Leah Loses It

We had a big party on Saturday night as it was Daniel's birthday! Everyone had a great time. In fact, I'd rate it in the top 3 parties I've ever been to! Anyway, we have two toilets in the house. One is just off the kitchen and the other is the en-suite to Leah's room. The understanding that we have is that the person with the en-suite must allow all the other room mates access to the toilet (providing she's not asleep or getting busy or whatnot) considering she's not paying any extra for it. It's a convenience for her to have that bathroom but we don't charge her extra so long as we have use of it too. Whenever we have parties we close off all the bedrooms to prevent layabouts from going into them. With Leah's room, we keep the door closed but go in there infrequently to use the toilet (as is our paying right). We keep it under wraps and try to keep people from going in there.

Now, the party we had on Saturday was nothing out of the normal in terms of bathroom use. We used her toilet but stopped other people from going in there. However, inevitably, someone will see us sneaking off to do a wee and use the bathroom as well. I did my best the next day to clean up the path from her door to the toilet and returned the bathroom to it's pre-party condition. Today, Leah got home (she wasn't at the party because she went on a uni camp for the weekend). Apparently there is a small hole in her changing screen (it's a paper-thing that gives her privacy while changing; like this but navy blue), not big enough to see through, just like maybe the size that a pen point would put through it. And her pillows are in a different order to how she left them. I'm not an unreasonable person, I understand that she has the right to be upset that her personal belongings have been touched and damaged. However, she does not have the right to come into the kitchen and say to us "You guys are *bleep*ing responsible, the one thing I told you was to not let *bleep*ing people into my room. You've broken that promise and all better *bleep*ing fix it" AND she has no right to say to TLR "You organised this so it's all your *bleep*ing fault". If she wanted to go down that road she might as well say to Daniel "You were born on this day so it's YOUR fault".

Anyway, TLR had told me that Leah sent her a text saying she was mad...I didn't comprehend just how mad until I heard Leah screaming at her from the kitchen. We all congregated around the dining table, with arms crossed while Leah set off telling us that we were all terrible people. It ended something like this:

Leah: I'm giving you an ultimatum; either you find the person who wrecked my screen (omg one tiny hole =/= wrecked) so I can make them pay for a replacement, or you all put in $40 each so I can buy a new one.
TLR: That's ridiculous. I will help you try and find who did it, no problem, but you can't hold us personally responsible. I won't pay for a replacement.
Leah: You were here, you broke your promise and let people into my room.
Me: Woah, woah...it's not like we intentionally let people into your room. In fact, throughout the night we stopped people going in there whenever we saw them trying to get in. You can't make us pay for an accident.
Leah: It's your *bleep*ing fault my stuff is ruined now. You better *bleep*ing pay $40 each for it to be fixed.
Spike: It's not like we maliciously wrecked anything of yours.
Me: LOOK, we're sorry okay? It shouldn't have happen but it did. I'm sorry it happened to you, I'm sure we all are.
Leah: Well, I don't accept your apology.
TLR: What do you want us to do? Stand at the door all night and make sure nobody goes in?
Leah: No, that's ridiculous.
FF: Then how can you expect us to have control over who goes into your room at all times?
Leah: I don't care. My privacy was violated. I expect something to be done by Sunday; either you find the person or pay me $40 each, I don't care!
[storms off]
Me: Jesus, if she'd just come in and said "Look guys, this got broken on your watch, would you mind footing the bill to fix it?" I'd probably be fine with that.
Spike: I know, I'd be happy to pay for half of it.
TLR: Exactly. If she'd just be adult about it and not scream at us I'd be more than willing to help pay.
Me: And she wouldn't accept our apology? What's that about, we're not being insincere? I'm genuinely sorry it happened and if it had been me, I'd be annoyed too. I wouldn't take it out on my roommates as if they deliberately went about causing the destruction of my stuff though.
FF: What do we do now?
TLR: I suppose we send a mass message to everyone who came and ask if they did it. I doubt anyone will put their hand up though.
Me: Yeah. I wonder what will happen on Sunday if nobody turns up and we refuse to pay?
Daniel: Oh...it's alright...I'll just pay for it...
TLR: Daniel, that's not fair. It wasn't any of our faults.

