Old, 4-foot-something, round blob, looks a little like Robert DeNiro. She's not explosive like the mama in Throw Mama From The Train, but walks like her. She's extremely wary of all humans. I guess she's just waiting for the next person to screw her over.
This was supposed to just be a 1-month sublet. From her questions, she clearly thought I'd make huge messes, never clean up, cook up masterpieces that would linger in the apartment fabrics for months, and parade all kinds of rifraff through the place, She was giving me such a hard time at one point, I told her, "Well clearly this isn't going to work out. Sorry I took up your time." That brought on a true one-eighty.
The reasons I moved in were simple: it's in Central Square, on the quiet, secure 9th floor of a concrete building, I've got my own large bedroom & adjoining bathroom, $750 includes all. (And since I split her cable, that's not just wireless anymore.) The only thing I have to deal with is her. How the 1-month sublet became a 1-year deal is not very interesting or surprising. I was busy with a new job and well, she's a pushy thing.
My lord, she's always here. Either perched on her kitchen stool hunched over her computer, or asleep in a chair in the living room. That's right, she sleeps sitting up in a chair. The front door wakes her up, so whether I'm coming or going, I give her a nice wave as I beeline to or from my section of the apartment.
She doesn't want me eating in the bedroom, and it's hard to sneak stuff when she's here. Last night I got Indian takeout and sneaked it back here in a gray Clinique bag they gave at their last bonus time. If I'm starving in the morning, I take my red coffee mug, fill it with milk from the refridgerator, and bring it back to my room. I'm sure she thinks I'm going to sit in my room and drink the milk like a little kid. Ha! Think again, troll. I've got cereal in here. I pour the cereal into the mug and eat it with a plastic spoon. Spoon gets thrown away, mug gets rinsed out. She has no idea.
She has her own bedroom, technically. (Pictured below.) Just don't know how much room there is for her in there. There's so much stuff, it's hard to focus one one thing. And all her stuff is absolute crap. There's a metal orange lamp in the living room that, if it works, might be the only thing of any value in this place. Other than that, it's like a Goodwill donation center. Nothing matches. Old paperback books and spiral notebooks fill the bookshelves, while cardboard boxes and packing materials fill the closets. And this place stinks. Musty old lady smell. Under the sink is a foul smell like a small animal corpse.
I bought a vacuum a few months ago– one of the new Hoover wind tunnel ones that desn't use a bag. The first time I vacuumed the place, the canister became so packed with dirt and fuzz and particles, it dropped into the trash like clumps of housing insulation.
Fifteen more weeks of sneaking food around and old lady smell. Then I move into my new spot in Washington Square with 3 girls MY AGE and two cats.
Living with troll has forced me to address my own packrat tendencies. I've become pretty diligent about getting rid of everything I don't use or love. And I've made a list of all the things I'm not going to move to Washington Square with me, so I have 15 weeks to burn through my stack of New Yorkers and a small pile of books. Read 'em, then get rid of them. At the moment, I'm on "Why Girls Are Weird". It's a fun little novel about a girl living in Austin, TX, who's in denial about being over her last boyfriend. When I'm done with it, I could just leave it on one of the troll's bookshelves. I'm sure she'll be carried out on a stretcher before she ever notices.
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