Ignored (But Not Surprised)

I’m back! To finish the horribleness I experienced with the Officers and my neighbor. You know, the one with the fence that looks stupid.

My backyard and the neighbors ugly as sin fence.

Luckily for my neighbor, his relentless pounding on my front door at 7:00 A.M. last Good Friday did not wake my Mother.

When she did wake up I told her what happened and we talked for a long time about the nerve of him and how he wasn’t getting on our property today and we decided that I would compose a Hold Harmless agreement for my neighbor and his workers to sign when they would inevitably come back to call on the fence request.

Right?

After all that he’d certainly come back, and when he did I wanted to be ready.

So I drafted the document, revised it 17-77 times and finally printed copies of it the Tuesday after Easter.

I wanted to be ready.

I know exactly where that document is right now in my legal drawer.

But he never came back again.

Until Wednesday.

When I had to call the police.

Because he had workers trespassing in our back yard again.

I loathe the phrase, “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.” (And I’m pretty sure that’s my neighbor’s motto in life. Just like it’s the motto of a lot of other men I’ve come across like him in my life.) Why do you think I hate it so much?

Time out. You know, my being drugged and raped by a boyfriend aside.

Time in. I have entitlement issues for sure. But I have some excellent reasons for my irritation surrounding entitlement. (The memoir I’m writing is full of examples of how I was harassed by entitlement.)

Back to Wednesday, I already mentioned what happened but let me be clearer about the chain of events.

Around 8:45 A.M. I was with my Mom in the kitchen before she left for work and I saw a man in my backyard shoving wooden braces into my lawn in an attempt to prop up my neighbor’s fence. I pointed it out to my Mother and went outside to confront the situation.

“Excuse me, Sir,” I yelled as loudly as possible. At first he did nothing, but then he turned around. “You don’t have our permission to do that and you have to stop immediately,” I told him. He replied that he didn’t speak English very well and as I mentioned in my last post shoved a phone in my face. I told the woman on the phone, whoever she was, that he had to leave and they (because a second man entered my property as I was speaking with her) couldn’t be there under any circumstances. She rudely snapped, “I heard you! God!” The man took the phone back and they left my property, but they also left the wooden braces propping up the fence behind. And I knew they would be back because of that.

And I was right.

They entered my property two more times that I am aware of after I had been told I was understood by that nasty person on the phone.

I wanted to sneak in something happy here, so this was the breakfast the boyfriend I’m disgustingly in love with had sent over for me one morning this past week. It was beyond yum. He’s the best. But he’s taken.

The first time I heard them come back because I had cracked open my back door to snoop for the crunching of leaves.

They returned not only to take the wedged pieces but they also started stealing, yes, stealing good strong wood on my property along the fence line. Theft on top of trespassing. This was around approximately 9:30 A.M. — so — my Mom was at work by then.

I hate not having witnesses.

And I hate to say this even more: I hate not having male witnesses.

Why?

If only the Officers hadn’t buddied up with my neighbor so quickly, maybe they would have heard me.

But it’s so difficult to be heard sometimes. Even though you’re very logically and reasonably explaining your safety concerns and how this has happened before and how all your neighbor had to do was sign a paper I spent hours revising just for him. Even though.

Because if I’m a man then me and other men (the Officers) speak the same language of understanding — that stealing, and trespassing, and my concern for liability are all legit.

But because I’m a woman — I’m just hysterical and can’t possibly understand the simple thing that my neighbor is “just doing.”

But I was assaulted. And I mean that literally.

Privacy is a funny thing. I have to assume that everything I’m about to share was intended for me to share since I took the pictures on my property and through a hole in their beast fence.

Their backyard

More backyard

Even more boring backyard

🚔 🚔 Two cars and two male white Officers would eventually show up at my house, take down my driver’s license information, and become degrading sexist friends with my neighbor who they spoke to for mere seconds, which was all that was needed to dismiss everything I was saying, and, whose license they didn’t need even though he drove to my house, and even though I was just standing in my driveway.

