Neighbors, neighbors, neighbors. Have I got neighbors?

As soon as I got off the plane yesterday, I was greeted by no less than four voice messages from this woman that lives in an adjacent building regarding the parking lot in my building. Apparently she is getting a new tenant who will be needing the space that she has been allowing me to use. Fine, I'll put it on the fucking street just not to have to listen to her.

This woman is a lunatic. She calls me every few weeks to discuss the parking lot situation. And after every few sentences, she reminds me that she is a "homeowner." So she tells me how everyone is breaking the rules of the parking lot and not parking correctly and that according to the zoning, she has the rights to three of the parking spaces to do what chooses with. And if anyone has a problem with that, she will report them for turning their three-family dwelling into a four-family. (She is a homeowner after all.)

This is the type of person who has no regard for anyone else's time. I have wasted approximately five hours of my life on the phone listening to her complain and sitting in the driver's seat of my car while she jabbers from her third floor balcony like Mussolini. I will never get that time back. Today, she called me to remind me to move my car, which I dutifully did immediately, to find her outside in the parking lot when I arrived. I was still talking to her when I heard the dreadful, "oh there you are, I'll just talk to you in person." I was trapped between her and my keyless entry. I told her I was in a big hurry and jumped in my car and moved it without saying goodbye.

Apparently I'm the only person who listens to her rants. Even the other homeowners dismiss her as a pain in the ass tattle tale. But for some reason, I stand there and empathize with her about how the developer was irresponsible and how that guy shouldn't be parking his motorcycle in the lot and how she got trucks banned from her street... Why do I put up with this? I must be the nicest goddamn person in the world. But, I must listen because, after all, she's a homeowner.

And then there's Samurai Sam next door who on the first night of his residence he got inebriated and was waving a samurai sword around and screaming that he was going to go around "hunting niggers." He then passed out near his stoop and someone confiscated his sword. A few months went by without hearing much from him until one night I was walking home to see him throwing glass bottles into the street. He told me that this was because his dog was going to die the next day. I asked him if he was okay and he said that he was afraid he would get arrested again. (Last time, he was arrested for running around the street with a hatchet and a crock pot.) He's a normal looking individual who should not be permitted to purchase alcohol in the United States.

Samurai Sam replaced a lovely young woman who went by D. D was an African-American lesbian who had no feminine traits whatsoever. She used to fuck so loud, she could be heard in the Bronx. She also used to abuse her girlfriends. When she finally moved out, I asked her where she was moving. "I can't tell you," she replied. (Very normal answer.)

Everyone else seems okay, but I am pretty sure that Red Hook is the land of the misfit toys.