New Home, New Troubles and a Friend's Jail-Time

The Past Week Has Been Hell

Published on May 10, 2004 By mittens In Blogging

If you're one of the two people that read this blog (one of which being me

), then you've most likely been wondering why there hasn't been an update in about two weeks. Well, let me spread some light on the situation that has been my life for the last two weeks. To begin, let me say that on May 1st, I needed to be completely moved out of the college dorms; however, I was not allowed to move into my new two-room apartment (which is located about a mile away from the campus) until May 3rd. Neither the dorm director was going to budge on letting me stay two extra days, and the realtor was definitely adamant about me NOT moving into the apartment until noon on May 3rd (in hindsight, my realtor was just a bitch about a lot of things, and would not budge on anything). So, this was the first bump in what was going to be a very, very bumpy week.

My original plan was going to involve me renting a minivan, storing all my stuff into it on the morning of May 1st (we had to be out of the dorms by 11am), and then just live in one of the University of Michigan's great libraries (no kidding, I was just going to sleep on a couch, and write a bunch of stuff for FileFront in preparation for E3). However, the night before I was to rent my van and move out of the dorms, I got the feeling that I should really call the rental company and make sure that I could rent the car; while on the phone, they asked to confirm my age was over 25. What... the... fuck?! This would've been some great information to tell me before the last minute! So, it's now 9pm on a Friday night, so I was totally screwed in finding another rental company; especially now that I found out a lot of company's have a minimum age of 25 years old. Now, some companies would rent to anyone above 18, but the cost would have been almost three times the normal price (more than $100/day). No way was that happening. So, I looked around, made some calls; and ended up staying with one of my soon-to-be coworkers from Stardock. It was a fun weekend, filled with lots of movies; and I can't thank the guy enough for housing me for the weekend. Completely non-stressful and just plain enjoyable weekend, took my mind off of a lot of the things that were bugging me (the new apartment, starting a new job at Stardock, girl troubles - more on this later, etc.).

Of course, this all changed come May 3rd. The guy I was staying with let me take his blazer (which had all my stuff in it) to drop off everything at my new apartment once he went to work, which is another example of just how far this guy went for me. Wish I could've paid him back more, but all I did was fill up his car, because I knew that he couldn't shove that back down my throat when he saw me (he wouldn't let me pay for anything)... I also meant to leave a couple twenties on the car's dashboard, but I forgot, which pissed me off, but I digress. Anyway, you'd have to be from the area to understand how much traveling I did, but, to give you a rough idea, I traveled to every city AROUND the place I needed to go to. I started off in Livonia (wanting to go to Ann Arbor), then went to Northville, then to Novi, then Plymouth, then Southfield, then back to Livonia, then to Plymouth again, and I finally ended up in Ann Arbor. A 20-minute trip turned out to be about a 2.5 hour trip. I rock. Anyway, once I finally got to the realtor, I was writing a check to pay for the security deposit (which I end up getting back when I move out), and she told me that I "needed to pay with cash." I just sat in awe. What kind of business only takes cash? "Oh, you can pay with a money order too." Thanks bitch. So this caused a nice half-hour delay in moving in. But after that, it was a pretty smooth process.

Anyhoo, after some unpacking, I arrived back at Stardock to drop the guy's car off... Then this is where things start to go to shit again. I'm not going to mention the details of this, for legal reasons, but, basically, I found out that there had been miscommunication between myself and another Stardock guy, and that I didn't have the transportation to work that I thought I did. So, I had until the end of the week to find transportation, which, basically, involved me buying a car and getting insurance on said car. Well, I'll be honest; I'm dead broke at this point. I have about $350 in the bank. I just moved into a new apartment, which means I have to pay rent and be able to get food for myself. Also, being a college student at the University of Michigan, I really had no need for a car, other than during the summer, as everything I need is within walking distance. So, paying for insurance (about $250-300/month for a 19 year old living in a city, and driving an old used car) on top of buying a $1000-1500 car, totaling a max of $1800 as an initial investment, on top of trying to pay rent which is $600/month, split between two people is $300/month (plus internet, $40/month, and electricity, ~$50/month; which would end in my share being $45/month), and that’s a $1000-1500 car, plus around $645/month. This would mean that I’d be bringing home roughly a quarter of what I made each week, in terms of profit. And some of that would have to be put towards groceries.

