17 November, 2004
fever in the funkhouse

when someone whose every step and intention speaks "rage" turns the tables on you, and points out your own anger... well, that stings.
enough that you begin to think, "maybe it's time quit fucking around." and make the change... the big one. not just the run-away-for-an-evening type.
so, when my ex-roommate from college called on Saturday, i decided to bail out to his house, rather than have him face the Conflict. the yelling had to stop, somehow.
well, that's one place i won't be considering for temporary shelter.
in my own bachelorhood, i wasn't anal when it came to housecleaning... but neither did i leave crap lying around long enough to fester. cluttered, that would describe it. not crusty.
his mother left him the house he lives in. fifties-style ranch, carport, the ubiquitous unused living room (supposedly intended for entertaining the bridge club or some such nonsense), three bedrooms... quaint. i recall it being spotless... scented with Lysol-and-bleach potpourri.
what a difference a few years make.
let's take a tour: stacks of lawn-and-leaf bags of trash next to the back door. weeks of dishes in the sink and on the counter... encrusted with the waste of coffee and sugar like massive scabs. every ashtray in every room brimmed with little spent oral suppositories... a pyramid of empty cartons next to the computer. newspapers stacked like the Himalayas next to the recliner on one side... on the other, the table decorated with rows of empty caffeine-freeCoke cans in rows like dead soldiers.
True. And Utter. Funk. depressing, really.
damn, i hate being judgmental about how other people live. considering this is the guy i had to persuade to check himself in to dry out, a decade ago, i should cut him some slack. pride is a difficult thing to repossess... but i could start with a relatively funk-free environment.
finding somewhere else to start over isn't going to be so easy.

.