Bloody Daniel! He's just so nice and hates confrontation so much that he'd just pay her because he felt guilty about it. Screw that though. If Leah's not going to treat us like human beings, I'm not going to pay for her to be right. That'll just prove that she can guilt trip us into anything. She doesn't need that power. If she comes forward and talks to us (in an indoor voice) rationally I'll gladly pay up. I think that's fair.

~C~

It hits the fan

WELL! This morning as I was sitting down watching tv while eating my breakfast, Leah came in all aflush. She asked me for a piece of paper so I handed one to her. She wrote:

TLR please do the dishes. <3 House

I asked her what was going on and she replied with "I'm sick of it, SICK of it. She never does the dishes and I'm not putting up with it any more". She popped the note above the sink as I cleaned my bowl and began to put away the dry plates. Leah turned to me and said "Don't put them away, Claire, leave them for her to do". I put a couple away, the ones I had used, and left the kitchen.

A few hours later, Leah was off at uni and TLR came home. As she unpacked her shopping in the kitchen, I tentatively listened for the moment she saw the note. Dodging the storm I knew was coming, Spike and I went grocery shopping. When we returned, I noticed that in large blue texted the words "Whoever wrote this please come and see me - TLR" scrawled across the note. I winced and began unpacking my groceries. In the midst of this task TLR came in...

TLR: Hey Claire, did you write this?
Me (my head in the fridge): Did I write what?
TLR: this note about the dishes
Me: (straightening) No...
TLR: Do you know who did write it?
Me: I think it was Leah. She came in and asked me for a bit of paper this morning to write on.
TLR: It just...it really makes me angry. Why would she write something like that? Why didn't she come and talk to me about it instead of leaving a note for everyone to see?
me: Um...I don't think you were home when she wrote it. And then she had to go to uni.
TLR: I don't care. It just makes me so mad that she'd do something like this. Is it because I'm on kitchen this week? That doesn't mean that I have to do the dishes
Me:Oh I think she knows that...you'll really have to talk to her about it though. I don't really know much about it.
TLR: Yeah...I'm sorry it's just with this and all the other stuff I have going on...it's so frustrating. And so passive aggressive.
Me:Well you know Leah, she's straight to the point.

Ugh...I feel kind of worried. I know I've complained about how little work TLR does around the house to Leah and I'm afraid she'll try and make it sound like the note was my idea. I mean...I'll whinge about it at the time, but I'll just get over it and leave the dishes. Tbh, I feel a little guilty. It's not as though Leah isn't wrong in leaving the note, but TLR seems really hurt over it. I think she's the kind of person who can dish it out, but can't take it. I know she's left me notes about chores I've needed to do before. But if we do it to her she explodes!

I do wonder what the "other stuff" that's been going on is though. I'll be eavesdropping real hard later tonight when Leah gets home and the big blowout happens!

More later,
~C~

Bitch, please!

Last night I invited Jay over so we could catch up and go get pizza for dinner. It was great! She had a whinge to me about her roommate Sarah and I vented about TLR. There's no harm in that. If I didn't get together with her to let it all out of my system, I'd just explode and say something I regret to TLR. And, as proven in the past door-slamming incidents, I can't actually express any problems I have to her face. It was during this chat that Jay informed me about things Sarah had said. Apparently the last time TLR and Sarah caught up, TLR told Sarah that I was "being a total bitch about the cleaning". This made me laugh a little. Yeah, I am a bit anal about the cleaning but we have a massive ant problem...if I'm not anal about it stuff gets left out everywhere and the ants will never go away. If we didn't have them around, we could leave scraps on the benches for longer before it needs to be cleaned. But we have a serious infestation which I am trying, and failing, to get rid of. We can't get rid of them because people keep leaving food out. I get grouchy and tell them to clean it up. Which could definitely come off as bitchy.

