I am tired.

Working for a living, even if it’s mindless dreck, is exhausting. I’m on my feet, walking around, at my job for about 6 hours a day. My boss likes me, so she’s been signing me up for as many hours as I can get (I need the money). PLUS, I’m on my feet for about an hour before and after due to travel by foot and by bus between home and work. AND I’m on my feet to walk to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and any other shop that I need to hit.

Not that I’m complaining about walking around per se. I actually love the exercise. Yes, I said love — because it does not suck, and I have to admit I really like it. I feel better, I look better, and I have a lot more stamina than I had before.

BUT

The side effect is, my feet are sore. I don’t have proper footwear for all this walking. My running shoes, originally purchased about 6 years ago for the purposes of occasional exercise, are about 1/2 size too small. And after almost 5 months of CONSTANT use, they’re literally falling apart now. I need new $150 sneakers and can’t afford them.

That’s at the core of the problem. While I don’t mind the walking, I don’t have the money to afford the comfort needed to  keep me healthy.

And being in pain is exhausting. Last night, I really needed to list things on ebay when I got home at 6:30pm, but I was so completely wiped out, after I fed the dogs and myself, I fell asleep. Yep, fell asleep. I awakened around 11:30 to let the dogs out, but then went back to bed.

You can’t get much done when all you do is walk, work, and sleep!

And then there’s the nutball nextdoor. You might remember me mentioning The Brainiacs — the crazy young couple who share the same hallway with me and complain that I make too much noise coming and going. Well, there’s a new bump on the ever growing rocky road we’re on. After several more incidents where the kid has screamed at me in the hallway for making noise, I finally had enough. I’ve tried everything within my power to soften hallway noise — from hanging things on the walls to oiling squeaky hinges, to walking barefoot and trying to carry the dogs down the stairs to reduce the noise I make and try to be a good neighbor while still maintaining my own rights to come and go as I please.

Mr. Brainiac — who is, in fact, nothing but a skinny 20-year old kid — is as unstable as an improperly made bomb. I have never had a moment where I felt he was acting “normal”. He looks like a meth head and he acts like he’s on crack. He complains about severe insomnia — saying that whenever I’m “clomping around” the hallway, I’m waking him up. He refuses to do anything about it himself — everything is my fault. The other night, when I was verbally attacked at 1am for waking him up (the dogs woke me up because they had to go out; I was no more happy about it than the kid was) — I asked the kid what specifically woke him up? What awful thing did I do that was so ridiculously loud? All I did as far as I know was open my door; at the point he yelled at me, I hadn’t even gone down the stairs yet. Turns out, that’s all it took — opening the door. Specificially, turning the lock was what woke the kid up. What?

Yep, he’s certifiable. I mean, it isn’t as if I haven’t tried. The fact is, the kid would complain if I dropped a pin out there.

So, fuck him. I had enough. I took a couple hours of my own insomnia to write out in detail every incident and set a time and date stamp to each one. Then, I called the landlord in the morning to complain about the kid, and to tell him that, at this point, I’m considering it harassment. The landlord agreed with my story, but added… the kid is NOT the “tenant of record”. Oh? Yeah, some OTHER guy is. This kid is the result of a sublet! Oh great. I have no idea how all this is handled now, but it certainly explains why the kid hasn’t called the landlord on ME yet. At any rate, the landlord assured me he would handle the situation, but I do not feel safe. What if this kid wants retribution? He certainly seems unstable to me.

So I called in my friend “google” and found out a few things about my new neighbors.

First, the kid is a convicted felon. Nice, huh? Yeah. This past spring, he was arrested and pled guilty to aggravated assault. He and a gang of friends chased and beat up some 17-year old kid; they subsequently dragged the kid to their apartment where they held him hostage and continued beating him. Why this kid is walking around out and about and not in jail is anybody’s guess, but the paper reports that the apartment building where all this occurred was shut down due to the number of violent incidents happening there; it was about that time he moved in here. Despite the fact that the landlord reportedly does not rent out to people with a criminal record. Yay.

As early as 2009, the kid was a fairly successful high school athlete in the cross-country running program. Fast forward two years later, he’s a high school dropout, living in an illegal sublet with his girlfriend, trying to get his GED, looking scrawny, sickly, and drawn with a serious attitude, insomnia, and anger management issues. Don’t even try to tell me he’s not on meth. Oh, lovely.

Second, the guy who supposedly sublet the apartment — the “tenant of record” — is also NOT a nice guy. He is a known child toucher and all around mentally unbalanced jerk — except, he’s somehow managed to skirt the law and get the child touching incidents reduced to non-child-touching violations. The last one occurred as early as this past year, reduced to second-degree harassment so he could walk among us without having to be on the sex abusers’ list. Nice, huh? Oh yeah. And it gets better.

A friend of mine, turns out, is a cousin of the “tenant of record” so she knows all about him. She told me that, under NO circumstances should I engage him in conversation. “Always be busy,” she said, and get away from him as fast as I can. He’s not right in the head and very unpredictable in his behavior. He’s in his 50′s, and he’s been doing this child-touching stuff for years. Particularly into young boys, this situation is exactly the “tenant of record”‘s MO. She told me he probably knows this Brainiac kid because he’s molested him before — or, most likely, traded sex acts for drugs. He’s into that too, or so my friend tells me.

Lovely, huh? Yeah. Goodie for me. How fun is this new neighborhood?

And consider, this is JUST what I know about the guy(s) in the next door apartment — not the tenants in the other six units in this building!! Good grief.

So anyway, that has me stressed to the gills. I carry a knife on my person at all times now, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. I don’t have a gun, but a knife can be just as effective if used right. I’m trained, but I’m way out of shape now; thus I may not be able to kill someone, but I can scare them pretty well on my way down to falling on the ground if I have to. I’ll at least cause some damage on my way down.

And that exhausts me too. Never able to relax, you know, always thinking “Did I lock the door?” and rightfully paranoid that I might come home some evening to find the kid waiting in the hallway to pounce on me. And I’m so worried about my dogs. What if this bonehead tries to do something to them?

That’s exhausting too.

In related news, we had our first real snowfall last night. It’s pretty, but it’s probably going to cause all kinds of headaches in the travel department. I’m told the bus schedule can go totally haywire in the winter. That is a HUGE problem for me since that’s my number one means of going to and from work.

This morning, I have to go to the grocery store to cash my meager paycheck and buy a few groceries before heading off to work. Of course, I’ll be walking there. With my steak knife in my pocket.

Wish me luck.

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