(no subject)

I was going to go to Mitsuwa Marketplace today, but Fate had other plans and I had to stay home to meet a UPS shipment. It ended up being a box of chocolate-dipped Biscoffs that Mum sent me, which is AWESOME, as Biscoff biscuits are my favourite store-bought cookie and really the only kind I ever buy, except sometimes Hob Nobs. I'm now staying in because I'm waiting for the super to come look at my bathroom faucet. He said "sometime today" which is, as I'm sure you will all agree, heartening.

Still, while I've been home I've managed to clean the living room, do all the dishes in the sink, sort through the pile of ephemera on my nightstand and scan in anything I needed, fold my laundry, and clean up my digital files a bit. I paid my rent and credit-card bill, mapped out the theatre I'm going to tomorrow, and even found the coupon for the cafe nearby where I can get some dinner.

I have a metric assload of posters that I keep meaning to hang, but it's such a pain that I haven't bothered. Still, my walls are beginning to be decorated: the wall above my desk has important stuff like my housing contract and a map of the El hanging on it, and the wall near the door has a ton of printed-out Google maps to various diverting destinations. On the opposite wall I have four masks hanging up and a couple of tempera paintings that were given to me as gifts, and to these I have added an MFA Boston calendar, a Red Eye commuter paper cover reading BARACK 'N' ROLL, and a Chicago Reader advert for Gunslinger Girl on the IFC channel.

It's not home till I've hung up at least two things scrounged from local free papers, after all. :D

(no subject)

I don't even know what to think about my neighbour anymore. I feel like an anthropologist trying to untangle a particularly complicated family tree.

I know that there is my neighbour. Let's call her N. For Neighbour.
I know that there is her ex-boyfriend. Let's call him A. For Asshole.
I know that there is a girl who came round and threatened N a while ago. Let's call her U, for Unknown-variable.

I thought that N had a single child, because up until tonight the infant is the only child I've seen with her. Tonight, however, I learned that she has two children, the infant boy and a toddler daughter. I'm guessing only the infant is A's child, because he came over tonight with U to pick up the child for a visitation.

At some point during the complicated and half-hour-long transfer of custody, U came over to my apartment and told me her aunt wanted to know if she could buy "some squares off you."

"Squares?" I asked, blankly. The only thing I could think of was sugar cubes. "Squares of what?"

"Ummmm, cigarettes?"

(WTF. They're round. They are, right?)

I told her I didn't have any, and she disappeared back into N's apartment. A bit later she came back and asked if she could use my phone. I passed her my cellphone and she stood on the landing and swore at the top of her lungs at whoever had promised to give her a ride and had not yet shown up. I, meanwhile, made tea.

At some point after she gave back the phone and I closed the door behind her, all three of them emerged from N's apartment. They congregated on the landing as A bid goodbye to the toddler and helped U carry the pram with the infant in it down the stairs. At some point, someone must have said something inappropriate, because the next thing I heard was N shouting "I don't want you motherfuckers swearing and shit around my babies!"

Cue a spate of vitriolic cursing as A and U left together, declaring loudly that the child never misbehaved when he was with THEM.

Now, here is what I don't know: Why did U, who had previously threatened N's life, come with A to get the child? Why was she allowed into the apartment at all? What relation is N to U? And who is U's mysterious cigarette-buying aunt?

So to alleviate my confusion, I made yorkshire puddings with beef gravy.