Still kind of hurt my feelings a little =/ I mean if I wasn't doing the dishes or wiping the benches all the time or putting away clean plates, this place would be an absolute dump. In fact, I would love to see what the house is like after TLR living along for a week. I would LOVE that. It would prove me completely right.

Anyway, I'm a little tentative about things Sarah says. She once told Jay (in the heat of an argument) that TLR, FF and I had said that we all hated that she talked about her boyfriend all the time. She said that we were all totally sick of her and didn't want to hang out any more. Completely false, I might add. I think what I said to Sarah about it was "Jay talks about Tim alllll the time, she's so excited about him!". Which I meant in the nicest sense...it's normal to be excited about something new in your life but Sarah completely extrapolated it to get back at Jay for something. Since then I've been taking everything Sarah says with a grain of salt. Perhaps TLR was complaining about me but perhaps she didn't use the word bitch?

It makes me a little sad though. I may have complained about her but I only do that to 3 people, Jay, my Mum and this blog. I'm worried that if worst comes to worst and the whole situation escalates into an all out war, she might accuse me of turning people against her. I say this because Spike has come to me on multiple occasions to complain about her and I've agreed with him. I'm trying not to sway people against her, I don't want to be correctly accused of that. That's not the kind of person I want to be.


~C~

Little Whispers

Tonight we had a plan. Had a good old natter with all the roomies in the loungeroom while watching the Simpsons. What a sweet moment? And in this moment TLR suggested that we all go for Chinese take out! I wholeheartedly agreed being neither a chef, nor one to turn down an easy meal. Spike also said he was in, but changed his mind a bit later. At about 5pm TLR asked me what time I wanted to go. Not wanting to feel like a nanna, I suggested we wait an hour and go then. She agreed and I went off to my room to work on some notes for uni.

At around 6.30 I wandered out to look for TLR, sure she'd be starving by now! Lo and behold when I trod upon the kitchen tiles she appeared standing before the stove, a potion brewing in her pot, flames gently licking over the sides of the steel. I opened my mouth to belay my concern:

Me: At which hour wouldst thee alight into the carriage to fetch provisions from the Chinamen?
Her: We're not going...? Spike didn't want to go any more.
Me: Oh..

Heh...so suddenly, even if I agree to something, if everyone else bails there's no point in her going just with me? Thanks, thanks a lot. Without another word, I retreated to my room, fetched my belongings and went to have Chinese with another friend instead. Didn't even say goodbye (yes, hypocritical considering that's one of the things I complain about her doing all the time).

A couple of hours later I came home. I could hear FF and TLR having some sort of tea-towel whipping contest in the kitchen so avoided the area in fear of being drawn into the ruckus! I must have arrived quietly, or perhaps they were making too much noise to notice, but from my room I could clearly hear them talking. About me. Bits of the conversation I missed but what was clear was:

FF: Hey, let's have some of this! (some sort of food in the fridge, I could hear the door being opened)
TLR: No, that's hers, I think. If you eat any of her food she'll bite your head off.
FF: *laughs* Haha I suppose so.
TLR: This one time......................and she went crazy.
FF: *continues laughing*

At this point I walked into the room and a very sudden silence hit. Both FF and TLR glanced at each other, guilty expressions on their face. Expressions betraying the fact that they had just been talking about me and knew that I'd heard. I filled up my water bottle at the sink, both of them still sitting in silence, and left the room. The moment I'd made it a few steps down the hall, frantic whispers broke out behind me. The weirdest thing is that I'm not even anal about my food. I don't mind if someone uses butter I bought, or cheese or salads! The only real concern would be eating meat...seeing as that is so ridiculously expensive. And it's not as if they would've picked up my uncooked steaks at 10pm and thought "yeah, let's cook this".


