So we're beginning to think our parking space on the road is cursed. I mean, how else can you explain it? First my poor car got plundered, then Ryan's truck got shmucked...I'm afraid to even look in that direction, lest staring at the pavement too long renders me blind.

I just don't know how much more I can take living in this godawful neighbourhood. I mean, take into consideration:

~ The old man in the basement not only steals our mail but also runs a very successful narcotic business out of his home.

~ Said old man also has a girl living with him, about 40 years old, that is mentally handicapped. This girl about a month ago gave birth to a baby, supposedly it has gone to adoption. In the months before the birth she was always seen sitting on the steps outside drinking beer, and once was left out in the 30 degree heat for FOUR HOURS because the old man wouldn't let her inside. The neighbours on the main floor say they hear him beat up on her constantly. What's worse? The police know about both the drug dealing and the abuse, yet nothing has been done.

~ Crazy drunken teenagers have stumbled into our apartment in wee hours of the morning, looking for pizza.

~ Weird, shabby men patrol our streets at night, sometimes mumbling to themselves, sometimes yelling at nothing. Granted, I do this myself sometimes, but they do it ALL the time, so that makes them worse.

~ 2 months ago a beating went down in the yard two houses over, in which we had to call the cops at 4 in the morning after hearing screaming of "He's dead, you've killed him!" and "Is that a gun??!"

~ A year ago there was a fatal stabbing incident down the street.

~ Last summer a girl got raped on the street a few houses down.

~ And last but not least, our crazy italian neighbours. Nope, they're not in the mafia. And no, I don't think they're doing anything illegal. But holy crap they have loud kids who like to scream and yell and honk the bloody car horn for HOURS outside our bedroom windows beginning at 6am. And the old witch of a grandmother has been known to look up into our windows and cackle. I wouldn't be surprised if she, in fact, cursed the parking spot.

Top it all off with a landlady who is a heinous bitch and can't understand why, "We put in silly deadlocks on the doors" or "Need the light outside the door changed again."

Ryan said to me the other day, "We CAN'T move out! We are just what our neighbourhood NEEDS! Good, happy, successful young people to turn this place around! We'll force the bad people out by making it too nice to live here!"

I tried to convince him that to create that upstanding image he has in his head, the first step would be to buy curtains, because we are simply just fitting in with the crazy crowd if we continue to walk through the kitchen naked in front of all those big windows looking out onto the street. I mean, you just don't earn neighbourly respect that way, I think. The long term effect of this habit could even lead to a further decline in our neighbourhood, and support the influx of peepers and pornography rings.

The verdict is still out on the curtain idea though. Although I'm slowly trying to turn this house into something less Man and more Girl, I've not succeeded in convincing them that some bare Girl essentials are needed, because as Men they apparently need nothing but a toilet, bed, t.v. and computers, and things like "curtains" and "plants" and "shelves" are grossly unneccesary.

So while I haven't succeeded in turning this house into an enticing mix of Boy and Girl pleasantness, it's slowly turning around and I can say with no small amount of pride that now it doesn't look so much like Men live here, but with my expert touch now it looks more like Gay Men. Sort of. Perhaps I shouldn't put it that way, as any gay man I've met has more class than me. Perhaps Feminine Men. Drag Queens, even. So the house is in the awkward adolescent phase of rapidly changing from Drag Queen to Boy/Girl Wonderfulness.

Or perhaps I just shouldn't personify the sexual orientation of my kitchen.

In other news, my Anatomy teacher can't stop talking about skinning cats. She'll be all, "Hey, look at that dermis! You know it's filled with all sorts of hair follicles and fibrous threads and...Goddamn...Did I tell you about skinning that cat? You could see everything! It's such a shame you'll never get to skin a cat. It's such a great learning experience. Why, back in the day you could skin a cat anytime you wanted to learn about epidermis! But now, there's all these rules about how you can't skin cats, when really skinning cats is the cool thing to do!"

If Ryan's cat yowls at me one more time this morning, I think I'll volunteer her for the task.