So my landlord has finally moved in downstairs. We met him the day we left for the Keys, at which time I reluctantly handed him our October rent a full seventeen days late. He seemed like a nice enough guy, I mean, he didn’t get huffy about the late rent or anything, but he’s a little weird. Since he took up residence on floor #2 there have been a lot of strange noises. Various men tramping up and down the stairs at all hours of the day. And when I came home on Sunday the hall reeked of something that smelled startlingly like pot but was probably epoxy of some sort. (he’s doing renovating or something, which also probably explains the loud tramping)

But last night took the cake. As I made the long upward journey to the attic apartment, I began to smell something that was nothing like freshly smoked cannabis. Rather, it smelled like a rancid chemical cocktail that had been tortured for hours before finally perishing flatulently from the strain of its own weight. By the time I reached the third floor, the smell had increased in a brilliantly nauseating crecendo from “kind of gross” to “completely unbearable”, and I wondered if our apartment was even inhabitable anymore. Then I poured myself a glass of wine and forgot about it.

When Katsumi got home I had popped round the corner for takeout Vietnamese, but he said he almost puked and, being the smarter half of our union, opened all the windows for some ventilation. We surmised that The Landlord had decided to paint some / all of the second floor apartment, and the fumes naturally drifted up into our little castle. Problem being that we don’t have “windows” like normal people have windows. We have skylights, which open all of two inches, so it wasn’t like we could just open them for an hour and throw a fan in on exhaust. We spent the entirity of last night’s nor’easter night with our heater on full-blast, windows agape.

It was cold up there this morning, let me tell you.

~~~EDIT~~~

I just took a bite of last night’s leftovers, and guess what? MY TOFU TASTES LIKE FUCKING PAINT FUMES. What a raw deal.