All in all, I just had to face the fact that I would not be able to work at Stardock this summer, thus making the primary reason why I got the apartment in Ann Arbor for the summer kind of pointless. However, since I had already put down the first month’s rent, and breaking the lease would cause me to lose my $600 security deposit, there’s no way in hell that I was backing out of the deal. However, the whole situation is kind of depressing. I, however, tend to be a very optimistic person, so I wasn’t about to let all this get me down. Hell, at least I still had my job as a journalist over at FileFront; and being that the following week was E3 (May 12-14 to be specific), it meant I had a lot of work that I could do, which means I was financially set for this month. However, it also meant that I should probably find another 20 hour/week job working as a waiter, or working at the local Borders or something. Not quite as career-advancing as a game programmer, but hey, gotta make due with the cards you’re dealt.

I was quick to discover that working an internet-centric job is a hard thing to do when one doesn’t have access to the internet in one’s apartment though. So, I called Comcast to set-up a date for someone to come set everything up in my apartment so I could quickly get back online. First three calls ended up with me getting hung-up on in the process of going through the various menus. The fourth call resulted in someone who couldn’t operate the computer she was using, and was unable to get my address punched in. The fifth resulted in me setting up an appointment for Sunday (it was currently Monday); but said that I should call back the next couple days to see if any other times opened up. So I did so, and one of the people set up an installation date for Wednesday (it was Tuesday when I called, and the receptionist said “How does tomorrow at sound?). SWEEEEEEET! So, I hung around my apartment all day Wednesday waiting for the Comcast guy to come and get me back online… He never came. So I called, and apparently the receptionist scheduled my appointment for the Wednesday of NEXT WEEK. Great! So not only did she give me the wrong appointment, but she also cancelled the appointment I had scheduled for Sunday. Anyway, this went on and on for a few more days, until I finally got a competent receptionist who comforted me, and gave me an appointment for Monday (May 10th); it was later than the original, but what the hell, at least it was an actual appointment. And the person came, as I am typing this from my home computer right now.

Since I didn’t have the internet all week (and had about twelve different articles to write for FileFront), I took about three trips a day into one of my favorite University computer lab, and stayed for a few hours for each trip. It’s interesting to see the kind of people that are in computer labs late on Friday nights and early on Saturday mornings (though I was relieved to see that I was the only person in the labs on Sunday morning). Well, not “interesting” so much as it was “scary.” This ended up working well-enough though, as I got all the articles written and turned in… Roughly on-time too!

Also during this time, my friend Kyle was planning on moving down Sunday May 9th. Well, as it turns out, he ended up getting arrested and convicted of a felony on Thursday May 6th. Now, I went all day Thursday, and half of Friday having no idea what he did, I just knew he was in jail. Kyle is my best friend, and I spent a good two days wondering what in the fuck he did to land himself in jail. So, he called me when he got out of jail on bail on Friday afternoon to tell me that he was convicted of holding a “concealed weapon” (in Michigan, a knife is considered a concealed weapon if it is over a certain length). This meant that he wasn’t going to be moving down to Ann Arbor to live with me (on Sunday, as was planned), as he had to await his court date and such. Which really sucks, because living in an apartment without internet access, and by myself, was becoming incredibly lonely.

