. The next morning I came into the kitchen to find him staring at it with an expression of sheer despair on his face.
"You left this on the table," he said.
"I came in late. I was going to - "
"You see," he said desperately, "it's best - it really is best - if you fold it up immediately and put it in the recycling. It's best to do it immediately. You see, if you fold it up like this - " as he demonstrated exactly how best to fold up a cardboard box " - and put it away in the recycling immediately, that really is best, if that's OK. Is that OK? Because it really is best - "
"I have to get to work."
We repeated this any time I left evidence of my existence out. If I left a cup in the living room, if there was a fingernail-sized blob of tomato sauce next to the stove, if I had a shower and prioritised drying myself above giving the bathroom an immediate and thorough clean. Because I'd just come out of the shower, was lacking in clothes and therefore keeping my bedroom door shut, he developed one of his weirder habits, Monologuing Through Doors.
"Ah, hah, Jen, you are going to clean the bath, aren't you?"
"Yes, when I'm dry."
"Because it's a mess, you know, it's a mess. I can see - there's shampoo - I can see a blob of shampoo in the bath. And I know - I know it's you, because you're the only one in the house with any hair..."
"I'll clean the bath when I've dried my hair."
"Because I can see it, you know, the shampoo, and I don't mind cleaning the bath, I don't mind it, but I think really if you could clean the bath when you've used it, if we could all clean the bath when we've used it, I think we - we should all clean the bath... there's shampoo."
"When. I'm. Dry."
"Shampoo... in the bath."
"I'm turning my hairdryer on now."
"...shampoo..."
[in part two: "if you had epilepsy, they could cure it", and how to leave your scary shut-in landlord]
Friday, 3 October 2014
call centre
Caller: [explains problem]
Worker: That's not something we deal with here, you'll need to speak to [relevant people].
Caller: But I phoned YOU.
Caller: [explains problem] I'm thinking I might sue. Should I sue?
Worker: Well, that would be your decision to make.
Caller: So I should sue! Would I win?
Worker: There's no way for me to know that.
Caller: Fantastic! [away from phone] Honey, she says we should sue!
Worker: I didn't say that.
Caller: It's so great that you said that.
Caller: Don't tell anyone I said this. I don't want it attached to my name.
Worker: That's OK, you haven't given me your name.
Caller: YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT I KNOW YOU
Caller: Last time I called I spoke to Trevor. Can I speak to Trevor this time?
Worker: I'm afraid we're not set up to direct people to specific advisors.
Caller: [pouts audibly] I liked Trevor.
Worker: I'm sure I'll be able to help you.
Caller: Is Trevor there?
Worker: Not in this office.
Caller: Fine. I'll keep trying until I get Trevor.
Worker: OK, so you have four options here. [explains options]
Caller: So you're saying there's nothing I can do about this?
Worker: Well, there are the four options...
Caller: So, nothing, then.
Caller: Thank you so much for your help, Jezebel.
Worker. My name's Jane.
Caller: Yep! Bye, Jezebel!
Worker: So that's all you need to do, and you'll be set.
Caller: Why can't you do it?
Worker: ...
Caller: I phoned you for HELP.
Caller: So I called before, and you guys told me to use a filter to get rid of my junk mail, and I got drunk and punched a guy in the pub, and now everything's got worse. I'd like to complain about your service.
Worker: [call centre], may I help you?
Caller: Trevor?
Worker: ... no, this is -
Caller: [hangs up]
Worker: That's not something we deal with here, you'll need to speak to [relevant people].
Caller: But I phoned YOU.
Caller: [explains problem] I'm thinking I might sue. Should I sue?
Worker: Well, that would be your decision to make.
Caller: So I should sue! Would I win?
Worker: There's no way for me to know that.
Caller: Fantastic! [away from phone] Honey, she says we should sue!
Worker: I didn't say that.
Caller: It's so great that you said that.
Caller: Don't tell anyone I said this. I don't want it attached to my name.
Worker: That's OK, you haven't given me your name.
Caller: YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT I KNOW YOU
Caller: Last time I called I spoke to Trevor. Can I speak to Trevor this time?
Worker: I'm afraid we're not set up to direct people to specific advisors.
Caller: [pouts audibly] I liked Trevor.
Worker: I'm sure I'll be able to help you.
Caller: Is Trevor there?
Worker: Not in this office.
Caller: Fine. I'll keep trying until I get Trevor.
Worker: OK, so you have four options here. [explains options]
Caller: So you're saying there's nothing I can do about this?
Worker: Well, there are the four options...
Caller: So, nothing, then.
Caller: Thank you so much for your help, Jezebel.
Worker. My name's Jane.
Caller: Yep! Bye, Jezebel!
Worker: So that's all you need to do, and you'll be set.
Caller: Why can't you do it?
Worker: ...
Caller: I phoned you for HELP.
Caller: So I called before, and you guys told me to use a filter to get rid of my junk mail, and I got drunk and punched a guy in the pub, and now everything's got worse. I'd like to complain about your service.
Worker: [call centre], may I help you?
Caller: Trevor?
Worker: ... no, this is -
Caller: [hangs up]
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