The meeting between me, Jeffrey, Evil Landlord and Dreadlocked Lawyer was brief, yet awkward. Dreads asked Evil L. what we owed him… as if this was the first time they had even discussed the case! Evil L. handed Dreads a crumpled piece of paper. Dreads asked us if the amount on the piece of paper was correct. Jeffrey, in full Brockovich mode, said yes, the amount was correct… but we weren’t paying it.

Because his momma didn’t raise no fool, Dreads knew that neither side was going to budge. So he brought us into the secret back room in the court, where we met with a new character: Big Braids Bailiff. Because they had similar hairstyles, Dreads and B.B.B. (Big Braids Bailiff) were already friends. B.B.B. also already knew Evil Landlord, and not in a good way. They seemed to be on a first name basis. I’m guessing wasn’t his first time at the rodeo.

B.B.B. asked us what the situation was. We gave her a very, very, very, very abbreviated version. Like if you gave someone Cliff Notes on the Cliff Notes for “War and Peace.” Evil L. tried to deny some of the problems with our apartment, but B.B.B was having none of it. Instead she chided him for showing up late and making us wait in court all morning.

When asked how we wanted to settle this, Jeffrey and I gave Evil L. two options:

1. We pay back one of the three months we owe him, but then he has to give us some sort of guarantee that we are going to get our deposit back when we move out.

or

2. We don’t pay back any of the three months we owe him and he can keep the damn deposit.

I think I saw a blood vessel in Evil L’s face pop. He wanted us to pay back two of the three months, and then we could worry about the deposit later. Hell to the no! Jeffrey and I stood our ground and said that we would rather go in front of the judge than take his bullshit offer. We didn’t go though all this to break even.

Dreads pulled Evil L. back out into the hallway and Jeffrey and I sat in the secret back room with B.B.B. and watched the raindrops roll down the window. The funniest part about this whole ordeal so far, was that no one even bothered to take a look at Jeffrey’s jam-packed binder full of evidence against Evil L. His reputation truly proceeded him in court. We could have said anything we wanted about him and they would have believed us.

When Dreads and Evil L. returned, Evil L. looked like a puppy dog with his tail between his legs. Except, this was one puppy dog that no one felt any sympathy for.

When Evil L. gave us his new counter offer, I almost jumped out of my chair and yelled “Sucka!” His new agreement was that we wouldn’t have to pay the three months we owe, but we would pay full rent in June and move out by the end of the month. Also, he was keeping the deposit. So basically… it was Option #2, except we had to move out sooner. Which really, was fine with us. We are sooooo over this place and ready to move on.

After signing the settlement, Evil L. high tailed it out of the court room. He had rents to raise! Jeffrey and I finally got to appear in front of the judge… alone. The judge was a kind, yet stern-when-she-needed-to-be Latina woman. She went over the settlement with us and had us sign it. I like to think that we were her favorite case of the day, since we were probably the only people that appeared in front of her all day with a smile on their face.

Tonight to celebrate, we had our Wednesday Night Supper Club, where A. Rod made sushi! It was amazing.

Of course because we can never win 100%… Evil Landlord tried to get the last laugh. As I started doing the dishes, the hot water shut off completely. I had to boil water on the stove to finish.

Like I said, moving out this shithole by the end of June… is not going to be a problem.

Before the court room doors were unlocked this morning, I was reminiscing with Jeffrey about one (of the many) times we did not have heat in our apartment this past winter. This particular time, I somehow got stuck with Evil Landlord in our “zen garden” front entry, as we waited for his “repair man” to show up. Evil Landlord was actually talking to me, asking me what I do for a living. When I told him I was in pharmaceuticals he arched his eyebrows and I swear on the Torah, I saw his eyes light up.

Thankfully, such would not be the case today. Instead, it would be Jeffrey and I’s turn to have our pupils replaced with golden dollar signs.

Ever the good defendants, Jeffrey and I showed up nice and early to court. Before we were all ushered into the mad house court room, Jeffrey spotted Schlubby McCracked Tooth (Evil Landlord’s lawyer from last time who told us not to settle.) According to Jeffrey, Schlubby was yelling at some other Hasid, probably telling him his is going to lose his case.

Once in the court room, we got to play the waiting game. Luckily there was an amazing cast of characters surrounding us, keeping us throughly entertained. It was seriously better than any reality TV show I’ve seen… except for the fact that people weren’t getting voted out of the court room. But a few of them almost got kicked out, thanks to my favorite character: No-Nonsense Latina Court Officer. At one point she caught Jeffrey and I talking, and she told us to be quite. Jeffrey mouth, “I’m sorry” to her and she smiled back. I knew she was a total hag.

