There will be links in this "blog". These serve the purpose of supplementation--those certain references that a reader would otherwise know nothing about are usually accompanied with a background to provide a better foundation to understanding what's being absorbed.
I'm in my girlfriend's room, on her relatively new Mac-book.
There are various whatevers strewn about the desk; a cup upon which is a simple gold design and a biblical quote about love with remnants of Neill's coffee therein, a medium-sided cream bowl with a pale blue ring along the inner edge and remnants of cereal, my glasses, miscellaneous wires, a couple of books (Wuthering Heights, Utopia, The Picture of Dorian Gray), Naomi's purse and wallet, my glasses, a black plastic bag, portable iPod speakers, half of a package of two bars of soap, an all-natural multi-purpose cleaner from Trader Joe's, Cherry Blossom "body cream", and a sheet of paper somehow related to student loans. The room is in a similar disarray with clothing piled at the foot of the bed and open dressers. The window is open but the heater is on; it's somewhere in the proximity of the eternal 65 degrees typical of Mediterranean weather outside. Selah recently vomited no more than half a foot from the padded elevating seat with the cream "booster seat" whereupon I'm sitting; Naomi cleaned that up mere moments before I sat down here to write.
It's a fair Sunday; there's not much to do, per se, albeit Naomi walked into the room to inform me that I will be doing laundry at some point before ten tonight. Indeed, "not much to do" is a relative term that could be either positive or negative depending on my mood, of course--today, I'd prefer that I don't do much. I don't have an inclination toward activity reaching farther than, say, writing, some sex, a movie, a bowl, and some time to work on a comic I began of late.
Right now, Sara is reporting to Naomi about Selah's habit of going through the garbage rummaging for used maxi pads and old food in the kitchen. Naomi, in the way she usually turns a possibly confrontational situation in her favor, is conceding with mutual disgust, furthering the conversation with dissent in response to Selah's affinity and explaining her difficulty with Selah's current issues with vomiting and diarrhea. It diffuses with (what I would assume to be) the assumption that Selah's little "problem" will be worked on.
Naomi's announces that she is going to clean the room. This usually means that I've decided to clean the room, but I don't necessarily want to stop dead in my tracks in order to do chores. Granted, it is two in the afternoon, and there is, of course, the eventual cataclysmic expiration of the proverbial "cleaning mood", but this acknowledgment is doing nothing for my willingness to actually participate.
This, though, leaves me with two options: either I do help and risk never sitting back down to finish what I've begun; inevitably, I will lose my train of thought and probably lose interest in writing for the rest of the day altogether. Neill may decide that he wants a bowl and might invite me; Naomi may want to watch movies and have sex; Selah may end up having to visit the vet; my father or O or PaTreshena or my mother may call me with some unnecessary dramatic interlude.
My other option would be to ignore her decision and continue with what I was doing. This runs the risk of another emotional dilemma altogether and the possibility of not enjoying anything else that I may do for the remainder of the day.
I've concluded that I might as well try my best to finish as much as I can before I put this small project on hold, help Naomi in some way, smoke a cigarette, and continue what I was doing.
And hence: I pause.
***
Exactly to plan, I've taken the clothes to the laundromat and did some minor cleaning with Naomi. Now, at three, I have few more precious minutes to write before I have to go transfer the currently washing loads to their respective driers. Neill and Sara have already smoked; in an ironically amicable and emphatic fashion, Sara invited me to smoke with them, but I declined, considering my apparent listlessness and subsequent unwillingness to do anything I find even marginally unpleasant while affected.
I considered Sara's amiability ironic because I was the target of a small portion of her aggression once she woke up this morning. Puffy and uncomfortable, suggesting a hangover that Neill had already confirmed ("Yeah, she was wasted when she came home last night"), she paused at Naomi's open room door to quickly reference the scanned drawing I left on her computer screen and the sketchbook in her scanner. Once I acknowledged their placement, out of place as they may have been, she turned on her heel and curtly responded, "Yeah, never do that again," over her shoulder as she continued her toward her business in the kitchen. Naomi didn't like that. Admittedly, I didn't find the situation altogether pleasant either, but it seemed too trivial to give any real consideration.
But "too trivial" is a less than fair description. Indeed, I feel that typical human myopia results in the trivialization of day-to-day occurences that are actually consequential. Take, for example, this situation applied to my living arrangement. I live with Naomi for the time being; we're currently saving money in order to afford moving to New York. Sara is the lease-holder of this flat in which Naomi and I currently reside; possesses all rights for decisions that include determining whether or not I should have to either pay rent or, at the least, a portion of the utilities, neither of which I can afford. The fact that I'm granted the time and potential to steady my footing and begin saving money without having to worry about having to pay bills for where I'm staying is, to a degree, contingent on the whims of Ms. Sara here. Therefore, in the event that I were to ever fall out of grace with this person, described by those closest to her as tempestuous, anything from difficulty applied to an already difficult situation to the absolute failure of my short-term goals could result.
Furthermore, from a less catastrophic vantage, she may find it unappealing to continue allowing me to use her computer and scanner--especially considering that this situation is the conclusion of my first time using it. A bad beginning, yes?
...which leads me to why helping Naomi right now with chores is something that continues to play in the back of my mind as a somewhat obscene, distinctly obnoxious looping tune. Granted, I sat down to do this only moments before the idea of cleaning crossed her mind--in fact, I had already explained to her that I didn't want any responsibilities today, from her or otherwise, as there were things (such as writing) that I preferred to attend to, as I didn't have that opportunity during the week. Her agreement notwithstanding, I must now sacrifice the possibility of writing or drawing or smoking or whatever I may want to do in order to help her clean the house and wash the laundry.
And why? Because, maturely, it is what I ought to do. The house, this room, and our clothes do need cleaning. She shouldn't have to do them by herself. Last, I'm subject to a certain unspoken rule thats universally applied which I've named the "Two or More Times Recently" rule.
According to the TMTR rule, in any given living arrangement, you must prove your positive influence to the household by doing something beneficial to or for it Two or More Times Recently. This way, you have ammunition with which you can defend yourself against any personal attacks claiming that you're not pulling your weight and, even better, it usually avoids this sort of argument altogether.
Recently, I bought groceries. In order to fulfill the stipulations for peace in accordance with the afore-described rule, I need to assist, in some way or another, with the current cleaning. After doing so, I have accomplished the minimum requirements for avoiding a potential debacle, as every given decision and subsequent action has its consequences, and for me, that consequence is almost always a debacle.
What is it like being in a perpetual crisis like this? Confusing, more than anything else. I don't believe I even have the mental capacity to foresee every possible outcome of every decision I make. In addition, my mind is a quagmire of inappropriate opinions and cynicism, rendering my circumstances even more effortful. The ripple-effects of my life are endless and exhaustively intricate; I assume it's like that in every life, but unfortunately, I notice. To the detriment of my sanity, comfort, and functionality, I watch a spiral of catastrophe spread from one minor epicenter, the colors fiery and condemning, the lines deepening and expanding as they stretch into other situations, sometimes consuming them, others still, adding to them.
***
She didn't want me next to her, Naomi. She said that she wanted the loveseat to herself; the explanation was inconceivable in that way only a woman could provide: "Look, I just--please, I just want the heater--I'm sitting here." She doesn't ever look at me, especially in the eyes; her eyes usually never move from what shes watching, some sentimental chick flick about a mother with detatchment issues parading about controlling her melodramatic daughter's love lives currently in particular.
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