Because

Someone tore down my sign explaining that the crochet workshop was to focus on making things for the KwaZulu Natal babies brought home in newspapers. This is the 4th time in 2008. Today is only the 22, Tuesday, the day of the workshop.

I thought in leaving i would be freed from the endless mindnumbing  sheaves of forms this idiotic palce makes me fill out. No, i had to fill out another form. On it they ask why are you leaving.

Ha! I don't remember exactly what I wrote something short and cute like death despair disrespect disrepair....

but yesterday as i rolled in backwards to put the  tokette in the  machine, after waiting for it for hours because it is the only front loader and therefor the only floor on which i can wash  i thought of how horrible it was that even  doing it this way, the machine ate my tokette, didn't start and so i lost a wash's worth of detergent.

so today io began my because list...

because washing macines are only available from  9 whenever tony feels like opening the rooms to 8 40 pm whenever he feels like locking them up

because we must pay 1:25 per load

because we must buy these stupid plastic things and yet and stil the laundry rooms can't be open 24/7

because the recycle trash room is only open 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and officially only a part of a day on Saturday and this makes no sense whatsoever, because if you work or have any kind of life, you won't get your recycling in the room during the normal business day

what is so special about the trash and recycling room that is must be locked

the  alleged safety measure of disabling the possibility of buzzing anyone in after 5 p.m.  which is often the hour that medical deliveries arrive for the  ill and dsiabled, only means that residents generally let anyone in a uniform who is decent looking into the building to spare their decrepit neighbors the hassle of dresssing and leaving their apratments to let someone in

of course this makes security such as it is, even less

because when the man hit the ground outsidethe office window, the manager didn't look

because the manager said I'm on the phone when the attempt to tell her the man was squashed on the  ground outside her office 

because the manager left the keys not lost them and so put the  whole building in danger

because the tenants were never told this happened

because the good lady who gets free food for the buidling was burglered when she went to church

because  when i found out I wrote and called and got my locks changed but the buidling's

locks were not changed for 4 months after the masterkey was lost

because my neighbors put up with this and did not complain but they are very willing to

gossip, get in the way, block my path getting on the bus and be loud

because someone stole my handmade black santa clause

because i had to argue to get plain potatoe chips in the vending machine and then the creep put it in the one slot that doesn't work

because my wheelchair has no camber and only one rail so i can fit through the doorways of this handicapped accessible apartment

because i can't enter the garbage chute room on any floor because is has a step down and 

a door that slams shut,  and it's as anrrow as the catwalk kitchen, so even if i were to attempt it,

I couldn't turn around and pop myself up over the lip. I can only enter and exit backwards,

because the sink is too high 

because the refrigerator requires defrosting, another contortionist, messmaking  challenge 

for me in a wheelchair

because the liars at HUD never fixed the front door on which i have scraped and bruised my knuckles

Because the front doors are glass and heavy and the easy back doors are a step down

because the tenant's group was told that it can't engage any issues of import

because idiot mincing J locked the door to the community room even though on it was a sign about the Crochet class

Because crazy P had a many curing wildly in the hallway F u Fu Fu Fu  the very  day she had 

harassed me 

because the washing machine on my floor is still broken after nearly a year

because there are only two good dryers in the whole building

because the one time I ran out of checks, you wouldn't take credit and told me i had to go out in the cold in my wheelchair and get cash for the rent, though i offered to pay by creditcard

( God rescued me and spared me the fine)

because i have to pay for the tokettes in cash, a check for them is not accepted, which uses up hard to get cash

because none of this makes sense and is burdensome and oppresssive

because my friend was given a hard time for dropping off my mail

because Dorr never got the card i created that people were supposed to sign when they came to the office

because my materials were lost and I had to dig them out  again and sign your stupid forms again

because the bible lady brought a baby to the film screening and the baby made noise through the whole thing

because i dropped my knitting needle and no one told me or gave it to me

because when i most needed it, the store would close early

because after they hooked me on some item, they would stop stocking it

because the 101 year old lady hit me 3 times

because my alleged friend hit me on my knees

because my other alleged friend shoved me and hurt my arm

because the alarms were presented as a feature and R told me that she prayed for God to help her off her knees after no one answered her alarm

because one of those who hit me thinks she is a good person and yet, she did not answer

R's alarm

because this is supposed to be a building for the elderly or older disabled and yet there are these stupid burdensome rules

because someone tore down the sign for Caroling  6 times, as well as my many signs for stuff 

to be taken to the nursing home. Thank God for computers and printers.