~C~

Squeaky Clean

There's recently been a slight change to our cleaning roster. Previously we had someone doing sweeping and someone on mopping, but it's become too difficult to coordinate those two jobs so they've been rolled into one. The job that has been added to compensate is that of the kitchen. Now, as usual, I don't know if this was discussed with anyone, but the note on the fridge has appeared in TLR's handwriting regarding this change. Under the description of "Kitchen" it says:

"Clean stove, microwave, wipe crumbs off benches, general tidying"

 Most of this I agree with, although I have a number of concerns.

1) Cleaning the stove properly does need to be done properly (with oven cleaner and a scourer) once a week. However, I'm worried that if someone makes a dish and splashes it all over the stove, it should be their responsibility to wipe it off, not the job of someone else.

2) We have a fairly substantial ant problem. To combat this we need to stop leaving out all food scraps etc. Wiping down the benches after making a sandwich and leaving crumbs everywhere should be automatically done, not left for someone else to do. Case in point: TLR made pizza dough last week and spread flour across the bench so it wouldn't stick. She left it there for at least 3 or 4 hours. It was frustrating. Nobody else could use the bench during this time. If she were to leave it for someone else to clean up (because it's their duty that week) it'd be ridiculously out of order

3) General tidying, yes. General tidying of other people's crap? No. TLR has a habit of coming home and just dumping her belongings on the kitchen counter. The kitchen is a public area. You can't just leave your personal belongings strewn across the counter. 5 of us need to use it to cook! Recently TLR's mum brought some gardening tools up for her to use. Today, 3 days later, they'd still be sitting on the bench if I hadn't moved them to another table. They haven't even been touched. In fact, I think I might go and get them and put them on her bed right now.

4) The dishes. It's not on the list (that would be ridiculous), but I get the feeling that because I'm on kitchen duty I'm expected to do more dishes than usual. Even things like putting the clean ones away. That's not my job. Spike came and talked to me today. 3 days ago, he washed all of the dishes; a huge amount of them from TLR cooking an extravagent dinner. 3 days later, the dry dishes are still sitting on the dish rack because nobody has bothered to put them away. Just about every morning I get up, put the dishes away from the night before and then start making my breakfast. It's the first thing I do in the morning. Spike knows this and told me to make sure that TLR puts away the dishes this time. It's been days, but I think she's still got the whole "if I leave them, someone else will have to do them" mentality. Well screw her. Spike and I have decided that we're not putting them away this time. I just hope Daniel doesn't do them, although I wouldn't put it past him.

Actually that reminds me. When we first moved in, TLR complained that Spike and I put cooking utensils in weird places after we'd done the dishes. Several months later, we've heard no such complaint again. Plain and simply, she never puts them away into the places she thinks would be normal because she never puts them away!


As usual, if I attempt to discuss my concerns with TLR my thoughts are entirely stomped over or dismissed with "well, that's not what we've decided". And just the other day, one of these issues came up. I'd just given the kitchen a clean the day before. The benches were spotless, I cleared all the dishes, scrubbed the sinks till they shone....it was perfectly clean and tidy. The next day she came into my room and asked me when I was going to clean the kitchen. I frowned, stepped into the kitchen and lo and behold! TLR's bag was on the bench, her food was strung across the counter, the dishes she'd just eaten off were next to the sink and a whole stack of clean ones were in the dishrack. Let's look at the list of duties:

1) Clean stove: it was clean.
2) Microwave: cleaned the day before.
3) Crumbs off benches: only the area she'd just made her lunch on was dirty. All other benches were clean.
4) General tidy: items she'd left out yesterday were returned to their homes or moved to the loungeroom. The only items present were those she'd just used.

What part of the kitchen duties had I not upheld? Apparently, the dishes. Well, I'm off to put gardening tools into someone's bed!

~C~

I will survive!

We sort of reached an awkward truce over the weekend. I gave her all of the episodes of a tv-show she loves and had missed over the past few weeks. She brought me an icecream when I was studying. But as inevitable as an old lady sitting on a park bench with her legs wide open, it all went sour again.