As the cutoff point for checking in passed by, Jeffrey and I were confused. Schlubby McCracked Tooth never checked in. Did they realize they had no case against us? Did we just win?

After a hushed debate on whether or not we should approach N.N.L.C.O. (No-Nonsense Latina Court Officer), Jeffrey manned up and asked her if anyone had checked in for Evil Landlord. I was worried that N.N.L.C.O. would blow a whistle or slap Jeffrey with a ruler, but instead he won her over with his homosexual charm and she explained to him that the man with long dreadlocks had checked in for our landlord. Say what???

Excuse me for embracing stereotypes for a moment, but if Evil Landlord’s lawyer is going to have any type of long hair, wouldn’t it be two tight curls running down each side of his face?

As the morning turned into afternoon, there was still no sign of this alleged Dreadlocked Lawyer. The packed court room was actually starting to clear out. Were Jeffrey and I being kept until the end because we were so well behaved, and they wanted to get the crazies out first? Was our case even going to be seen today?

Just as I was beginning to think that we were stuck in some sort of purgatory, or a reimagined version of Sartre’s “No Exit,” I heard our names called out from the back of the court room. I turned around to see Dreadlocked Lawyer. He was wearing dark pants and a black t-shirt with a giant gold chain printed on it. You have got to be kidding me…

Dreadlocked Lawyer was motioning for me and Jeffrey to come out into the hallway to presumably try and reach some sort of settlement with us before we went in front of the judge. As I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, I saw the very last person I expected to see in that court room today: Evil Landlord! I immediately turned around to Jeffrey and whispered through clenched teeth, “Oh god!”

Dun Dun Dunnnnnh!

Tune in tomorrow for Part Two…

(Or if you really can’t wait to get the final outcome, check out Jeffrey’s Blog.)

…and I’m a little nervous.

After I got home from work, I went for an extremely long run to try and take my mind off of Jeffrey and I’s court date tomorrow. (Oh god, when I tried to type “run,” I accidentally type “wrong.” Is that a sign? Are we “in the wrong,” and going to have to fork over all of that back rent?)

I just want tomorrow to be done and over with. I have another dentist appointment Wednesday morning for my filling, and I’m actually looking forward to it because it means that this whole court debacle will be finished.

And speaking of our bad landlord… I now have two more grievances to add to our list:

1. Ant infestation. When I was sweeping my floor the other day I discovered a cranberry that had fallen out of my morning granola and under my bed. Surrounding that dried cranberry were at least a dozen ants. I was forced to perform a mass genocide one them with some tissue paper and a flush of the mighty toilet.

2. Bathroom Faucet. Our cheap, plastic hot water faucet in the bathroom cracked and broke into three pieces the other day. Now to get hot water I have to turn the metal pole that is sticking out of the sink with a pliers. G-H-E-T-T-O.

May justice be served tomorrow!

It all started when I tried to load the new Madonna CD onto my iPod. My iTunes couldn’t cram anymore gay-ass music into my Nano. It was full, maxed out at 1,000 songs. I don’t even want to do the math. Okay, I just did. $990. Did I really spend that much money on music in one year? I can’t even think about it. And obviously, I haven’t… since I continue to download more music.

In order to fit Magde on, I had to delete the “new” Smashing Pumpkins album that I never listened to. (Sorry guys, I used to be a lot more into you when I was trying to pass as straight.)

I then downloaded Roybn’s new CD, which if you haven’t purchased it yet… what are you waiting for? It’s amazing. You heard it here second. (Here first.)

To fit Robyn on, I had to get rid of some songs that people in my CD exchange sent to me. (See, I know I didn’t spend $990 on iTunes. Some of it was stolen from other people!)

And now today, I was looking at purchasing some Devo and TomTomClub to prepare for my Totally Awesome Summer Concert of ‘08. But in order to fit those on I am going to have to delete all of my Christmas music and then some.

What’s a cheesy80’s-divalicious-oldschoolcountry-unceunceunce music loving fag to do? My solution: Buy a new iPod!

Now, I’m not going to rush into this like I do with most of my spur-of-the-moment, let’s-buy-things-I-don’t-really-need spending sprees. I’m going to wait until after Jeffrey and I settle with our landlord in court.

Hopefully, we won’t have to pay all of our unpaid rent.  And if I use that money to buy my new iPod, it will be like my landlord is buying it for me!  That would be the first (and probably last) nice thing he has ever done for me.

