Loise Gone; Phone Lost

The only way I am going to keep this blog up is if I can make it better; in my opinion.

Last night, I went out to the Banks Meat Market, where I sat on the sidewalk in front and started to compose a text message to Louise, who had stayed at my place for the allotted 10 days.

She had blown up and did a "Leslie Thompson" on me the very last day, when she was to wake up and pack up and leave.

I was composing the text, the gist of which was that Louise and I had pretty much broken even on the "deal."

She left in her wake a nice new heavy duty can opener (no more jabbing knives into the lids of cans and having my kitchen wall splattered with some of the contents -grape juice concentrate leaves stains) some Jello, peanut butter and jelly and mayonnaise, so much toilet paper that I will have to think about her every time I wipe my ass for the next 3 months, cat supplies (flea stuff, cat "wipes" and a brush to comb out his locks) and in general, stuff that it could be argued had been brought in by her to make her own life more comfortable.
After her first day here, I came home to hear her lamenting about how she had been unable to extract some food that she had been craving from the can that it was in.
Which brings me to the first of the list of things which worked to counter balance the benefits that I received through her staying here.
In essence, the fact that I came home to find her complaining about not having been able to open a can meant that I came home to find her there, as she had never gone out to work that night.
She worked one night, made over 100 dollars reading tarot cards, and then decided that it would be nice, since I wasn't charging her rent, to stake "a few" days off; lay on the couch, play with the cat and feast upon things such as potato salad, rotini and sausage, Jello, and eventually things that come out of cans; after she had somehow procured the nice can opener, which she left as a gift to me. Whether or not she left my place unlocked in order to run to the store for the can opener and more food; I never asked her about.
She would have been right in assuming that, most likely, nobody would be trying to come in the apartment and steal anything, given all of the security here, while she was gone; but; is that a decision that a guest in someone else's place should be making?
Meanwhile, I was out there having some of the worst money making nights that I have had since coming to New Orleans 4+ years ago; and reading texts from her about how cute the cat was acting; and that she had put a "Hoo Doo" on me, so that I would be attracting money out there.
The whole experience was kind of a wash.
She enabled me to stay drunk and stoned, by doing things like sending me to the store with 20 dollars cash for stuff that I could get with my food card, allowing me to return to the place with a her stuff, plus a pint of whiskey and a sack of weed for myself, and there was one night when I actually blew off work myself; set up my laptop and speakers; and we sat there watching a movie, while she ate beef stew, washed down with diet Coke, and then had Cherry Garcia ice cream for dessert.
She doesn't drink nor smoke weed, but she does go to "Al-anon" meetings, which she claims help her with one of the problems that she does have, namely, "overeating."
She had lost 65 pounds, she claimed. This reduced her weight to somewhere in the low 200's.
I think she put back about 20 pounds during the 10 days that she stayed with me.
The boiling point came upon the last day of her stay.
I had gotten up in the morning at my "usual" hour.
I did not do my usual things. I sat and listened to her talk incessantly for over an hour.
She was trying to push the A.A. program upon me, all the while assuring me that she wasn't trying to push anything upon me.
"Can I just read you the Reflection For The Day?"
Can I just spend the next 45 minutes expounding upon how this particular reflection has helped me so much with my issues of anger and overeating?
I started to write what might have become a blog post, actually blocking out her voice and focusing upon it.
After a while I just became distracted by her, because, like most people who ramble, she started interjecting questions like: "...you know what I mean...?" that required a short response or a grunt from me.
She is like the person who calls on the phone and begins to rant, allowing you to just put the phone down on the table in front of you and go about your business, just picking it up whenever you hear the squawking pause to say something like "Yeah," before replacing it on the table where it will squawk for another interval.
She had decided not to go to work yet another night.
The place where she had been staying charged enough rent so that she had to go out nightly in order to maintain.
Now, she was availing herself to my place, being a constant presence which deprived me of anything close to "quiet time" in my own apartment, and even went so far as to ask me if I would set my laptop and speakers up for her so that she could watch movies while I was out busking.
I balked at that, since I have a lot of personal stuff in my laptop, and since I really didn't know her that well, and I didn't want to even flirt with the idea of coming home to hear her say something like: "I had one of my episodes and deleted your whole hard drive; I'm very sorry; that's one of the things that I'm working on in the Al-anon program; my impulses to destroy other people's things..."
After I had become distracted by her, I said something to the effect that I was trying to work on a blog post and that it was distracting to have her talking at the same time.
She became deadly silent.
I tried to write some more, but her silence was so oppressive that the implication was clear that I had offended her, and so I had to mollify her with something to the effect of "I didn't mean to cut you off, but..." Which started her back up talking.
I ran to the store for some things, picked up a half pint of whiskey and sipped it on my way back to the apartment.
I wanted to record some music to document it before I forgot the lyrics or the whole song idea in general.
I have a song called "The Cat Song," which is about Harold the cat and is one that, when I played it for her the first day she was here, had her rolling on the couch laughing and telling me how clever it was and how I should include it in a stand up comedy routine.
Not so much on her last day there.
She was clearing her throat and staring at her I-phone that she was playing a game on with an expression which said that I was annoying her.
With this vote of confidence in my back pocket, I went off into the Quarter with her blessings and Hoo Doo's to match the worst money night that I have had since coming here.
I walked back, just thinking that I wanted my life back.