On the weekend it was the 21st birthday of a friend and he'd organised a big pub crawl for all of us to go on. It started quite early, at about 5pm...but we're uni students and drinking at all hours of the day is what we do best! As we live quite a bit out of the central part of the city, we needed to get the train in and leave by about 4.30 to get there on time. No biggie! Except for TLR. She decided that 5pm was way too early to start a pub crawl and she'd meet us later on. Fair enough, I suppose. To her credit, she turned up at about 6.30 and joined in the festivities. I suppose I need to explain a little background at this point so let me introduce you to Jay...

Jay is a friend from uni. During the time when TLR was befriending FF (and essentially completely ignoring me) I started hanging out with Jay more and more and ignoring TLR. Now TLR had a problem with this. She couldn't understand why I wasn't hanging out with her and bending over backwards to make her happy like I used to do. What I accomplished was showing her exactly how it felt with her ignoring me, something she had a major problem with. She was cut. Had no idea that she'd done anything wrong and thought that me hanging out with Jay was some malicious act of betrayal.

*sigh*

Anyway, we've made up since then but I still enjoy spending time with Jay, particularly seeing as we don't see each other as often any more since she moved to inner Sydney. Jay was on the pub crawl and it was the first time I'd caught up with her in a while. Perhaps I was ignoring TLR a little, really anything that woman does just gets on my nerve these days. At about 7.30 we moved on to the next pub and on the way we ran into FF. She wasn't on the pub crawl because recently she lost her license (too many speeding tickets!) and didn't have a valid form of ID. TLR latched onto her and that was the last we saw of her that evening. The next day she posted on facebook:

"Great night, bar hopping, bestest friend, STI cookies, cherry beer, crazy karaoke and a burning desire for Gay Bar! Funfunfunfunfunfun!"

Well let's digest that for a moment.

Bar hopping? She was only there for one of the bars we went to. I suppose she got halfway through the "hop" to the other one, but that's a stretch. Bestest friend? Oh my, I've been officially downgraded! (tbh, I can see why. I don't act like a voluntary slave for her any more. FF does though)

It's the karaoke part that makes me saddest. Ever since we moved to the city and met I've been saying "we should do karaoke sometime! We should go to one of those karaoke bars". Now she's gone to do it and didn't think of asking me along. I LOVE karaoke; although thus far my experience has been limited to Rock Band or Singstar. It's something I've always wanted to do. She knows this, knows that I love singing. I take it very personally that she didn't ask me along. PLUS she abandoned all her friends (and the birthday boy) when she'd committed herself to the event already. Didn't even say goodbye. Is it just me or is that a tad rude?

~C~

A slap in the Face-book

Hey Reader!

Among my group of friends we use facebook extensively to keep up with each other and organise events...and so on and so forth. Last night TLR posted an event about a dinner party at our house next weekend. Normally this would be alright, but she's done so without asking anyone if it's okay. Of course, that's a little bit of an assumption. I know for a fact she didn't talk to me about it, but she could have spoken to the others. However, Spike just came in to see me and asked if she'd talked to me about it. So obviously, he hasn't been spoken to either. He's a little miffed as well. If she hosts this dinner party it's going to be a large expense to us and, being poor students, that's not something that can happen too often.

I'm not sure if I'm being unfair in my judgement here, but in my opinion, if you're going to host an event that will affect all of your roommates, you should ask them if it's okay first. When Daniel suggested a housewarming party last week, he came and talked to all of us to make sure it was okay to do so. TLR seems more interested in getting people over to entertain so they can praise her for hosting >>

...Okay, I admit, that's a little judgemental! But every time we've had a party in the past FF and I have done all the cleaning up and TLR has taken all of the glory for hosting the event. It's a little tiresome, but definitely leads me to believe that she wants to please as many people as possible to make her feel good about herself.

~C~

Around the world? Around the bend!

A couple of years ago TLR and I decided we really wanted to go overseas together so we set about planning where we'd go and for how long and what we'd do each day, the sights we'd see...everything! She mentioned it again late last year and I was all excitement thinking I'd finally get the chance to visit the states.

