2010-10-04 10:33 p.m.

Some days are clearly not as good as others.

Today was a good day. I got lots of sleep. My to-do list got swiftly defeated by none other than yours truly. I got treated to a magnificent barbecue dinner. Nobody screamed and swore at me. Nobody died.

Yesterday, not so much.

I started by driving from Long Beach to North Hollywood to go to my house, pick up my mail, get a check from the people in the front house, and move my car behind the gate in the driveway. Front house guy had a screaming outburst at me yesterday when I rang the doorbell to get a check from his girlfriend. He screamed and swore and was generally extremely hostile and no fun. I had called at 10:30 AM to ask them to move a car for me to park in the driveway, and left messages for both that I would arrive around noon to move cars and pick up mail and the utility check. Neither answered or called back. I arrived at noon and their cars were there. Tal answered the door and said her boyfriend was sick and sleeping and couldn't move his car and she gave me the mail.

I went into my house to fiddle with some things before leaving again and found she didn't include the check for utilities. I went back and rang the doorbell and Armen answered and he was furious! SO MUCH SHOUTING. "Didn't Taline tell you I'm fucking SLEEPING?" I guess Taline had left in the five minutes I was in my house. I apologized and explained I was there to get the check so their power wouldn't get shut off (I had the big red shut off notices in my hand.) He shouted that he didn't care and he was tired me me "fucking bothering them." He cited the time I texted them at 4 AM when I was leaving Italy to let them know I would be on a plane and would need them to let me into the house about ten hours later.

I don't really know what to do. They haven't given me keys to the mailbox or small side gate, so I have to bug them to get into the gate or get my mail. And, they won't give me keys to their cars so I have to call to have them every time I need to go through the driveway.

It's weird, since I'm gone most of the time and rarely come home or call or anything. It seems like they get grumpier and angrier the longer I'm away. I would think that more frequent contact would make them more hostile, but they seem to work differently.

I hear them fighting a lot. Things can't be good in there.

Then I went to the car rental place to measure cars. I need to rent a car for some upcoming location photo shoots and I wanted to make sure some specific pieces of gear would fit. The girl there told me, "I'm not trying to be rude, but I can see that you think I'm rude. But, we don't let people measure the cars. All we do here is rent them. If you have questions you can check online or call customer service." I asked, "Wait, so you're not allowed to let me look at a car before I rent it?"

Nope.

Sigh.

Then Brian called me and told me that a friend of mine killed herself. It was a Kelly, a girl I met through his girlfriend. I had a crush on Kelly many months before. We talked on the phone a lot—often several hours per day—but only got to hang out in person once. She was super weird, dark, moody, and always isolating. I really thought she was fun to walk with and I enjoyed her company, but I didn't feel like having a correspondence pal that would never actually hang in person, so I stopped being in touch with her around March or thereabouts. She eventually moved away from LA (eight weeks ago), flew to SF, and told everyone she was staying with her sister. Suspicions got aroused when someone actually called her sister and asked how it was going with them living together. The sister knew nothing of this and hadn't heard from Kelly for months. What Kelly actually did was check into a hotel and killed herself.

This I do not like at all.

But, today was wonderful. My stomach is full with the remains of charred meat and peach cobbler. And, tomorrow will probably be even better. Even if it's not, things move forward.


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