Now go buy this woman’s CD:

Today was Judgement Day for me, Jeffrey and our slumbag landlord. (Slumbag = scumbag who refuses to fix anything, therefore forcing his tenants to live in slums-like conditions.)

Or at least, I thought it was supposed to be Judgement Day. But instead, it turned out to be Postponement Day.

Jeffrey and I were supposed to be at court at 9:30am. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I guess I was sort of under the impression that it would be a little bit like Judge Judy, except a lot shorter and much less sassier.

When we arrived to the court room there was a line of people waiting outside. As it turns out, everyone’s court time was 9:30am. I felt like I was at an open casting call, hoping to land the role of “Tenant Who is in the Right.”

As I was going over my lines in my head, and sizing up my competition, we were all called into the court room. I was happy about this because that meant that we got to listen in on each other’s cases. I love crazy people drama, and the majority of the people in that room looked like they knew how to bring it!

But much to my surprise, instead of it being “Twelve Angry Men,” it was more “A Room Full Passive People.”

The judge was a sweet, sensible Asian woman in a black tank top. She would have the lawyer and the tenant approach her desk, and then everyone would talk in hushed tones until a fair agreement was reached.

But before you could approach the judge’s desk, you had to go outside and talk your landlord’s lawyer, to see if you could resolve the situation on your own first.

Our landlord’s lawyer was surprisingly non-slimy. He was a fast talker and had a chipped tooth that I couldn’t stop staring at, but he actually sort of helped us out. He gave us the run down of how things were going to work, and then when we explained our situation to him, he told us not to settle. The fact the he had no idea what an absolute disaster our living situation was, was not surprising to me at all.

After the lawyer confided in us that he wasn’t a big fan of our landlord either, all three of us went back in and talked to the judge. She gave us a real court date for next month and advised us to get a lawyer… which scared me. But I think legally, she had to advise that, because then she went on to say that 90% of tenants defend themselves, and that there was a resource room down the hall where we could pick up some reading materials on how not to get fucked over in court.

On our way out the lawyer pointed us in the direction of the resource room and told us his motto, which was, “If it’s free, it’s for me.” Suddenly, it made perfect sense that this man worked for our landlord.

Jeffrey and I picked up some free pamphlets and were on our way. It was a beautiful day outside, and I wanted to be able to enjoy it… But I was still left with no answers and now even more to worry about. (Do we need a lawyer? Are we gonna get screwed if we try and represent ourselves? Should I wear a tie next time?)

However, instead of letting that ruin the rest of my day, I came up with my own motto: “If it’s not stress-free, it’s not for me.” So I chose to put all thoughts of lawyers and court and unpaid rent and legal fees and chipped teeth out of my head.

The day was still young, and I didn’t have to go back to work since I told them that I had to stay at home since the city workers were finishing putting in our new floor. (This was a half lie… they were putting in the floor, but I didn’t really have to stay at home, because Jeffrey had taken the day off too.)

After spending some quality time outside in my newly cleaned up backyard, I went for a nice long walk in my neighborhood, where I proceed to hit up some of the dollar stores and thrift shops that I had surprisingly, yet to venture in.

I was happy to have a chill afternoon, as my evening was very busy. It started off with an impromptu mojito party in the backyard with Jeffrey, his straight couple (Jon & Soph), and my straight couple (Jeannie and A. Rod.)

I had to ditch out of the party before it got too wild, as I had my Harold Team audition in the city. I met up with Beta and some other peeps at Ye Ol’ Sports Bar, before our 11pm(!) audition slot.

After our audition (which went just fine, thanks for asking) it was back to the bar to drink ourselves silly and not have worry about staying sober and clear-headed.

Yes, I wish that tonight my friends and I would have been able to celebrate the Slumbag getting his ass handed to him in court. But hopefully come next month, we’ll have good excuse to throw another mojito party.

This morning the city workers finally arrived to work on Jeffrey’s floor. And they meant business. They were supposed to show up at 12:30pm, but decided to come early at 8:30am. (Although technically, they were still 5 weeks late.)

Jeffrey still had a few things in his room that needed to be cleared out, but he had to run to work quick to open up shop. So, without even asking, the workers decided to help me out by grabbing Jeffrey’s belongings and throwing everything into random piles in our living room and shoving things into his closet.

Before I could even finish taking apart his bed, two guys came in with their crow bars and picks, and started ripping up the floor. A decent sized split of wood hit me in the head. No one blinked. My fingers had never been so quick with a screwdriver before. I felt like I was in a race against time, and if I didn’t have that bed disassembled fast enough, they were gonna rip the entire floor up with me still sitting on it.