Earlier today I was browsing through facebook (as you do!) and noticed that on Fitness Freak (FF)'s wall was a link to a round-the-world ticket from TLR. I was a little hurt, but figured it could have just been part of a plan to incorporate the USA trip we planned earlier into one big trip. Now, as usual, I am let down. For around the past 10 minutes she's been talking to FF about getting them an appointment with a travel agent and looking up prices online etc etc...FF piped up a minute ago saying "Hey, maybe my boyfriend can come!". TLR replied with "Yeah, I suppose if he wants to join the two of us!"

The two of us.


As in FF and TLR...one...two people.



Not me! Not "Hey maybe Claire will want to come?". No invitation at all.
Bastards. It's things like this that make me kind of happy I'm a crier. The curse of bawling at things like this makes me hope that they might actually SEE the emotion in my face, SEE that it's them that's made me upset and force them to think about someone else's feelings for once.

A somewhat downtrodden and feeling unloved
~Claire~

Playing the game

I've just returned from a reconnaissance mission from the lounge. In response to the notes left on the air con I've added my own post-it in the hopes of reducing our power bill and lessening our impact on the environment (and all that jazz). To the tv I have attached a bright yellow post-it saying:

Hey guys! I know we're all trying to keep the power bill down, so in the interests of saving energy make sure you turn the tv off when you leave the room!
<3 The TV

It's a blatant sarcastic note in response to her own and may seem petty BUT if she's going to start leaving notes about how she thinks things should be run, I'm going to play that same game. I haven't made any unreasonable demands with the note; it's merely saying that you should turn the tv off when nobody is in the room. A power strike for Claire in the war against marginalisation!

On the way back to my room I passed TLR's open door. She was at work and yet the pedestal fan in her room was on, all the lights were on...To me it just further brought to light her hypocrisy. She's trying to keep the power bill down yet will leave all her appliances on in her room to run when she's not in the house. I ducked in and switched them off but upon leaving considered popping bright yellow post its on her appliances. Something along these lines:

Of course, I'm not a sociopath and I'm not trying to exacerbate the situation so I didn't actually post these...but oh how I wish to be able to do things like that without regret or worry!

~C~

Trying to keep my cool

Our house has had air conditioning for a few years now but because we've just moved in nobody really knows how it works. The first month we had it, we went overboard and ended up with a humongous power bill! Since then it's been used on the basis of "if it's hot enough, whack it on for a couple hours".

However, recently TLR has decided (I'm not entirely sure if this is with the sanction of other roommates, but she certainly hasn't approached me about it) that we should keep it on in the lounge room so one room will always be cool. This idea has merit, I suppose, if any of us actually spent time in the lounge. At the moment, she's the only one that frequents that space (because that's where the tv is). Everyone else prefers hanging out in their own rooms where the internet is!

Anyway, it was particularly hot today so when I got home from university (and was the only one home) I decided to put the air conditioning on in my room (and turn it off in the lounge so as not to use excessive power) to cool down after walking 20 minutes home from the bus stop in the raging heat. When TLR arrived home I suggested going grocery shopping. I'm trying to suggest a whole bunch of things we can all do together, and inviting her shopping will, hopefully, mean that when she goes shopping she'll extend the same courtesy. But moving right along from that! I suggested going grocery shopping and as we both collected our things and made to leave the house I went to switch off the air con (there was nobody else home at this point). While doing so, she stopped me...

TLR: Why are you turning the air con off?
Me: Well, there's nobody else home so it's a waste of power to keep it on...
TLR: You should leave it on! That way, when the others get home it'll be nice and cool.
Me: But they're not going to be home for at least another hour?
TLR: Yeah, but the house will get all warm again if we turn it off! Just leave it on in this room.
Me (begrudgingly giving up on this skewed logic of hers): fine...

