If You Could See Me Today, I Would Look Pretty Calm...

A couple of weeks ago, my roommate, M, told me he was losing his Visa because the hotel he was working for laid him off, and he couldn't find a similar job in time. He said he had been trying to find work (in the profession his Visa demanded he take up) but failed. He was going back to his home country.

I ended up letting him search for potential roomies, as long as he accepted that the final decision was mine and the remaining roomie's. Later, the landlord, accepting all of this with his usual bottomless patience, said that M never paid his last month's rent. This caused a little debate between me and the landlord (who really is a great guy and admits he could be wrong--we're looking into it), so he said he would contact M and see what was what.

This past Sunday, M said he would call me if the potential new roomie was coming over. Sunday was the day of not only the Zine fair, but the last night Lynne performed for the Cambridge Family Opera this year. I told M I would be out unless he called me.

Sunday, I was at the King Open School until eleven at night. No call from M, despite a call from me. I return home, and M let me know that the potential new roomie came over. Why hadn't I been there?

The next day, I come home, and a note is there from M saying that he gave the guy his keys. He left a forwarding address for the bills in New York (where, he claimed, a friend was taking in his mail).

I call this new unapproved roomie and luckily got along with him. Things got bad again when this new guy revealed that

a. M took $550 from the new guy saying he needed his (disputed) last month's payment back.

b. M told the new guy he was leaving because of a job change.

Today, I have more and more reasons to believe that M was lying about the lost Visa and just wanted to escape to New York in the quickest way possible.

I so hope the address he gave me is real. I have a right hook that costs too much to deliver via conventional mail.

And that's why I haven't been posting lately.