the deep moans round with many voices

Apropos of nothing in particular, I have noticed a pattern in my dreams over the past couple years which is both completely unsurprising and kind of weird: namely, I am doing some kind of activity in an building (generally an apartment building, but sometimes a commercial property) owned and managed by the rental company I work for.

The thing is, the property in question does not exist. The architecture varies from almost normal to technically-buildable-but-bugfuck-impractical to completely non-Euclidean. And I always, invariably, get hopelessly lost, which is hideously embarrassing because I am a rental agent and ought to know where I'm going.

That's not the weird part. That's all pretty normal as far as my dreams go. I get occasional stress dreams with work-related topics (when I worked at the smoke shop, I used to dream about shelving books/magazines, and once about staffing the cash register naked), a lot of my stress dreams involve trying to go somewhere and being unable to reach my destination, and one of the frequent obstacles is building structures that don't make any real-world sense.

The weird part is that over time the buildings in question have been sort of asymptotically approaching something that might almost make sense as a housing complex (maybe with a couple food-related commercial spaces on the ground floor) in Ithaca, and settling on a moderately reasonable physical location to boot (partway up East Hill, between the Commons and Collegetown).

I have the damndest feeling that I'm trying to be an architect in my sleep, and that is not something I am prepared to handle. Designing oil paintings in my sleep makes sense. Composing music in my sleep makes sense. (I never remember it when I wake up, alas!). Writing stories in my sleep makes ALL THE SENSE.

But structurally and commercially viable architecture?

That's just weird.

I. Have had. A DAY.

Here is a slightly redacted version of the incident report I emailed to Mom Boss and Aunt Boss, which I wrote in pieces after each phone call.

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( cut for length and privacy concerns )

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...

...

...

So yeah, that happened. I mean, I feel bad for Nancy. She is in distress and her coping methods are severely maladaptive! But wow, that is not the way to go about getting to a better mental place.

I have no idea what Mom Boss and Aunt Boss will do on Monday, but I feel I have provided them a thorough account on which to base any actions.

Today was so slow.

New Hire 2 (...oh goddammit, I still haven't given her a nickname, have I? uh. let's see. hmm. I think either Goldberry (obscure joke via Tolkien) or Miss Panera, on account of her other job) and I mostly sat around doing nothing in particular, though we did get through parts of some big winter break projects: namely, sorting and tidying a massive box of ethernet cables (and throwing out all the broken and too-short ones), and continuing the apartment inspections.

Miss Goldberry (??? ...yeah, I'm going with that) did most of the cord sorting and coiling, though I did pitch in on the untangling and sorting end. I did the apartment inspections, since that's more of a senior part-timer thing; Miss Cactus used to do it before she moved to the downtown office.

The main point of the inspections is to A) check for leaks, B) check for heating issues and/or open windows, and C) make sure tenants didn't turn off their refrigerators, but we also keep an eye out for excessively messy/unsanitary housekeeping disasters and for bongs, ashtrays, and other signs of smoking (whether tobacco or weed) in apartments, which is against the lease terms. And of course if I see more general maintenance issues, like burned out lights or busted window blinds, I report those too.

Thus far I've only found one apartment with a clearly in-use ashtray (and a cigarette butt in the toilet, eww), but I've found several bongs, one apartment where the tenant dismantled their smoke alarm (massive safety hazard!!!) and was apparently burning tobacco bundles in an incense dish, one apartment where the tenants decided to switch off all their circuit breakers (just... why???), an illicit window air conditioner, somebody who dumped a bag of flour on their carpet, an illicit cat (mentioned in a previous post), a whole bunch of unreported dead lights, and a disturbing number of HOW DO YOU LIVE LIKE THIS? housekeeping disasters. Our one building with individually controlled heaters (rather than zone heating set by the maintenance department) also contains a distressingly high percentage of people who apparently couldn't figure out how to turn the heaters on, despite the EXCRUCIATINGLY CLEAR email we sent them on the subject, and the fact that all you have to do is press one switch. *headdesk*

Also, people seem to think they can disappear for a month and have their plants still be alive when they return. This is a tragically mistaken belief. I have watered A LOT of plants during my inspections, but many had already died and I'm not sure even the ones I temporarily rescued will hold out another two weeks.

(I have so much respect for the two groups of tenants who had the forethought to set up string-watering systems for their plants. Bless you. You are kind and thoughtful souls and all the agricultural deities look upon you with favor.)

But anyway, inspections only take so much time and then I sat around alternately being very bored and reading The Siren Depths by Martha Wells... which I am actually about to go finish, as soon as I hit post. :)

tomato plant in hedge, Thursday, 22 September 2016


( three more photos under the cut )


[Context: I live in a house that is subdivided into four apartments: two on the ground floor and two on the second floor. The upstairs apartments share a balcony over the front porch.]

One of the many oddities this year has given me is the sight of a freaking tomato plant growing in the hedge that separates my house from the sidewalk. Or actually, two tomato plants. One is just a lot younger than the other, and probably won't bloom or fruit before the first frost hits.

Downstairs Neighbor S and Upstairs Neighbor E think that Diagonal Neighbor P (who has since moved out, and we're all kind of relieved about that) must have chucked a half-eaten tomato off her balcony at some point this spring, after which at least one of the seeds sprouted despite the drought and used the hedge as its climbing frame. Exuberantly.

Landlord Dude seems to be harvesting the tomatoes as they ripen, and found a stake from somewhere to prop up the younger tomato plant.

I am mostly bemused by the whole business... though I admit, I wouldn't be sorry if at least one of the tomatoes fell to the ground and started the cycle over again next year.

(Diagonal Neighbor P's other accidental planting -- a spiderwort that has taken over the entire north half of the front yard and is now encroaching upon the south half as well -- can go die in a fire, though. We all devoutly hope it won't survive the winter.)

[[original Tumblr post, for when the embedded images inevitably break]]

This is from the 1985 file folder of my accumulated childhood papers. The preceding two thirds of the page are covered in ALLCAPS electric typewriter gibberish, with one brief leap into intelligibility -- "I LOVE [LEGAL NAME]" -- most likely typed by my mom. I suspect I was sitting on her lap.

I am not sure how much of the following story is her taking dictation and how much is her subtly prompting me, but judging by the logic lapses, it was probably mostly me at age three and a half. *wry*

Anyway, the Amazing Mumford!

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THE AMAZING MUMFORD

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS AN AMAZING MUMFORD. HE WAS A MAGICIAN. HE WAS A GOOD ONE. HE MADE THINGS DISAPPEAR. ONE DAY HE CAME TO SESAME STREET AND HE MADE A CARROT DISAPPEAR. HE DID THAT AT MIDNIGHT WHEN EVERYONE WAS ASLEEP. YOU KNOW HOW HE MADE IT DISAPPEAR? HE ATE IT AND THAT'S HOW HE MADE IT DISAPPEAR! IN THE MORNING EVERYBODY GOT ANGRY. "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN," THEY SHOUTED. HE MADE HIMSELF DISAPPEAR WITH HIS MAGIC. THEN HE WENT BACK TO HIS HOUSE. AND THEY DID NOT LIKE THE AMAZING MUMFORD FOR EVERMORE. AND THE AMAZING MUMFORD MADE ALL THE SESAME STREET PEOPLE DISAPPEAR. AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. BUT THEN THE AMAZING MUMFORD GOT ANGRY AT THEM.

THE END