Anyway, I’m going to write a separate entry for the whole girl-troubles thing (since the timeline behind this one spans before and after last week’s troubles). Another interesting point is that from the dates of April 23rd to May 2nd (that’s 9 days), I got drunk seven out of the nine days. A couple of those days were the result of end-of-the-year celebrations, and one was because I went to a party and met a girl (more info on this in another post)… But mostly it was just because I found it was the most effective way to get my mind off the things I was worried about, and to attempt to let me sleep (the last two weeks of school, I was averaging four hours of sleep a day). The last week and a half has been so bad that, at times, I felt like I just want to break down and cry endlessly (it takes a lot of guts for me to admit such a thing, so don’t make fun of me for it

)… But the week is over, and, considering the new week starts on Sunday, and it’s currently Monday night, it’s been a good week so far.

Comments

Mr_Frog

on May 10, 2004

Hey man, don't let the bad things get you down. As my dad always told me (a wise man) "Shit happens for a reason. It might look bad at first, but if you let things run it's course it should all turn out good in the end."

Dude, don't worry about the crying thing. It take a real man to admit the need to cry, and though we may not do it often, sometimes it's the best thing to get stuff off our chest and to bounce back from a shitty situation.

I've been going through some rough times here as well, and it looks as if the table is finally starting to turn in my favour. Just keep at it mate, and the table will turn for you as well

Cheers,
-- B

Oluseyi

on May 10, 2004

Tsk tsk, Trent! How could you not know that rental companies view the 18-to-24 demographic rather dimly?

You're learning about life. It's a lot of pain and confusion, but you'll look back and laugh. I'd recommend that you find a way to tough it out and stay on at Stardock (I got the impression you felt it wasn't feasible).

Also, customer service people are notoriously sloppy. Always confirm every detail to make sure you're on the same page with them. My ex called me yesterday and told me that she was 200 minutes over the limit on her cell phone plan; she thought she had changed her plan from 600 minuts and three-day weekends to 1000 minutes and three-day weekends, but in actuality her plan was just 100 minutes a month. All that yakking on Fridays? Overage.

I was in a similar situation, except that I made sure to go over all assumptions with the service person. I ended up sticking with my old plan.

Experience is the best teacher. Congratulations on the changes, and good luck at Stardock and FileFront!

kingbee

on May 11, 2004

if nothin else, you've exceeded your projected reader count by at least 150% you're not facing any felony counts yet. i havent lived in michigan for a few years longer than youve been alive, but unless things have changed radically, there arent too many places closer to perfect climate-wise than ann arbor from the 2nd week of may thru the 1st week in june. (i pretty grew up in lincoln park and then lived around the downtown wsu campus for about 5 years)

if things dont even out (they will) by the end of the week, borrow a car or a bike and tell the world youre goin to hell. it aint that far from you. head out of town on dexter ave goin nw. that turns into dexter-ann arbor road til it passes thru dexter and turns into dexter-pinckney road. keep goin til you get to darwin road and turn left. darwin becomes portage lake road. by then, youre just about there. after you've been to hell and back, nothin can damage you too badly.

good luck

.

Janders

on May 11, 2004

You are an awesome writer. Add another reader to your list!
I hope things start going better for you!

mittens

on May 11, 2004

Wow! When I booted up FireBird this morning, the last thing I expected was to see that entry on the top of the front page of JU. Kinda odd, but glad to see more people enjoying the read! And, yes, things have really turned around this week; things are going great so far, and I think it'll continue as well.

Also, I'm not looking for sympathy, so much as I am writing this to help people learn from some of my mistakes, and for the fact that I enjoy writing about this. It let's me get all my thoughts "on paper" (so to speak), and sort out what is what. It's a good way to relax.

Expect another entry, related to the "girl issues," later today.

citahellion

on May 11, 2004

Well, this is going to sound like nitpicking, and it probably is, really, but I'll just point out that your friend was not "arrested and convicted", but "arrested and charged". He's not convicted of anything until the jury at his trial says "We find the defendant guilty as charged."

mittens

on May 11, 2004

Yeah, I changed that in the same post in another blog; but JoeUser was being evil, and wasn't letting me edit my post.

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