"You can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being."

- poe

The continuing saga of Female Crazy Neighbour is, um, continuing. Early this week I was reminded that I haven't really written about her in awhile, mostly because she seemed to have quieted down over the last two or three weeks and I was never in the apartment without the Boy backing me up. (Yes, more than a century of feminism boils down to the fact that a psychopath requires me to keep my man protecting me at all times. And you know what? I don't want to hear about it.) I was also wicked busy, way too preoccupied with mid terms and marking and preparing for birth & maternity leave than I was with the occasional thump from below. Like I said, I was never alone. I tested the waters exactly once - last week I came home in the middle of the day, raced upstairs to grab a book & some change for the parking meter, and bolted back to the car without incident. I'd even stopped worrying that she was going to pop the pathetic lock on the backdoor and come after us in the middle of the night with a big knife.

I suppose I was lulled into a false sense of security. I figured that even if she still demonized the Boy for her delusions of crackden, she might feel sorry for his poor pregnant wife. It was easy to convince myself that I wasn't a target - I've spent 2 months with the Boy constantly by my side, and it's easy to believe that the rude gestures & banging & screaming are all about him. We left the house suddenly last weekend while she was raking the yard, and I thought she was going to have a coronary. At that moment, I decided that she was just a crazy old wild thing, more afraid of us than we were of her. I allowed my better judgement to be lulled to sleep and I even let myself get hopeful - I thought that she would leave me alone on my maternity leave, even if she still occasionally spooked the Boy when he was alone in the house. I was so, so wrong.

Yesterday, while I sat quietly listening to Belle & Sebastian and writing report card comments in my study, she started banging on the walls and ceiling. It made me a little jumpy, but I wasn't too spooked until I felt the floor directly below my feet vibrate with her angry pounding. Maybe she thinks it's the Boy. I'll call the cops if she starts screaming, I decided. It took a few minutes to calm down, but the rest of the day was okay. Of course, the fact that the Boy came home at 1 p.m. and we left soon after helped a great deal.

Today I embarked on my second day of cleaning up this hell hole. By 9 a.m. I was tidying the kitchen, scrubbing the bathroom and trotting back & forth with various out-of-place items. By 11 I needed a break, so I put on some frozen fish for lunch. As is inevitable, little bits of batter detached from the main portion of fish and burnt to a crisp. I opened the window to get rid of the stink, and ate my fish & peas in front of CBC's Remembrance Day coverage. A half-hour later, I was energetically trying to force a sleeping bag back into its cover when I heard her door slam open.

"Are you through pushing your fucking sick air into the hallways [incoherent] pregnant [incoherent]? Sick fucks."

It hasn't ended. It seems as if it's never going to end.

The Boy wanted me to call Peter, but I have no desire to stare down his bullshit and his daughter's insanity when I'm alone in the house. Tonight we'll call about the fact that she's filled the front hallway with garbage & rotting plants, she's smoking in the house (endangering myself and the baby, if you want to put a fine point on it), she's screaming at me for no reason and we want our cheques for this month and the next. It won't do any fucking good, but at least I've lost my comforting illusion of safety.

So today's Remembrance Day. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I wear poppies because I think there was a very real sacrifice made by people who did not see the present year (whether they did it specifically "for me" being irrelevant). I support peace keeping operations and I encourage Canada's role in their execution. And of course, I like pomp & circumstance, especially if it includes a brass rendition of "God Save the Queen."

What I don't like is having to defend myself from poorly-thought-out attacks on my character that seem to equate my feelings about Remembrance Day with a bloodthirsty, nationalistic, manifest destiny dogma. Just because I'm patriotic doesn't mean that I support everything my country does - quite the opposite, in fact. And just because I willingly participate in Remembrance Day services doesn't mean that I subscribe to a romantic myth about the continuous necessity of combat to "stamp out evil." I can, and will, give my support on a case-by-case basis - and that doesn't make me any less of a patriot, or any more of a mindless drone. So there.

No, I'm not done talking about this yet.

Things I loved about Girls' Night:

1. The love. I was hugged and petted and cuddled. Food and drink were fetched for me, despite the fact that I was perfectly willing & capable of getting it myself. Little Spider was so enthusiastic about fooling around with my hair that she refused to wait for a night that we were actually going out, and pomaded me up in the living room. People told me new stories, LS & Morgan reminisced about old stories, and my own silly stories were listened to the entire night. Sprout was eagerly anticipated, and Coraline felt him/her move for the first time. I was one popular pregnant chick, let me tell you.

2. The eagerness that my oldest friends showed about the Sprout. Morgan giggled and cooed over my belly, telling me what she had planned for the day I gave birth. LS bent over backwards to assure me that I was still loved and cherished in my hugely pregnant state - in fact, the night was more or less put on because of the huge hissy fit I threw at the Zen Lounge on Hallowe'en. You can't get much more love than that.

3. The new girls. I love meeting interesting new people - I spend far too much time with surly adolescents, surly parents and surly teachers. There were two new-to-me girls: Luz & Ariadne. Luz was extremely fun to talk to - I don't think she spent more than a second outside of a conversation, and I really enjoyed meeting her. Ariadne was very quiet, and I think I ignored her because I was so over-stimulated by the others. I'll have to do better next time.

4. The birth stories. Morgan talked at length about her experiences with Toad and everyone else shared stories about their relatives & friends. I began to feel less like a freak show.

5. The confessional stories of every stripe. There were some nasty revelations at Girl's Night - all the kinds of things that we need to hear every now and again to confirm that we're normal. I shared stories that are absolutely mortifying, and didn't think twice about it. That's love.

Booty Call: Day 249 - Still in there.