Oh wow! Those look suspicious like told that might have been used in the assault.

My asshole neighbor can’t even pretend he wasn’t on my property or that he didn’t tell them to do what they did.

Assault

We even have a fence up that they just climbed over to get what they wanted.

These are the logs that the workers started stealing on their way off my property the second time.

All day I endured the sound of their work, watching. If my neighbor had just come over to me he could have signed this Hold Harmless agreement I wrote and this wouldn’t even be a post.

But he either wasn’t home or just didn’t care.

So the last time they would come over I asked them to leave and they ignored me, at my neighbor’s direction. This was after 4:00 P.M.

I was done.

I called my town’s non-emergency police number and began to file my complaint.

I was asked to describe how the trespassers — who were now being called back over now that my neighbor has heard me yell that last time, “get out or I’m calling the police!” — looked — as in what they were wearing, their skin color, hair color, height, etc. — which took an immense amount of time. As the dispatcher struggled to find my address — the call took approximately 10 minutes and by then the neighbor was trying to call me over to him from behind his fence. I paid him no attention whatsoever, except to look a bit in his exact direction to let him know I was going to do what I was doing no matter what he wanted, the entitled prick.

Besides, the operator told me not to interact with anyone I mentioned, including the neighbor, whatsoever.

Once the operator got my address down correctly (FINALLY), two police vehicles showed up in front of my house where I was waiting for them.

That brick will fix everything 🙄

So one Officer began to get my statement. He listened to me for a few seconds before the second Officer beckoned him to the end of my driveway where my neighbor had driven over to be even more entitled than he had already been that day.

Since this is exactly what went down next, I’ll repeat: And after this same neighbor motioned them to him — to which they really complied — he spoke no more than 20 words to them — causing the Officers to react orally like this: “Yeah, I got you man, I’ll explain it to her,” and, “We’ll tell her.”

I literally rolled my eyes because I knew how this story was going to end and I was right.

It ended with the Officers attempting to explain property lines and fences to me.

And when I tried to speak up for myself, I was talked over and interrupted. As I refused to concede that nothing wrong had been done that day, the Officers just contributed to change topics and ignored what I had to say about the stealing, the trespassing, how this wasn’t even the first time he’s done this (last Good Friday), and that I am a trained lawyer in real estate and have legitimate concerns about liability.

Their final dismissal was, “well [your neighbor] said they don’t speak English very well so I don’t think they were understanding when you asked them to leave.”

“Then why was I on the phone with a woman who was going to take care of it?!” I wanted to scream. But I could tell with the workers done with the work (say least they better be) and the neighbor now best friends with the Officers, it would be pointless to continue to try plead my case.

They were not listening.

As I said they asked to see my driver’s license, and annoyingly they took down my name and phone number, as if they weren’t going to throw what they’d written on it out.

The Officers said, “well drive over there and we’ll talk to him.” But I have no idea if they actually did, or what would have been said, or why I even bothered calling for help since I couldn’t get any or see any results.

If there is one thing that’s clear: a fence definitely exists.

An Ode to “Bad Things”

This is a story about what I imagined a couple who lived the life of the song “Bad Things” by Machine Gun Kelly would be like. This is part 1 and I’ve put a link below for your convenience if you want to listen to the song first.

Watch “Machine Gun Kelly, Camila Cabello – Bad Things (Official Music Video)” on YouTube. https://youtu.be/QpbQ4I3Eidg

It’s us.

            Most of this song basically summarizes our relationship so far. The good and the bad. The choices. The way I’ve made you feel. The way you’ve made me feel. The way we make each other feel — and especially as to that last one — how much closer the way you feel and the way I feel has started to change into the way we feel.

            Things have not always been smooth with us. That’s life. It’s messy and fucked up and there are a lot of things that can go badly. I was incredibly scared of you after your bike accident. I suppose sometimes that fear is still a little bit there.

