... also on my way home, running into someone i study with and getting into a heated debate about veganism. it was interesting - although i suspect i cut him off a bit too harshly quite a few times - until some apparently drunk guy who'd been peeing in the bushes behind us planted himself two feet away and stared at me. he asked my classmate if he could understand a word i was saying, and when he responded in the affirmative he told him to tell me that he understood perfectly too.
now, i don't have an issue with being excessively social, or anti-social, but do you *have* to be aggressive about it? everything about this jerk suggested violence, and the first words out of his mouth were to tell one stranger to "pull one over" another. damned primitives :@
now that i've gotten it through my head that i'm actually freelancing, my appreciation for my time is completely flipped around and everything's gravy. i'm a team of one, and i'm the team leader fully responsible for management. i don't have an issue with putting together charts and graphs and spreadsheets when i know that i'm being paid to do so.
it was evening already when i received an emergency phone call from my tenant: sewerage seeping out a pipe that goes through the bedroom. NOT acceptable, less by me than him if i gauge the difference in our attitudes correctly.
the plumbers i usually call are two partners, one of whom lives close by and both of whom do decent work fairly cheaply. the thing is, these two are always bouncing phone calls back and forth and i've never been able to keep track of their phone numbers - not only bouncing, but they each have a couple of numbers so my contact list is a bit of a mess.
i can't say who i called and didn't call, and as usual there was bouncing and back and forths, but eventually we agreed that we'd meet within the hour at the apartment and i bailed on a meeting to rush home and attend. when i was five minutes away i called to make sure that everyone would be arriving with me, and by the time i arrived the guy was there and had already discovered the problem.
our tanks overfloweth - and as my apartment is on the first floor, of course it's the first to make the discovery. after a strange and frustrating non-argument with the caretaker, we agreed that tomorrow morning we'll meet (after my class) and the plumber will arrive and sort it all out. for a very fair price.
a minute after he left, the plumber called to say he would be arriving in five minutes and that he'd been delayed because he couldn't find parking.
eh?? i told him his partner had already left, surprised that they hadn't talked to one another, and was about to go back inside to pick up my bag when he called back to inform me that his partner hadn't been to see the apartment.
i haven't the slightest notion who it is that came over and is contracted to fix the problem, even though i definitely know him and he's definitely worked in my apartment before. no matter how much of the other guy's time i wasted, and no matter how much he was willing to beat the other's price, i wasn't about to cancel on someone who'd not only made it on site quicker and with whom i already had an agreement, but who i cannot even phone to inform him because i don't have a clue who he is or what his number is.
that's a bit screwy.
rollerblading was great tonight; i needed the exercise. although i could just as easily have slept those hours - yesterday morning's wake-up was tough, this morning's is probably going to be tougher. and i discovered, an hour before leaving the apartment, that i have an assignment due tomorrow and a whole bunch of reading i'd forgotten about...
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