In Which I Log the Saga of the Pothead Neighbor.

Every freaking where I live there's some idiot smoking. At the apartment in Downtown, #444, it was tobacco, but not very often, and we used to "wash our windows" to get the downstairs neighbors to quit puffing outside our window- with the knowledge and approval of a very cool manager.
At the house on Beech Tree it was my Charming Neighbors, who had a neurotic dog and a perpetually lost cat, very loud parties and far too many pricey cars for one house, and they would toke up occasionally when I had the windows down on nice evenings. In CA the smell of Pot is Probable Cause for a search, and the cops dealt with those lovely people regularly, thanks to an anonymous tipster. Ahem.

But now.
Oh, now this is the worst, right here in lovely innocent Utah. One of the people I am forced by heater vents to share air with is a pothead, and is forcing me to inhale their nasty acrid smoke almost daily. I've been sticking notes about it on facebook, as follows:


Nothing like being home with an upper respiratory infection when one of the people connected to you by a forced air heating system decides to light up some weed. *chokecoughhack* I am sealing the vents. I'll be cold, I don't care.
Like · · December 14, 2011 at 4:21pm


If you're connected by forced air to several other apartments, is there any way to find out which, specifically, of them is smoking pot and choking you while you fight off a lung infection? Because I do not at this moment Love my Neighbor as Myself.
December 15, 2011 at 2:27pm
Heather I had that problem at the timbers. There is no way they can fix it. Only way I know of is to move. I hope you feel better soon though!
December 15, 2011 at 2:54pm · Like
Jennifer check with the property manager to see what the smoking policy is
December 15, 2011 at 3:07pm · Like
Carly Rat them out!!!
December 15, 2011 at 3:25pm · Like
Jason You said once that you have good senses, why not sniff them out? When somebody is smoking weed I can usually smell it through a door. Failing that, just wait until you pass somebody who reeks of weed and see where they go.
December 15, 2011 at 4:07pm · Unlike · 1
Peter Whichever one is also listening to pink floyd or bob marley :)
December 15, 2011 at 4:26pm · Unlike · 1
Laura Good luck, with whatever you do. I hope you get over the lung infection!
December 15, 2011 at 5:03pm · Like · 1
Nicole I'm sorry you're having that problem, but I love your last sentence. It made me LOL.
December 15, 2011 at 10:32pm · Unlike · 1
Me Thanks guys. If it happens again when I can afford to be outdoors in the cold, I'm going knocking on doors until one opens and the smoke wafts out. Then I am calling the cops.
December 16, 2011 at 4:46pm · Like · 1

I never did get to go knocking doors, because that lung infection- bronchitis from a sinus infection- turned into Pneumonia, which I am still trying to recover from here as I post this in January. I still have to avoid cold air whenever I can, so yeah. It goes on:


Saga of the pot-neighbor continues! I am using an air purifier to make my bathroom breathable. Last night whoeveritis decided to get high again at my expense, so I had to go use the shower at Mom's. I can't tell if they're doing it again, or if it's just fumes from last night. Merry freakin' Christmas.
Like · · December 24, 2011 at 11:03am

I sort of feel sorry for someone who has to get high on Christmas. But only sort of. Inflicting it on other people, who have lung and breathing problems, that right there kills my sympathy.
I didn't make a status every time they smoked pot from here on because it has become pretty frequent, increasing in frequency and intensity:


Saga of the Pot Smoking Neighbor continues: Spoke to an Ossifer, and he says they can't enter someone's home or arrest them without actually seeing them doing it. Seeing them with drugs in hand. Even if the whole place reeks. Greeeeaaaat. I can pray the smoker is stoned enough to answer the door with joint in hand.
Like · · December 28, 2011 at 9:02pm

Smoked out of my apartment by acrid marijuana fumes on Saturday, forced to go use a friend's bathroom. Unable to sleep thanks to intermittent fumes all of Sunday night. Had enough. I am going to the management in person. Either they evict this piece of crap or I am moving, and taking my substantial rent and deposit with me. I can't live like this.
Like · · Yesterday at 6:35am

And so we're up to date.
By this point it has gotten so bad it's ruining my ability to sleep properly, I get woken up by the stench. I've had to leave my house and go be with friends to escape it, it keeps me from showering because I can't shut the vents in my bathroom. I choke on it all night. My friends won't come over because they can't deal with the stink of it and a bathroom they can't use either.

