HOUSEMATES

I cannot believe that I thought nobody was reading this, and now I'm getting *whined* at for not posting for a couple of days.

To tell you the truth, nothing all that exciting has happened. Or, well, that's not strictly accurate, but nothing has happened that really sounds interesting to anyone else.

For example, last night I went over to Matthew's place, and we listened to/watched Elvis Costello stuff that he'd recorded for me, and I had the most lovely evening I've had in a long time, which is saying a lot, since I've just had some very nice days and evenings. So although that was very happy and terribly exciting for me, there's not really much to say about it to anyone else.

In case I haven't mentioned it today, Matthew confuses me.

Mostly my life lately has revolved around my housemate's idiocyncracies. The main thing is that he has fits if you touch anything, especially if you touch anything without having been given lengthy instruction in how to touch it properly. So the TV in the living room, and stereo, and all of that sort of thing are strictly off limits. You get the idea.

I try to stay out of his way as much as possible for reasons I won't go into here, but if you really want to know, email me and I'll tell you about them.

Anyway, so I stay in my room until he is gone for the day, which is usually about 9:30 am. He thinks I'm asleep all that time, so I have to be very quiet. If I make noise, he knows I'm awake and will want to talk to me. On weekends and other days off, I wait for him to be finished in the bathroom, and then I emerge and take my turn.

The problem with this is that on weekends he likes to fill the bathtub with hot water at about 9:00, and then just leaves it there until almost noon. So waiting until he is finished in the bathroom can be an all-day affair.

The other thing is that he leaves laundry in the washer and/or dryer at all times. So when I need to do laundry, I have to wait until he is out of the house, then sneak his stuff out, wash my clothes, and sneak his stuff back in so that he doesn't find out I've done it. Weird, I know, but bizarrely necessary. It has to do with his whole "touching" thing, and about the fact that he doesn't like doing anything that he wouldn't have to do if he didn't live alone, you know, like removing laundry.

And there's this thing with the milk--I used some of his milk one day for tea, and bought a new container later in the day, and let him know that I'd used it. So now when he goes to the store, he wants me to pay for half of the milk. He uses a lot of it, and I don't use any, so this is becoming quite an expense. I mean, he drinks/eats (cereal) about a quart a day, and if I use any at all, which is rare because I've tried to stay away from tea, then it's just a few tablespoons.

The latest is that the band he is in is in the middle of a huge falling-out. What makes this difficult for me is that my best friend here in the UK is probably Sarah, who is the wife of the band's guitarist. She and her husband, Martin, are two of the best people in the whole world--they're the sorts that you could call from the airport at 4 am, and they'd come and pick you up. They have done lots of things for me, like taking me out when they knew I was feeling stressed out or depressed. And they've never once treated me like, "get over it, already."

Anyway, so the band in question is a soul-jazz band. A little poppy but very much on the jazz side. Martin's style is very laid-back, and the same can be said for the bassist. Peter, my housemate, likes to get out there and "rock and roll," which involves a lot of jumping about and shouting, and it honestly affects his playing.

The drummer is new every week, so his opinion doesn't really enter into this. They are constantly trying to find a decent one.

At any rate, they've been having this stylistic argument *constantly* for most of the time I've been here, and pretty much every time I go back to the house, especially for the week after a gig, Peter asks me if I agree with Martin/the bassist, and I try really really really hard not to get involved.

There is no way I'm going to take sides in an argument between my housemate and my closest friend's husband.

Anyway, it's tiresome. Peter took extra days off this last week, which meant that I had to deal with more of the bathtub nonsense, and then he had friends come over several times, and all they did was kvetch about the band. Grr.

I can't remember if I related this story here or not, but a couple of weeks ago, I was sick, and I got up at 4 am and used the bathroom. Very quietly, you know, because when someone's asleep, one does try to be considerate. Anyway, evidently the flushing toilet woke Peter up, and he talked about this, complaining, for the next 4 days. I found out that he also called Sarah up to complain about this.

Just so you know, if you live with someone, every so often they're going to have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. It just happens.

Generally, he stays up until midnight or 1:00 am playing the keyboards really loudly, and then he gets up at 6:30 to get ready for work. The last time he had friends over, they were shouting across the house (one was at the top of the staircase, the other at the bottom) at 6:30 am, after having stayed up late.

So anyway, things aren't terrible, but just annoying enough to remind me why it is that I like living by myself.

And that's about all I've been doing for the past few days--hiding in my room until I can sneak out and do laundry or take a bath, pretending to be asleep so that I don't get dragged into his band conversations with his friends, or rushing away from the house to look for a job and write to people I've done contract work for to remind them that they still haven't paid me.

Anyway, other than that, all I'm doing is coming up with creative ways to live life without spending any money at all. So far it's working rather well, but my month pass at the Internet cafe is about to expire, and, well, if you don't hear from me for a while, it just means that I'm doing all of my job-hunting on the telephone.

I've been checking out the local rags for bands that might be looking for vocalists, but so far all I've really seen were things like Disco Cover Bands, and I don't think I really want to go there.

There was this "free" gig tonight that they mentioned in the paper, but it turns out that it's at a really snooty club, and so not only would it end up not really being free, but I probably wouldn't be let in anyway.

Bummer!

Not sure what I'm going to do now. Peter's going to be home tonight, so I don't want to go there. I'll either find some kind of free show to occupy myself, or see if Matthew's busy. Or maybe Laurence--I haven't talked to him since the weekend. He mentioned that there's this ukelele band that's going to be playing at the pub I met him at, but I don't know when or anything.

Anyway, if something terribly exciting happens, I'll update you, but don't hold your breath.

P.S. WHY did someone think there was a need to do a cover of "I Think I Love You"? Wasn't once enough?! Wasn't once TOO MUCH?!

This is a scary country.