            So, when MGK says “nothing’s that bad; if it feels good,” I usually think of that first incident. After that happened, I thought I knew exactly what you were and what you’d do and how you are — and I’ve realized maybe I don’t. And I don’t like putting people into boxes anyway. No one wants to be judged by the worst thing they’ve done. No one wants to be judged based on how they behaved on their worst day or even just a bad day. No one deserves that. None of us are just one thing or one way. No matter how much we want to, we cannot group people into tiny boxes that we create to try to control the chaos in our life. At least I don’t think we should. So, I realized if I wanted to practice what I believe about that, I have to look at you as a whole person — and not just the parts of you that have made me feel really uncomfortable in our relationship. I eventually realized that nothing was going to be that bad — if everything else is so good. It outweighs that bad and then some.

            Then I came back to you. My love. I couldn’t stay away from you. I was drawn to you like an Addict — and that is real talk. I still am. I don’t know how you knew I would come back — but back I came. I remember me trying and trying to convince myself to be with that other person and telling you that you and I were over and you needed to stop interfering because I was terrified it was going to fuck things up for me. It’s weird how anxious I got in hindsight, because the truth is that I had said and done all of the things with you that you were threatening to send screenshots to him about. Perhaps at that point I had convinced myself that you were toxic for me once again even though I am just as wild and toxic because I did those bad things with you.

            My feelings turned around about you again though when you didn’t actually send much of anything too incriminating. You could have, but it was like even though you could have blown up my relationship, you were protecting me or something. Or maybe you just wanted me to come to the decision to come back to you on my own. I don’t know why you didn’t do it. I just know you didn’t. And you let me make my mind up. And I just kept telling you it was over and I was never coming back — like the night was young in our relationship — because I was trying to convince myself that I was never going to go back to you and I just kept repeating that over and over and over again and you just kept answering me with “I think you are,” and you just wouldn’t give in — like at all. No leverage whatsoever.

            And you were always fucking right about me coming back every time. And I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you. I’m sorry for the ping pong. I don’t know what drew me to that idiot — but I wasn’t obsessed with him like I was about you. And I hope you won’t judge me based on my bad days. I think the lines “I can’t explain it; I love the pain,” apply to you here in this way. You suffered having to wait for me to come back to you but you knew I would. Something about me kept you around. Maybe something about you kept me around. And honestly, sincerely, and completely, it shocked the hell out of me that you did. I truly in my heart and my mind expected you to be happy we broke up and just move on — at least the first time. And when you didn’t immediately do that — I was shocked. For real. I had no idea what I was in store for next. Forgiveness.

            For me the “I can’t explain it; I love the pain,” lyric refers more to the times when you did fuck up. Because the thing about when you fuck up baby — is you fuck up hard. And it is very painful for me to endure. The other chicks made me sick to my stomach. The things you said you were going to do and have and even your hesitation to text those girls was killing me. When you blocked my number and I couldn’t reach you I was so desperate I called from a blocked number. I needed you. I can’t believe you’d sit and watch me worried on the other side of that screen and not pick up. That’s so cruel. I was so sick over all of those things. Then of course the day that you got drunk and called me at the bus station totally wasted was hell too, because I knew you wouldn’t be reliable for the rest of the day since I know what it is like to blackout — and selfishly — for me that meant that I wasn’t going to get Eric for the rest of the day. And I wanted him back so badly. I can’t say I love the pain, but I will say I can’t explain how I have gotten through the bad times.

            And you’re my drug. And I do breathe you in until I’m numb. You are intoxicating. I can’t wait for the next text or call or Google meet — I crave every word you send me and every sentence you write and everything you say and watching everything you do. You just amaze the fuck out of me babes. And I don’t know if it is exactly the same for you — but I have to assume it is something like it — because you keep texting and calling and Google meeting with me. You spend so much time with me. We are so fucking Addicted to each other, and I don’t fucking care. Because we numb each other from the pain we have from every single other fucking thing that sucks in our lives, and that craving is insatiable for both of us. We can’t get enough. We breathe together during all of these times, and it numbs us like novacaine. So we’re always high on each other. And it feels really normal.