I am breaking down. I am contemplating violence. I am wondering if an Assault charge on my public record would be really so bad. I am so very glad the Management has refused to tell me which apartment they think is doing this to me, for my own sake. I am ready to do something phenomenally stupid. I dunno what but it would be violent and stupid. I scream at the walls. I have started phoning Management to leave a message every time the smoker lights up and fumes my house some more, just so they get a sense of the urgency of the problem.
Which brings us to today:

Saga of the pothead neighbor continues: I have contacted the Main Management, described my rather hellishly fumigated weekend, and have given an ultimatum to them. Either they evict this person or I am leaving. End of story. I think they see my point now, and have told me they'll call me back this afternoon.
Like · · 25 minutes ago

If they don't want to lose an exceedingly high amount of money, they will get rid of this problem. I seem to have made them understand that whatever they have said to this person, the Pothead clearly has No intention of ceasing to poison my air and is ruining my health. I have also told them that if I have to go to a hotel, I will be sending them the bill. Money talks. They have said they will contact me this afternoon. I dearly hope it is to say they will have this person thrown out. My sympathy is done.

In which I Try to Get Life Back in Line: Labor Day.

I feel like I'm always playing catch-up, juggling every day to try to get to birthdays, events, dinners, bills, taxes, vacations, obligations, all around my work hours, and somehow in between find time for the art that keeps me sane. I want family time and friend time, but I also have obligations and money-things like taxes and not-fun stuff like bills and rent and managing worky stuff.

I have a new job of sorts and I am in love with it even though it's demanding- I work at a local Motion Picture Studio now, and they are doing a series of episodes from the New Testament.
I am an Art Dept. Go-to, which is like a go-fer but more productive. It means that my boss decorates the set and he needs stuff for it, and if he doesn't have time to have someone else make the stuff, he comes to me and says, "Can you make me this?" and I say, "Yep, I can do that!", which is my arting motto. So far he has liked my work *squee* which is for me a huge thing because if he likes my stuff I've done, they will likely call me in for other projects too, and I will get to keep working there. Every day is a new challenge, and it's something I've inadvertently trained for since High School- limited time, limited materials, and a need for a certain outcome and historical look, Go! I am an expert at this! Making do and getting results from faked or limited material is what I do best! I am so ridiculously happy to have everything I've been doing with my art and reenactment for these last few years suddenly have work application! I have realized I want to do this the rest of my life.

...Which leaves me in a quandary as to my education. I want a degree, but in what? My nascent career in the Entertainment industry hardly requires a degree- in fact they could care less. They require results, talent, speed, reliability and ability, not a certificate saying I'm really good at writing educated papers. I know a degree is more than that, but if you can't write educated papers to specific formats, you No Can Haz, no matter how frickin brilliant you are. I am wondering if a traditional degree is even possible for me. Between my autistic tendencies in learning and communication and my anxiety and depression that totally screwed me academically, I don't know. I feel this driving idiotic lifelong need to Get A Degree so that society will see me as educated and worth employing, but the only people I want to employ me don't give a flying fart whether I have one or not. Argh.

In Which I Have My Own Space Again, and All I Wanna Do Is Art

Phoo.
I'm supposed to be making phone calls of great import, and scheduling more family vacation arrangements, (Yes, I just got back from one, but this year we seem to have several. I like them, I just don't know what I'm going to do with so many of them- They're like pies. Awesome and fun, but more than one of them and you start wondering if you have room left in the metaphorical fridge of mental capacity.) but all I want to do is art, now that I finally have space to do it again.

I can't think very well lately. I can't seem to keep ideas in my head unless they are art ideas. I need to go shopping for food but I don't quite want to because I haven't showered yet because I was going to do that after walking the dog which I slept in too late to do this morning so I have to do that this afternoon and then run laundry while I walk the dog and see if Mom has the phone number to that one doctor I was supposed to call...

and all I want to do is put up sets and take pictures here in my apartment.

I feel like the world is moving too fast for me. If only I could stop time, so the people leaving me would not leave, the people wanting me to go places would not need to be in a hurry to go, and I could sit for a day or two and just Do Art. If only life were so simple.