mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm getting screwed again... My landlord -- as good as he's been to me in the past -- can surely be a jackass. And the bad thing is, I don't think he realizes the jackass he is being. I'm officially vacating my apartment in two weeks. March 18 will be my last official day in possession of the keys to my apartment. I will be gone, gone, gone, spending my American dollars in Canada. And since I am not working, I'm depending on any dollars I can save to get me through these next two months before I Aim High. But my landlord is pretty darn old. His neck doesn't really work, so when he tries to turn his neck, he has to turn his whole body. It's really kinda weird. Like he's wearing a neck brace... but he's not. He's been a fantastic landlord, despite a few incidents. Needless to say, he's behind the times when it comes to someone else's money. What is he doing this time? He's charging me for the entire month's rent, even though I won't be here for half of the month. So, I'm paying almost $170 for an apartment that I won't be occupying. He said, "Yeah. I don't think I'll be able to find someone to rent the apartment before month's end, so I need you to cover the cost of the whole month." If I've seen Judge Judy enough -- and I think I have, since we ran a whole hour of it every day at work -- I think my reasoning is correct in thinking that he can't legally charge me for days that not a single bit of my stuff will be occupying his apartment. Thankfully, I write him two checks at the beginning of each month. I write one that he can cash immediately and one he can cash when I get my mid-month paycheck. Therefore, the check that holds half of my rent is still outstanding. I'm thinking about calling the bank and cancelling it and just cutting him a check for the rest of the money. He'll be pissed. But hell, $170 will go a long way while I'm in Canada. It'll basically pay for my entire lodging while there. I'm staying in Canadian hostels. Cheap cheap. So, what do you think? I know none of you live in Missouri -- ok, very few of you do -- but do you know if I have any legal standing in not paying for the days that I won't even have keys to the apartment? Email me and tell me what you think. Because the more I think about it, the pissier I get. I've been talking a lot online with a girl I supposedly used to make fun of on the schoolbus when I was a kid. Then in high school, I used to be real nice to, and she had a huge crush on me, we used to have a lot of laughs, yada yada yada. The only problem is... I don't remember a minute of it! I'm such a boy. She's a gorgeous girl. A true Southern Belle. They just don't make them above the Mason-Dixon line like they do below. Have I told you my gorgeous girl-to-tree ratio theory? My idea is that the number of gorgeous girls is directly proportionate to the number of trees. My proof? Go to Mississippi and take a look at the girls. Then go to Kansas. You'll understand. But forgetting important people from my past isn't completely unheard of in the history of JP. I've written about my Best Bud Ever Marcus. We are like brothers. I love him as much as I could love a family member. As far as I'm concerned, we are as related as you can get. But supposedly, according to our respective mothers, we used to hate one another. It was much to the chagrin of our moms because they were friends and wanted us to get along. But we supposedly couldn't be within 100 feet without trying to kill each other. But neither one of us remembers it. It's like a weird episode of the Twilight Zone. The thing that brought us together -- and it is literally one of the earliest memories of him in my head -- was a biology teacher we had together that most people hated. His name was Mr. Bill Sanders. He was fat. He was lazy. And he had narcolepsy, so he would end up falling asleep in the middle of roll call. The funniest thing is that I'm not joking! But Marcus and I loved him to death. He was so good to laugh at, and he knew he was good to laugh at. He would call us over to his desk and say, "Hey, guys. I'm on a new diet. Look!" And he would open his desk to overflowing mounds of Slim Fast bars. He would down one every few minutes. Let's just say he isn't Jarrod from Subway. Slim Fast won't be a-callin' for his story. I spent all day yesterday gathering sources for a presentation and paper I am giving for my grammar class. I am talking about autism and how it affects language and phonological aspects of speech. I found out some really interesting things about autism and speech. I won't bore you with them. Do you own damned research. But I'm just saying that's why I didn't update a few nights ago. I was busy doing research and learning about autistic children. I'm now tempted to find autistic kids and ask them to perform complex front-to-back and back-to-front phonetic sounds to see if they can do it. My research said they can't. Neat! If you want to read the blog of a family who has an autistic son, look over to the left and click on "Barlow Farms." He's a guy I knew growing up who has a beautiful family. One of them just happens to be autistic. Ok, kids. It's bed time. Thanks for stopping by. I'm going target shooting with my Air Force bud Justin, then we're going out drinking with one of the recruiters at the office. Let's get that straight. We are going shooting then drinking. In that order. I'm sure there will be lots of stories tomorrow night. 1:13 a.m. - Wed., Mar. 5, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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