Post by Audio the obscure on Oct 23, 2014 16:44:44 GMT -5
Started October 23 2014
Well I've been almost a year at this basement apartment and the fruits (results) of having made this move have for the most part not been pleasant.
Yes it's true I have a private kitchen and bathroom now so I don't have the same trial (as in the roominghouse before) of nervously looking out my door to see/hear if anyone's around before I go to the facilities. And I can cook meals here to my heart's content lol.
It's stressful - more stressful here, because the tenant over me is almost always home and tires me out with her going from room to room to room sometimes stomping feet over my head which hurts my ears (yes I can hear it through the earphones when she really bears down on her floor my ceiling.
I've made complaint after complaint to the landlord. I don't know if he's talked to her lately or not. He probably can't do anything about it.
I'd like to move, but I don't have enough savings to put money down for a damage deposit on another place to live, nor do I have very much money to pay someone to move me.
Plus it is very cold here besides, all the time - but I think I could get though being cold if there were a different person living in the apt above me, especially if they worked or went to school and weren't home all the time.
I was quieter today than some days (not that I'm very noisy anyway) and she did a little more stomping and walking today than she did on other days. Yes I can hear the stomps whether my radio or tv (internet) is turned up or down.
It just is very hard on the nerves that's all. I'm almost constantly wearing headphones or earbuds. The trouble is the headphones hurt my ears when I lie down so I can't use them for that, plus I don't want to break them. I usually wear earbuds going to sleep because this one above me has a habit of walking during the night which gets on my nerves also. Yes I've told the landlord about her night walking also. It'd be different if she was just going to use the bathroom and back to bed again, but it's more than that: she goes into the other rooms also because the sound carries between our respective apartments. The thing is (about the earbuds), the ones I usually wear (really good Sony ones) have suddenly worn a bit so that one earbud (right one) has the sound cutting in and out which drives me up the wall. I bought 2 more earbuds, but their quality is very inferior to the Sony ones; I can still hear outside sounds with them in my ears; and they actually hurt my ears inside. I wrote my friend who sent me the Sony ones last year, asking him if he could possibly get me another pair of Sony's and that when I go to town I'll try to send him some money to help him buy them (well I figure he could buy the same ones as he'd sent me last year, that's why I asked him, rather than trying to find them myself). All he can say is no lol.
But in the meantime I'm wearing these big cordless headphones, and while I like them, after awhile they hurt my ears too, and I can't wear them for sleeping, as I said earlier.
I'm constantly plugging in/unplugging, changing plugs on the mp3 player and the laptop. Taking off/putting back on the big headphones when I start to hear her footsteps. It's taking over my life and I can't get anything done! She seems to be bothered when I play the guitar, even though I hold myself back from playing it until I know her car is gone (for the most part). I told the landlord it isn't fair to me (this waiting until her car's not in the yard until I play the guitar). That if I were practicing it and singing at an unreasonable hour, say after 10 pm and early in the morning (well I don't get up early anyway so no worries there lol), that would be different. And of course I wouldn't do that. The only way I would do that is if I was in my own place with no neighbours that would be bothered by it. Or if the building was totally sound proofed.
It's very tiring. I don't have a lot of money to take buses to town to go to the library or I would be gone from the apartment more often. It's about an hour's walk to town, and I just don't feel like walking in the rain (which is ongoing lately). Sometimes I just don't have the energy to walk that far. So I'm stuck here, with her up there. Last year she blared the tv extremely loud up until around summertime. Then from the summertime on, she starts with the footstomping.
My back is bothering me right now making this post. I suppose it could be from the rain. I have gained a few pounds, not a lot - maybe 5 at the most, but it adds up after awhile. I end up just sitting and eating because of my nervousness and stress here. I get out when I can. I try to go to people's houses or apartments (friends I know) but I don't want to be a bother to them. Again there's the transportation problem when I don't have the energy to walk for an hour or if the weather is bad. Ugh these big headphones are really hurting now. Here it is only 6 pm in the evening and I've got these things on. Well sometimes even when I'm typing, she'll start walking. I just can't believe a little bit of laptop typing could bother someone in another apartment, besides it's not late at night. She doesn't have a job so it's not a matter of needing sleep in the daytime (from shift work or something like that). She has a computer and I don't hear her typing, and it wouldn't bother me if I DID hear her typing.
This is NOT what I agreed to when I decided last year to rent this apartment. It's bad enough that it's cold all the time and very far from grocery stores and the library.
I have a lot of books here from the library which I would like and do try to read. But I get very stressed out and discouraged and depressed here, and some days (today in particular) I just find I'm rereading sentences in them.
If only I could find another place at a price I can afford. I'd hate to have to go back to living in a roominghouse. If only I had more in the looks department. Then maybe I could find a fellow and get out of this environment. If I have to go back to living in another roominghouse, I'll probably end up living on bread and cereal and canned goods again because of my nervousness/shyness to cook in the kitchen (as it was with me before I moved here).
My relatives still don't have anything to do with me and they won't tell me why. I made another overture toward my aunt who lives just 20 minutes away from me now. She won't let me visit on Sundays because they're "too busy", so I walked down there about 7 last Sat night only to find them not home. I had made date squares Friday so I left a few packaged up and put in a bag and draped them over their door with a note inside the bag saying they were from me. She's very standoffish toward myself. She won't talk about anything serious (like if I want to have a "heart-to-heart" with her - nope!). Very discouraging. She's my deceased mom's younger sister. I love them but I can only do so much. If she'd just tell me what the problem is so I can at least someday "get closure": "Mary, you don't have a job" or "Mary we don't see eye to eye on certain subjects" (personally that wouldn't matter to me. If I was an aunt and had a niece or nephew: if it was the second thing I would just be glad to "agree to disagree" with him/her as I am (or have become) a "live and let live" kind of person. Even though I'm still uptight (mostly because of shyness and worry that I'll say something that might offend someone, so I usually clam up lol), I have mellowed out (beliefs wise) the last few years. I practically don't care anymore about "beliefs", since I haven't lived up to the ones I have or had (whichever). As far as I'm concerned, if people say Hi to me and want to spend time with me, that's "gravy" to me - a "Plus", lol. I couldn't care less about their beliefs. As long as they don't hurt me and we get along and have some good times, that's the main thing.
I've had this headache all day today. It might be dehydration or too much tea lol. I've had only 2 cups today lol. I do my lemon-vegetable juice thing to try to help my liver, etc. I haven't had supper yet and I don't know whether to have something or not. I just wish this headache would go away. It could be a sinus headache. That's what it feels like as my nose is stuffy or "tight". Well maybe I'll try to take another vitamin C and see if that helps. I'm not very hungry anyway from all the stress I feel. I'm tired of hurrying to put earbuds or headphones on so I don't have to hear her up there. I'd like to play the guitar and sing something but I'm hesitant because I don't know if she's going to stomp if she hears it or not today. I even got this voice training book from the library written by a fellow who's trained people in show business (singers, actors, etc.) and I would like to try some of his exercises. I've taken to whispering in here because of the sound carriage, and this book says whispering is not good for the voice or vocal cords. I used to be in choirs, but they were just church choirs: I did enjoy it lol, of course that was quite a number of years ago now. I love to sing. And I always wanted voice lessons. That way, if my fingers got sore from playing guitar (til the calluses come in: and if I don't play more often, they'll just keep getting sore when I decide to play unless I can find a way to play more often. I used to play every day!!!), I can just practice singing. I wish I had never moved here.