onlysweetpea
Bluelighter
I am absolutely amazed at how itchy my fucking foot is.
My roommate’s damn cats have fleas and I’m covered in red welts, left to stumble around the city scratching uncontrollably, ready to set myself aflame to end this consistent torture. It’s embarrassing, really.
I’m at a very sad point in my relationship with my roommate. Not that I’m ready to divorce her because of her cat fleas, but because I woke up one morning and realized she didn’t love me.
Our relationship spans my existence in San Francisco. I moved into a small house, across the street from Alamo Square Park, smack dab in the middle of the city, basically. The house consisted of 4 bedrooms, 6 unruly roommates (ages spanning 19-32), 3 cats (2 owned, 1 feral) and entirely too much mold. It was the Un-Real-World House, a mishmosh of complete strangers trying to figure out what died in the fridge crisper or who bought toilet paper last. As most of these things go, I stuck to one roommate who I had the most in common with. Carleen. We’d escape the house, we’d drink to forget that godawful basement stank, we’d discuss the dysfunction of everyone in the house and cherish those moments alone in the house, when everything was quiet and not so raunchy. And we’d talk. We’d talk and we’d eat. We’d eat and sometimes we’d consume things like ice cream, copious amounts of Chinese Food, drugs, tequila and the like. It was the closest I’d ever come to true love. Someone who loved food as much as I did. Someone whose tolerance for alcohol was as low as mine. Someone who agreed, for the most part, with everything I said.
We eventually moved out on our own and got our own place where the mold didn’t make itself home and that smelled more like real air than basketball shoe. Our house, it was a very very fine house, with two cats in the…er…yard…ok, so there is no yard, but there was Golden Gate Park, the gentrified shopping on Haight St. and a real grocery store only one block away. I suddenly wasn’t afraid to bring dates home. I no longer had to worry that my roommates could hear me having sex (because my bed was a hand-me-down and tended to fart during the act of love or some vigorous masturbating). I no longer had to listen to THEM have sex. I no longer had DnB pounding through the wall of my bedroom because the roommate that was a DJ was soooo cool, like you know? (argh)
It was Carleen, the cats and I. We had dinner parties with friends, all adult like, with real plates and silverware. We owned an actual paper towel holder and a fruit bowl. Ahh, the sure signs of evolution…
It’s been almost a year and I am no longer sure when he disillusionment came, but…
I woke up one day and realized…she doesn’t love me, and who knows if she ever did. It’s that rift in the conversation. It’s that not-so-comfortable silence when we’re both in the house and the television isn’t on, and she came home from work, saw me, and didn’t say hello, so I didn’t say hello, so we sit, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, not saying a word. It’s that “Hi, I’m saying I’d like to go to that thing you’re going to tomorrow” and her not inviting me along.
One day, I woke up and felt like I was 10 years old again. I felt like 10, where your best friend, for no reason, stopped talking to you. You later discover that, without your previous knowledge, some grade school hierarchy promoted them to ‘COOL’ status and left you in ‘FREAKS n’ GEEKS’ and they were no longer allowed to associate with you…
And you know if you asked them what happened, they’d just say something lame like, “That’s the way things go.” or “People Change” or “ Screw off, nerd!”
She goes out without me now. There was a group of us that used to hang, and these days I hear of outings second hand, and for no good reason, am no longer in the inner circle. I retrace my footsteps, I wonder what heinous act I must have committed…where did it all go wrong?
And before I know it, I’m sitting at home, alone, watching the Discovery channel wielding a bottle of Calamine lotion feeling sorry for myself and for a brief moment I contemplate crying. This is no way to live your life.
I’m getting a divorce. I guess it’s the only way to save yourself, cut your arm off to save yourself from gangrene and such. I’m divorcing her and not saying anything because ultimately, I know she’d say something like “These things happen.” or “People change.” or “Screw off, nerd!” You’d think living through this in childhood, I’d have remembered or retained information on how I made my way through it and survived with minimal scarring. Not to be, though. I’ve blocked those painful pre-teen years for a reason.
I’m in my mid-20s, I have a stable job, an active love life, a good notion of wrong and right…and I’ve yet to understand how you lose people you don’t really want to lose along the way. Maybe they want to be lost. Maybe...
With all this said, if anyone asks me why it ended, I’ll tell them it was the fleas. Seems a lot easier to explain.