Later that afternoon I wandered out into the lounge on my way to the toilet and noticed several bright yellow labels stuck to the controls for the air con. They read as follows:

"Hi guys! I know how hot it's been and what has been working really well for everyone as a house whole is leaving the lounge room on and sometimes the kitchen. This provides a large room that is always cool for everyone and not just individuals! In order for this to work can you please leave the lounge on at all times and to not be selfish and put your own room on.
However, at night once everyone goes to bed you can put individual rooms on in order to sleep! So everyone please, don't be selfish and immature when it comes to the air con. And together we can keep our powerbill low and stay cool at the same time!
<3 The House"

Wow...well to make a list, these are the problems I have with the note!

what has been working really well for everyone
What? Really?? I doubt very much that she talked to anyone else about this schedule and considering I've complained about it several times it's obviously not working well for everyone.

leave the loungeroom on at all times
All times? I thought this was about saving power, not needlessly wasting it to keep the house at 20C when there's nobody home.

[don't] be selfish and put your own room on
You've gotta be shitting me. I'm thinking that this is a direct jab at me because I had my room on this afternoon. OH NO HOW SELFISH OF ME! Instead of leaving the air con on in the opposite end of the house to my room I turned it off and actually used the power to achieve something; cooling me down, not keeping the tv at perfect room temperature! How scandalous. I must stop being so selfish and "immature" in the future.

put individual rooms on in order to sleep
Seriously? Once you're asleep you don't need to keep the air cool. You're asleep. Unless it gets deathly hot, you won't even notice until morning. The last month I've been sleeping on top of my bed without blankets on and right next to the window so the breeze comes through. All the while she's been popping on the air con to keep herself cool and increase the size of our power bill in the process. A power bill which all of us are paying for.


<3 House
Really all this does is show that she doesn't have the balls to say that this letter is from her. This way it sounds that the household itself has agreed to the guidelines she's laid out in this little note. I've got half a mind to confront her and ask when all this was decided on.

We all pay the same rent and yet it seems like she gets more of a say in how the household is run. I'm not saying the others haven't had a say (they might have while I was away), but to me it feels like anything I say is instantly cast aside for the way she thinks things should be.

*sigh*


~C~

She strikes again!

My gosh, two posts in as many minutes!

I've just been out in the lounge watching tv with everyone and TLR decides she wants to play cards. So she asks everyone...oh wait...not everyone. Guess which little person was denied an invitation to the game? Luckily there was a knock on the front door and I escaped to open it before my temper got the better of me (although not without a little stomping, I might add...have I mentioned before how mature I am?).

At the door were 2 friends of everyone in the house carrying sixpacks of beer.

Me: Hey! Come in.
Friend: Hey C, are you excited for the party tonight?
Me: Um...I haven't been invited?
Friend: You didn't get invited to the tav?
Me: (getting a little angry now) No, apparently I don't get invited to anything in this house. Nobody has even mentioned it to me until now.
Friend: Oh...

Well, there you have it. Either there's something fundamentally unlikeable about me, I'm just not "cool" enough to warrant an invitation to the pub or I'm plain forgotten. Either way I'm annoyed and unfortunately for you, reader, this is my dedicated whinge spot.

Excluded

Today, after returning from a week long visit to the parents house I came home. Unfortunately it seems that very little has changed in my absence re: the dishes. But let bygones be bygones! I thought it'd be nice to have a little list of my roommates here (considering there are 6 of us!). In order to keep the anonymity I haven't used any real names.

The Lazy Roommate (TLR): Previously my best friend from university. I say previously because she attempted to befriend someone else last year and, in the process, began to completely shut me out hurting my feelings and inevitably leading me to completely ignore her (mature, I know). However, she failed to see that anything she'd done was wrong and that I was just being weird because of something else. So far, I'm not even sure if she considers me her best friend any more. I suppose you could say I've had that whole glass shattering of the illusion when it comes to her. She's a very fundamentally selfish person and relies on having a large group of friends to make her feel good about herself. I'm just not sure if I can be best mates with someone like that (however rude of me that may seem). Regardless, I try to stay on the bright side of things but I feel I'm always been let down by her behaviour.

