\”I am never going to get out of this semblance of a white trash existence, am I?\” — quoting myself, about ten hours ago, written in between phone calls and before errands and appointments and the like. Then there was today.

I haven\’t been writing much lately, not much of substance, at least. It\’s not because there\’s nothing to write about, but because I\’ve had the spigot turned tight in the hopes of resolving the leaks in the flow before the casks of piss and vinegar burst.

On top of the average stressors of normal-for-me health (good, but with chronic problems), relationships (good, but with an unemployed, co-habitating boyfriend), family (good, but with sick, cancer-et al-ridden relatives), there\’s other big issues.

#1 As of today, Nov 1, my landlord hasn\’t received the Section 8 portion of my rent in three months. That\’s over $3,000. I\’ve been paying my part, but the federal government hasn\’t been paying theirs. This is not my fault (vindication!) but the fault of my landlord, because he hasn\’t filed the proper papers with the Housing Commission.

When I spoke with my landlord today, he wants me to file the papers, (paraphrase) \”blah blah blah he\’s too busy and he\’ll have to pay his book keepers fees to find and copy the papers and it\’s not worth his time and yak yak yak.\” I don\’t have those papers — only he and the HOC have them. So he insists that he already sent them to the HOC…but he doesn\’t want to look for them, so can\’t I just fax him the forms, which he\’ll return to me and then I can send them to the HOC? I don\’t have a fax machine? (The tone of his voice indicates that I am incompetent.) Well, then e-mail them. The HOC doesn\’t deal with e-mail, and doesn\’t want to communicate with me, because I\’m the mere tenant. Can\’t I just take care of the papers? it\’s my apartment, after all, and he doesn\’t want to pay the fees.

Well, can you tell your book keepers this won\’t be resolved until next week then? Because it\’s 3pm and I\’m currently at the HOC building, and I have to go home and get my copy of the lease — but the HOC closes at 3:30pm, and I won\’t make it back in time, and they won\’t let me back in after 3:30. They don\’t have walk-in hours on Fridays or Mondays, and I can\’t get an appointment just to drop off papers. This was met with several seconds of silence, which was then followed with, \”I didn\’t realize it would take so long…I don\’t see what the problem is.\”

The problem? Take so long? Maybe if this had taken place when it was supposed to, when I moved in more than six months ago, in APRIL, this wouldn\’t seem like it would be taking so long because it wouldn\’t be happening. He wouldn\’t be down three months rent because they\’d be paying him due to all his papers being in order.

Of course, now I\’m receiving \”late notices\” every few weeks for the rent. Fortunately, I\’m not legally responsible for the HOC\’s portion of the rent, and the only one to blame here is my landlord. But getting the notices in the mail and having to do all the back and forth with a brick wall is just a tad bit stressful. Just a tad. Essentially, if he doesn\’t wise up and turn in his paperwork in the next few weeks, my landlord will begin the eviction process against me in exactly 30 days. I\’m right right right on every ground here, but that doesn\’t make me feel any better.

#2 Stressor needs a family tree graphic due to its somewhat complex nature. Rock the ASCII.

             My Maternal Grandparents
                |            |       |
My Father + My Mother        |       My Uncle + 2nd wife   Father + Mother
         |           3 other children     |      |         |
 Me (and 2 siblings)                  Daughter   Son + Wife
                                                     |
                                          2 daughters and 1 son

So, my cousin\’s wife (on my mother\’s side) and my cousin have three kids. That side of the family all live down on the Eastern Shore. I\’ve written and spoken about them, as an entire group, many times. Well, this time it surpasses the one where the female cousin called to say she was leaving her husband because he was beating her and the kid and would we please take the dog — which is how my parents ended up with a very sweet but traumatized dog named after a Nascar driver.

When I found out about this, I wanted to drive down there and savagely beat people up, but there\’s no need to (need? it\’s just a primal desire for familial revenge) because he\’s in jail. Cousin\’s wife\’s father allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl in my cousins\’ trailer on the 4th of July while they (the family) were all outside for the fireworks. Additional charges against him include molestation against his two granddaughters, currently ages 6 and 11.

11 was when I was first molested.

In this case, I don\’t have the details as to what \”molested\” means. Unfortunately, legally it can mean a hell of a lot of things.

My family is just so, so, so fucked-up. I\’ve tried so hard to be the apple that flies horizontally away from the tree and hopes to make applesauce in an orange grove somewhere, but the propulsion of my life just doesn\’t feel like that\’s happening.

At some point it ends, right? Yeah, when we\’re dead. In the mean time, we keep fighting. I\’d had a long spiel about fighting versus enjoying, the nihilists versus the hedonists, but I\’ve decided that instead of pursuing that right now, I\’m going to go get drunk.

Drinkety drankety drunk. November.