M.’s taken to stalking our new digs. He ostensibly went for a run yesterday, but at some point ended up parking on the new street and walking to that Trader Joe’s.

We’re both chomping at the bit to get the hell out of Dodge. Nick hanging around today, as seems to be the case whenever I have a long weekend, is kind of driving the desire home, as it were.

Jesus, Nick, just let me have an unbalanced load of laundry in the little laundry room in fucking peace. We don’t need to go through each item speculating the automatic mass of each sweatshirt, its absorptive properties, its bulk, its tendency to shift in the universe to figure out why your piece of shit dryer is rattling.

Best quote, “Oh, see that, they call those ‘Turkish.’ [Pointing to an actually very plain white towel, possibly one I stole from a mid-range hotel chain.] Yeah, those kind of towels hold water. Absorb water.” Um, dude, we bought the towels to dry shit. We fucking want them to absorb water for christ’s sake.

It’s not that bad a place, and I can’t blame him for the neighborhood’s decline. But, for fuck’s sake, I can’t figure out why he makes every mundane situation so goddamn painful.

But, M. and I together are amassing quite the list of “You might be a slumlord if…” jokes.

My fav Nick fix in that vein these days is in said laundry room. The door to the little hut had a little country window with a little country curtain. Cute. But, in Nick’s vigilant and vigilante fear of the changing ‘hood, the glass clearly was a temptation to ne’er-do-wells and the dreaded minorities. A crime beacon.

Many people might take off the door with the cute little window and slap up a whole new door. Not our hero. Nope, why spend that, what $150 at Home Depot, when you’re handy with the tools? What you do is take a hunk of not quite square, rough hewn scrap wood, don’t bother cutting it to size to fit in the window slot or anything. Now, slap that over the window, and hammer away. Paint it a similar color and you’re good to go.

The two details I love best — The curtain still remains on the interior, and the board didn’t quite fit, so maybe the door knob didn’t turn. At least I’m guessing by the whittled curve around the knob’s circumference.