The Fitness Freak (FF): is just that! A fitness nut who wakes up at 5.30 every morning in order to go for a run. She also loves to go clubbing at least twice a week and has a financial accountant as a boyfriend who spend just about every waking minute (and every night) at our house. I don't really mind this; he's a really nice guy, very easy to get along with!

Daniel: He is without a doubt one of the nicest people I have ever met. He'll politely ask if you need any washing thrown in for a load, send you flowers on your birthday...I'm only scraping the surface here because I can't think of a good example! Plain and simple, this guy will bend over backwards simply to make other people smile (I mean that in a strictly non-sexual sense, no matter how dirty the sentence sounds!). That said, this can be a downside as he's completely non-confrontational and TLR usually abuses his giving nature to make her life a little easier.

Spike: Somewhat of a recluse. Very shy, very odd sense of humour...he often doesn't get the jokes you make (or even worse thinks you're being serious when you say "Damn I'm cold" and it's 35C outside or make any sort of blatantly sarcastic comment). He's such a lovable fool though...and I mean that in the best sense of the word "fool".

 Leah: Headstrong and independent. Leah is not one to sit back and take any shit from anybody! She's brutally honest, which can be both a positive and negative thing. Positive because it gets any issues out in the open so they can be dealt with. Negative because sometimes her being blunt exacerbates the situation.


And onto today's escapades!
Anywho, towards the late morning TLR and the fitness freak left the house. Now, I'll briefly mention how those things usually work. My room is quite close to the front door and in order to get out of the house you have to walk past my (usually) open door. It's been a common courtesy of everyone to say "bye" or "I'm going _____, see you later" as you leave the house. Although so far, this hasn't been what TLR does. She just walks out without a word behind her.

Today was no different. The two walked out without a word returning around 4.30 in the afternoon with a myriad of shopping bags behind them. This left me a little hurt...for one, I wasn't invited or even considered to join them. The fact that I've been away for a week meant that I've been keen to spend time with my roommates and to be so blatantly ignored (intentionally or otherwise) was quite hurtful. I confronted TLR when they got home:
Me: Hey, how come I wasn't invited along?
TLR: Er...we planned it on Wednesday but didn't end up going then so we went today!

I'm not sure if she thought that I said something else, but I'm fairly certain it was quite audible. Although "we planned it earlier" is without a doubt the most pathetic excuse I've heard for a while....I mean even I can think up better things than that. Even a "Sorry! Totally forgot you were even home!" would've been better. Yet here I sit, without an apology and feeling excluded by the very people I live with. Currently I'm tossing up whether or not to confront them about it. Nothing mean (although believe me, petty behaviour has crept into my mind as a possibility!) just explaining something along the lines of:

"Hey, I just wanted to say that I felt quite left out today when you didn't think to invite me shopping. Whether it was just that you didn't think of me or, God forbid, didn't want me along I just wanted to let you know that it made me feel quite excluded..."

Man, typing that out now it just sounds so...guilt-trippy. Although I suppose that's what I'm after; the actual recognition of someone else's feelings by TLR.

My one regret is bringing in her washing today and folding it all neatly for her. A thankless task which has gone all but unnoticed. I suppose the laundry fairies are hard at work again!

*~C~*

A Brief Introduction

Let me begin by saying that I never intended any of it to happen like this. I was always told that these would be among the best times in my life! Moving out of the nest, independence, a chance to see the world and experience new things...that was what I was told was to come. Instead, upon moving out of the family home and into my own house with a few friends from university, I've found myself confronted by some bizarre behavior, unjust cleaning schedules and a whole pile of dirty dishes. The idea of the blog came from a close friend who, growing tired of me constantly complaining about my roommate, turned to me and said "For gods sake, go write this stuff down and get it out of your system".


I suppose a little bit about myself would be appropriate at this point! I'm a 20 year old student living in Sydney, Australia and...er...well that's pretty much the gist of it. Besides, this blog isn't about me. It's about her.

~Claire~