POORGIRL

Well, 2015 is almost over and no one is happier to see it go then me. Its almost time for everyone’s “New Year, New Me” bullshit posts, and this year I might be participating. Although we are only crossing an imaginary line in time, I would easily say goodbye to the last few weeks regardless of it being a new year or not. I have very serious plans for 2016, the first being how to say “No.” I am that person in the self help books you read about. I am riddled with guilt when turning down a project that I have no desire to be a part of, I feel like I’m letting down friends if I say I’m too tired to go out. I am always more concerned with how the other person feels and not concerned enough about myself. It makes me really uncomfortable to say “no.” I’m talking nervous, awkward, guilty, crawling out of my skin uncomfortable. It’s gross and my biggest weakness, but no more. I’ll get hypnotized if I have to, but this will be the year of NO.

My other resolution for the coming year is to become a little bit autistic. My son is high functioning autism and I have a great admiration for his candidness and honesty. He doesn’t bat an eyelash when telling someone they have bad breath or that they’re being totally annoying. He gives no fucks. I want to be just like him. Now, if you’ve ever met my son, you know he is an extremely sensitive child. One night when I yelled at him to eat his dinner and told him about starving children in India who have nothing to eat he freaked out and started crying. The thought that there were people in the world with no food kept him up at night. His brutal honesty is not meant to hurt anyone, but in a weird way help them and help himself. No one wants to smell your stank breath or deal with your stupid behavior and you don’t want to embarrass yourself right? Its a win win situation. If I had bad breath or was being a psychotic, emotionally unstable lunatic, I would want to know. Sure it stings a little but thats just ego. Its our egos that get in the way and we take shit so personally. The more you let people slide with their bad behavior, the deeper their claws hook into your soul. Time to let people know about themselves, if they don’t want to hear, not my problem. Time to move on.

Well…I don’t know what the outcome of this entire apartment debacle will be, but I’m not going out without a fight. If my lawyer doesn’t nail this motherfucker to the wall upside down by his balls, then I will. I’ve been wracking my brain thinking options, all within the confines of the law of course. This morning I thought about hiring paid actors to protest outside the house (which he will try to rent again, even though the certified mold inspector and the resulting lab tests have confirmed the place is “UNINHABITABLE”). They could hold giant picket signs with the lab graphs showing the 7 different types of mold present. My other option is to report him to the city, which is free and the name of this blog is Poor Girl, so guess which one its gonna be. This situation has taken out a big withdrawal from my sanity savings account. I am house hopping, my son is with his dad most days now because I’m bouncing around (at least he’s in the lap of luxury) and I am riddled with anxiety and always looking over my shoulder to see if this nutcase is following me. Thank God this and 2015 is almost over. I am counting down the days like an inmate counts down to his release date. I am almost free.

 

 

As I sit here and write this, its been less than 24 hours since I moved out of the mold infested apartment I was renting from a less than savory landlord. The entire experience (which is not even over) is what prompted me to start this blog. I have reached a new low. I had to move out under the cover of night because I found out that this man is mentally unstable. I had a suspicion but it was confirmed after his prior tenant told me about his constant drive-bys. In the month I had been living there he had been stopping by at least 3 times a week to check on the standing water above my garage, which is detached and has nothing inside. I wonder why that was such a concern when the walls of the house I was renting were saturated with water and teeming with mold? I had a hunch after he tried sexually groping my friend that lives up the street. He stopped by a few days ago, before I moved out. I was so nervous I called a guy friend to come over. Three minutes later, he left. After finding his mugshot online, I decided the best thing to do would be to move my stuff out in the dark. It took 2 nights. The first night I moved everything out myself except the beds. The 2nd night my parents and my friend Mikey came to help move what was left. We carried my mattress down the stairs, out the back door, through the garage and into my parent’s van, the entire time choking on mold spores and dripping in sweat. My mattress is my most prized possession. Its the best mattress I’ve ever owned and has helped immensely with my back pain. Imagine how my heart was breaking as I watched my dad drag it through the mud and throw it in the van, only to then throw a vacuum cleaner with a loose bag of dirt on top of it. No time to stop and cry though, the light in the back of his car wouldn’t turn off and I was scared the slumlord was going to drive by and spray us all with bullets. I shut the garage door and we hauled ass to my storage unit. I moved everything into that house of horrors myself and moved most of it out myself except for that last day. I want to give Mikey a big shout out because he was the only person that has helped me in this entire ordeal, after working all day. It has me seriously considering immortalizing him as a tattoo in the form of a saint. Saint Michael, our lady of Extravaganza. Well, now here I sit, on borrowed wifi in my baby daddy’s 500K house in an upper class gated neighborhood in Miami. I came to collect some things I had been storing here. I’m really over him right now. He told me he would pay for my mold inspection, which is $350.00 I have $100.00 in my bank account at the moment (and not anticipating a check for another month). Its been a long time since my tank his been on E like this. Anyway, he back peddled on helping me out with this crucial and unforeseen expense. The mold inspection company won’t release the results of my test if I don’t pay them and its the most damning piece of evidence I have against my landlord. Yes, I am serving him with a demand that he return all the money I put into that hell hole, plus my hospital bill (thats coming up on another post) and the resulting lost wages from my sudden illness.  My son’s father and I have always been at odds about many things and ultimately it led to our separation, but this takes the cake. Today he texted me that he too has financial stresses and problems, but one can assume that not having enough money to eat or feed your child has ever been one of them (yes, I’ve been there and will delve deeper into what its like to live on white bread and peanut butter and the resulting constipation). Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because the $3500 you spent fixing your travertine floors didn’t get all the stains out? When you have been privileged all your life, it must be hard to imagine hunger. I realize that not even being the mother of someone’s child who has the means to help you is enough to make them WANT to help you. And before anyone draws a conclusion, he has helped in the past, in drips and drabs and pays for private school. Its just the lack of intention to help that makes it a hard pill to swallow. All in all I’m out close to 10K. Thats a  lot of money when you are a single mom who doesn’t get child support and works a freelance job. I am floating in a fog of the unknown at the moment but maybe thats not the worst thing in the world. I realize that the last few months I’ve been writing this blog in my head without even knowing it and this experience was the hand that slapped me in the back and dislodged it from the place it was stuck. This is what its like to be a poor girl.