Once Jeffrey got back, I left for work. I didn’t get home until late tonight, and I was surprised to find a brand new floor in Jeffrey’s room. I was also surprised to find a thick layer of sawdust over everything and in every room in our apartment.

The fun never ends!

And speaking of fun… tomorrow Jeffrey and I are headed off to court with our scumbag landlord to explain why we stopped paying rent. Hmmm… I wonder what our reasoning could be:For more pics, and to find out what was going with our new floors while I was at work, be sure check out Jeffrey’s blog.

Okay, I’m sure by now you’re sick of hearing me bitch and moan about how depressed I’ve been. But just know that by the end of this post, things get better.

This morning while making my lunch for work, I dropped a glob of hummus onto the bag of bread that was out on the counter, and I started to cry. Well, I don’t really cry. I just make an ugly face and get all misty-eyed. I think maybe half of a tear came out.

This has to be more than detoxing from the “partying” I did this past weekend. I’m detoxing from my life as well.

I consider myself to be in a pretty happy place right now. But then, after a fabulous, carefree weekend in the country, I came back to city life to realize that I want more than what I have.

I can be a happy person, I know it’s possible. I just experienced it out in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. But back in the real world I’d rather be negative and cynical, because “it’s my thing.”

I have a lot of issues that need resolving:

1. My job. I hate it. I always have. I feel trapped. I know what I want to do with my life, but I don’t know how to get there. I’m starting to feel like this fantasy world I’ve created in my head of being a successful writer will never come true. Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life working jobs that I truly despise and acting like a cunt at them to prove that I don’t belong there?

2. My apartment. I don’t know how much money we’re going to owe or how soon we’ll have to move. I’m afraid the answers are “more than I thought” and “sooner than expected.” I guess this one is out of my hands and up to the fate of our hopefully fair and tenant-friendly judicial system.

3. My relationship with men. Riding home on the subway today I came to realize that I couldn’t remember that last guy I kissed, let alone the last guy that I kissed and actually wanted to kiss. Sure I’ve hooked up recently, but it was all hook-up, no romantic foreplay. On top of that, I now have a major infatuation that I wish I didn’t have, because the feelings are so real that it scares me too much to act upon it. I may be a man, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a pussy, or rather, act like one.

DIOS MIO!

But as promised, things get better…

When I got home from work today, I did something that I haven’t done for 5 months: I went for a run. My goal was to keep it short and make it past 3 Dolly songs on my iPod. But being a glutton for punishment, I doubled it, and lasted for 6 Dollys.

Sure, it was only a 20 minute run. But it was the ass kicking I needed to remind myself that I don’t have to lay around all day watching TV and feeling sorry for myself. Is taking up running again going to fix all of my problems? No. But I predict it will help me become at least 20% less mentally unbalanced.

After my after-run shower, I felt great. Helping me feel like there was reason to live still, were Jeannie and A. Rod who came over for our Wednesday Night Supper Club on a Tuesday.

All hope is not lost, dear readers! Sure, I still don’t have the solutions to any of my problems. But I’ve decided to stop wallowing. Maybe it’s foolish and unrealistic of me, but for the time being, I’m going to pretend that in the end, everything is gonna be alright.

I remember growing up, my parents used to make my siblings and I listen to this series on tape that was all about teaching kids how to stay positive. The main character was some sort of alien creature, who appeared to an all-American brother and sister duo, and taught them to look on the bright side of every situation. Even at the ripe old age of 10, I thought it was a crock of shit.

But now, 18 plus years later, I’m starting to think that maybe that kooky, kid-friendly alien that told me I had the power to chose whether or not I wanted to be happy, was on to something.

It’s true, I’m not getting any younger, and maybe it’s my perception that life isn’t getting any better. But feeling shitty about that definitely isn’t helping any.

I need to readjust my ‘tude and start looking at all the good things I have. And believe me, there are plenty.

Awwww. Now, don’t we all feel better?

If not, go hug someone. It helps.

This morning Jeffery and I showed up to Housing Court and got a court date for next Friday morning. Our slum land lord is claiming that we owe him $3,600 for 2 months of unpaid rent, late fees and legal fees. Best case scenario, we don’t have to pay him a cent and the court gives us one more (rent free) month to find a new place to live. We have so much shit on him that I can’t imagine the court making us pay more than half of what he says we owe. We’ll see.

After court I headed into work and was surprisingly early, thanks to arriving at the court house at 9am. Work was pretty slow, which was good because I finally got caught up on everything, which meant that I could leave on time to head out for Mary Land.