My roommate’s damn cats have fleas and I’m covered in red welts, left to stumble around the city scratching uncontrollably, ready to set myself aflame to end this consistent torture. It’s embarrassing, really.
I’m at a very sad point in my relationship with my roommate. Not that I’m ready to divorce her because of her cat fleas, but because I woke up one morning and realized she didn’t love me.
Our relationship spans my existence in San Francisco. I moved into a small house, across the street from Alamo Square Park, smack dab in the middle of the city, basically. The house consisted of 4 bedrooms, 6 unruly roommates (ages spanning 19-32), 3 cats (2 owned, 1 feral) and entirely too much mold. It was the Un-Real-World House, a mishmosh of complete strangers trying to figure out what died in the fridge crisper or who bought toilet paper last. As most of these things go, I stuck to one roommate who I had the most in common with. Carleen. We’d escape the house, we’d drink to forget that godawful basement stank, we’d discuss the dysfunction of everyone in the house and cherish those moments alone in the house, when everything was quiet and not so raunchy. And we’d talk. We’d talk and we’d eat. We’d eat and sometimes we’d consume things like ice cream, copious amounts of Chinese Food, drugs, tequila and the like. It was the closest I’d ever come to true love. Someone who loved food as much as I did. Someone whose tolerance for alcohol was as low as mine. Someone who agreed, for the most part, with everything I said.
We eventually moved out on our own and got our own place where the mold didn’t make itself home and that smelled more like real air than basketball shoe. Our house, it was a very very fine house, with two cats in the…er…yard…ok, so there is no yard, but there was Golden Gate Park, the gentrified shopping on Haight St. and a real grocery store only one block away. I suddenly wasn’t afraid to bring dates home. I no longer had to worry that my roommates could hear me having sex (because my bed was a hand-me-down and tended to fart during the act of love or some vigorous masturbating). I no longer had to listen to THEM have sex. I no longer had DnB pounding through the wall of my bedroom because the roommate that was a DJ was soooo cool, like you know? (argh)
It was Carleen, the cats and I. We had dinner parties with friends, all adult like, with real plates and silverware. We owned an actual paper towel holder and a fruit bowl. Ahh, the sure signs of evolution…
It’s been almost a year and I am no longer sure when he disillusionment came, but…
I woke up one day and realized…she doesn’t love me, and who knows if she ever did. It’s that rift in the conversation. It’s that not-so-comfortable silence when we’re both in the house and the television isn’t on, and she came home from work, saw me, and didn’t say hello, so I didn’t say hello, so we sit, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, not saying a word. It’s that “Hi, I’m saying I’d like to go to that thing you’re going to tomorrow” and her not inviting me along.
One day, I woke up and felt like I was 10 years old again. I felt like 10, where your best friend, for no reason, stopped talking to you. You later discover that, without your previous knowledge, some grade school hierarchy promoted them to ‘COOL’ status and left you in ‘FREAKS n’ GEEKS’ and they were no longer allowed to associate with you…
And you know if you asked them what happened, they’d just say something lame like, “That’s the way things go.” or “People Change” or “ Screw off, nerd!”
She goes out without me now. There was a group of us that used to hang, and these days I hear of outings second hand, and for no good reason, am no longer in the inner circle. I retrace my footsteps, I wonder what heinous act I must have committed…where did it all go wrong?
And before I know it, I’m sitting at home, alone, watching the Discovery channel wielding a bottle of Calamine lotion feeling sorry for myself and for a brief moment I contemplate crying. This is no way to live your life.
I’m getting a divorce. I guess it’s the only way to save yourself, cut your arm off to save yourself from gangrene and such. I’m divorcing her and not saying anything because ultimately, I know she’d say something like “These things happen.” or “People change.” or “Screw off, nerd!” You’d think living through this in childhood, I’d have remembered or retained information on how I made my way through it and survived with minimal scarring. Not to be, though. I’ve blocked those painful pre-teen years for a reason.
I’m in my mid-20s, I have a stable job, an active love life, a good notion of wrong and right…and I’ve yet to understand how you lose people you don’t really want to lose along the way. Maybe they want to be lost. Maybe...
With all this said, if anyone asks me why it ended, I’ll tell them it was the fleas. Seems a lot easier to explain.
