April Sucks

Well, it's mostly in the high 40s and 50s these days. I guess. So that's something. But it's April. And aside from being evil and my least favorite month and all that, April is a time of rain. Cold (but not freezing) rain that just makes everything damp and unpleasant and it makes the earthworms come out. They crawl out of my backyard and onto the patio and just lay there all gross and then they dry out and die and leave that earthworm smell and it makes me sad. So, today I'm just feeling blah. I can't write anything brilliant and I'm not motivated to do my taxes and I just don't care. I need cocoa.

Aaaaahhhh, cocoa.

Okay, my upstairs neighbor is kinda freaking me out. Only three other folks live in my little brownstone and she is the oddest. At first I thought she was sweet. When I had a housewarming party a million years ago I invited the folks in the building. None of them came, but she wrote me a really sweet little note explaining that she already had plans and thanking me for inviting her. She also seemed very pleasant when I first really met her, despite the fact that we met because our building had been broken into and her apartment robbed. But now I feel weird about her.

My apartment is the ground floor/basement one. I have a backdoor that opens into a little backyard which I love. It's one of the reasons I wanted the apartment. You can also get to the yard if you go into the actual basement and come up through the cellar type doors there. No idea what they're called, but you know what I'm talking about. And you can get to it from the fire escape too, which is right above my back door. When I signed the lease the landlord told me that the backyard was mine to do with as I chose, it came with my apartment and not the building. I didn't really feel I needed to hog the backyard, but I was glad it was mine.

So, my upstairs neighbor did a little work in it last summer and told me about it and asked if that was a problem. I said of course not. That if she wanted to have big gatherings to let me know as my backdoor is right there (and I hate being clothed and sometimes have windows open and forget about it...) but that I didn't think I'd be hogging the yard. It seemed okay though I did feel weird about it when she was back there. I don't know quite why. Too close to my back door or something. But she weeded some of it (not well though as the weeds came back soon) and put a little table and chairs back there and seemed happy.

Then my folks started visiting lots and we'd go outside and chat and Mom would smoke and we'd be all family like. Not rowdy or anything. But whenever we'd be out there, my neighbor would shut her windows. Usually very firmly. Like she was a thousand years old and we were disturbing her nap with our youngster chatter or something. I don't know. My folks and I found it very odd. Because she did it EVERY TIME. She'd open the windows when we'd go in, slam them when we came back out.

But then, once the wind blew her window down when I was inside and smashed it. And she was very sweet and came to explain the noise to me and to tell me not to go out there until she cleaned it up. And then she cleaned all the glass up the next morning.

Then this Spring she's started doing bigger work on the backyard and I'm kind of annoyed. Now, I haven't done much with it though I want to. And when she was raking branches and debris I thought that was really sweet. But the last time I peeked outside she'd taken out all the brick boarders around the yard and stacked them on the edge of my patio. And there's quite a pile of slate toward the back of the yard. And I'm kinda pissed off. If she wants to slate a section of the yard or do any real alterations on it, I feel like she should ask me about it. I really would rather have some grass or something in the yard. Laying sod or something like that would make me feel a little better than laying slate. And I wouldn't mind paying for some of that or putting in the work. But I don't like her just redoing the whole yard without word one to me. But then I feel like I'm being all pissy about something for no reason when she's actually putting effort into the yard.

I really think I need therapy. This really shouldn't be bothering me so much. The woman who was there before me was apparently a nut and wouldn't let anyone near the yard and I don't want to be like that. My neighbors do seem nice, if a bit quirky. Ah, I don't know. I should just do what work I want to do on the yard, keep an eye one what she's doing and if she actually does look like she's going to poor concrete on the whole thing I should talk to her. I'm just being silly. Am I using this blog for therapy? God, I hope not. Y'all don't need that.

I think I'm going to survey the area and then swing by her apartment some afternoon and ask what's what and what she was thinking of doing and what I'd like to see and maybe we can figure something out. How reasonable that sounds. Which probably means I won't do it.

Maybe I'll write more interesting things when April is over. I hate April. Bad things happen in April. I lost my grandfather last April.

April sucks.