For those of you who don’t know, Mary Land is my dream land. It is a farm house out in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, owned by my friend Chris, who has more kitsch than I have ever had in all my life (if you can imagine.)

We got to Mary Land around 8:30pm. We made a healthy dinner of cooked veggies for all the non-meat eaters, and steak for the carnivores. We then drank enough alcohol to melt all of my troubles away. It was a beautiful spring night, spent outside, sitting around the fire pit, underneath the stars, where the only sound for miles was the sound of horny frogs mating.

We did a little role play around the fire where we pretended that Jeffrey was our cool, hippy-dippy, drug-friendly camp consoler, and it was our last night of camp. My character was Rebbecca, the only girl who didn’t make any friends over the summer, and wouldn’t stop making up stories about her rich dad.

I went to bed very, very relaxed, and hoping that the weekend would never end.

Tomorrow morning Jeffrey and I are headed off to housing court, because our jerk-ass landlord is finally taking some action against our free loading, no-rent paying asses. He sent us an official, certified-by-the-city letter that said we had 5 days to respond. Of course he didn’t send it until 3 days after the 5 days had expired. Also, he didn’t really send it. He just stuck it to the outside of our door.

After that, I have to head into work to continue to have my soul sucked out of me. Work has been slightly better because my archenemy in the basement has been on vacation all week. Except yesterday she called and talked to me, ruining my vacation from her. She also called me sweetie, which makes my skin crawl.

Let’s see, what else can I complain about? Turbo Tax e-mailed me to tell me that my tax return was rejected. (Turns out my fat fingers mistyped my social security number.)

I have a certain improv audition coming up that I’m dreading already.

Oh yeah, and I’ve convinced myself that my teeth are rotting out of my head.

But fear not… there is reason to live!

This weekend Jeffrey and I have been invited back to Mary Land!

My blog won’t be updated again until late Sunday.

Don’t miss me too much.

XOXO,
Brian

Tonight Jeffrey and I hosted a “Get Baked & Bake” party with his straight couple (Jon and Soph) and my straight couple (Jeannie and A. Rod.) It was like a double date, but with six people.

But before company came over, disaster in the form of a toilet tornado struck at 947 Bedford Ave.

Our toilet has been a ticking time bomb for the past few months. Every time you flush, you have to say a little pray that everything will go down. Well this morning, Jeffrey forget his prayers. Which means that he got to spend the rest of his afternoon cleaning up Shitsville, USA.

I did my part to help, I ran to Home Depot to buy a toilet snake. Except the toilet snakes were called augers, and they cost anywhere from $60-$120. So instead I grabbed a sink snake and a new plunger.

At the register I got into a fight with the cashier, who tried to tell me that she couldn’t sell me the snake, because it didn’t have a barcode. As we waited 5+ minutes for a price check, the cashier looked at me and said, “I hope your not upset. You seem upset.” I wanted to explain to her the it was my shitter, not her that I was mad at… but I just didn’t feel comfortable having potty talk with my local Home Depot cashier.

Back at the house, Jeffrey went through a 12 step process to clean the bathroom, emerging every once in awhile for fresh air, and to chat with our guests, who were told to use their bathroom at home before coming over.

Once all the shit was back in the toilet where it belonged, it was cookie time! I had decided to save my pot cookie until after all the mixing was done, which was a wise decision since, even sober, I was having problems following the directions. For the frosting, I tried to add 7 cups of milk, when the recipe called for 7 tablespoons. Oops. Me stupid.

Jeannie and I finally had a chance to use all the random cookie cutters that I had bought us for Christmas: a giraffe, the state of MN, a wiener dog, a howler monkey, a fire hydrant. I also had a lot of seasonal cookie cutter that we got creative with.

Jeannie turned her witch into Smurfette:

A. Rod made his tombstone into a tongue and mustache:

Our “Get Baked & Bake” party was a success, but it also taught us an important life lesson: Never put that much sugar in front of a bunch of stoned people. We all overdid it and went into an immediate diabetic sugar coma.

And now back to more poop talk:

After I took those pictures, we were flipping through Jeffrey’s camera to look at them, and we came across some pictures that Jeffrey took of the clogged toilet. Siiiiicccccccckkkk.

I was thinking about linking one of those pics on here, because I know that some of my readers (Alexa) would want to see it… But no matter how funny I think poop is, I’ve decided to keep whatever little dignity I have left on this blog.

(For the curious, just imagine what shit soup would look like, and then multiple that by 1,000,000.)

Mmmmmmm, shit & cookies.