Criminal Neglect, Criminal Indifference

Outside the building, the smokers gather. Other times it's the watchers and the gossips. there was a time when I would welcome such community, but generally it is the least attractive, the hideous and the negative energy radiators, squatting and sprawling like bugs and reptiles in the sun. This is perhaps unfair to reptiles and to lovely insects. What irks me is that they make entry and exit a chore; that I must run the gauntlet to get through, that there is a lovely courtyard of trees and tables and benches to sit in, that they choose the small and difficult to traverse front entry to occupy.

Now this crew of gossipers said nothing and did nothing about the criminal negligence of our building management. Even as I write this I know it is wrong to compare or link their gracelessness with dangerous indifference. On Saturday a neighbor called to let me know that N., our building manager lost the master keys to this 22-story apartment building over a month ago and told no one, well, no tenant.

I immediately got on the internet, got on the phone, called the police, the crime line. I also called our weekend emergency number and demanded that my lock be changed. The guy said "O I thought that security situation was resolved a month ago" thereby affirming that what I heard was true! There was a loss, a breach and it was a month ago.... He called me back to tell me that the building had 200 locks on order and that if I replaced the lock myself, I would not be reimbursed.

I wrote HUD, the Democrat and Chronicle, WHEC-TV, the Center for Disability Rights. Monday, my lock was changed.

I learned that there was an attempt to get into someone's apartment and the key broke off in the lock, that another tenant's apartment was ransacked while they were at church.

How hundreds of people's lives and property could be so disrespected is beyond me.
We get a monthly news flyer, which held only banal meaningless announcements:
Halloween party, don't wash on weekends if you are retired.... not a word about the security breach, no warning, even....

And insult to injury, we are facing a rent increase on November 1, and received
letters to this effect. Again no notification.

A week ago, I received a note that there was a package for me. I entered the open door to thee community room and went into the anteroom where packages are kept. As i picked up my package the alternate building manager, S. apppeared and told me " You should ask us to get the package for you. You shouldn't be here"

The door was open, I told her. Well, we're responsible for the packages.
You dear reader, may already understand the insult and inanity of this. How could I take what I did not have access to? Why would I be upbraided for retrieving my own mail?
Let me underscore the insult of this by saying I'm in a wheelchair, moving slowly.....

And, on reflection, this .....person could see fit to berate me for entering an open door to pick up what was mine while she KNEW that access to the ENTIRE
BUILDING was in the hand of person or persons unknown. Midtown Manor is 22 stories--- about 175 apartments..

I cannot think of words harsh enough for this hypocrisy, this crass and criminal indifference, this oppressive, dangerous, nasty arrogance.

If you are of a praying mind, pray for my idiotic, elderly, frightened, weak neighbors. I told a woman with MS about the loss of the keys, she said she knew, was frightened and had discussed it with her psychiatrist.

Why didn't her psychiatrist call HUD, the Housing Council, the police?!!!!
Or advise her to take action?!!!

I am grateful, grateful for my Mac, for my access to the internet, for the ability,
despite my disability, to communicate.

Dead Man Falling

Someone died at 475 East Broad Street Midtown Manor
My neighbor saw his brains splashed on the ground
after we returned from the special shopping run
provided by medical motor services

I had just directed her attention to the courtyard . she's new here and I was telling her what a lovely place it is during the day. How quiet and peaceful.

and she said o i thought i saw a body there
she did see the body and more
and she alerted management to the death just outside their office window.

When she went to tell the manager she was told "I'm on the phone, I'm busy"

this is such a time and place of despair. was it the environment or the person
personal tragedy?


He couldn't have been pushed says the maintenance guy because the balcony rails are 4 feet high.

He didn't live here, he just came here to die.

He may have been shot and pushed someone else said. When they finally turned him over , two
hours later after lying with his brains splattered on the concrete, when they turn him over the coroner
a she, jumped back I was told.
It's not just the brains, it was the stomach or pelvis, gut spill.

the police had said he may have jumped from the balcony on the 12th floor...
is the door always open they asked me after knocking urgently on my door
more often than i like i said
because i have a sign asking that the door be kept closed to keep the bugs out

i digress.... someone either jumped or was pushed today between 1015 and noon.

by the afternoon i learn i was not from my balcony but higher up. The cleaning lady saw his body fall past her as she ate lunch on the 15th floor.

Debbie on the second floor heard him hit, thought it was a gunshot.


Why was it left for Katharyn and i to see, I don't know. Had it happened only moments before? We were the last to enter from the shopping group as I in the wheelchair am the last one unpacked and unloaded and she waited with me... In fact I had even checked my mail first before pausing at the elevators to gesture toward the courtyard.....


this early evening i called Lynne to see how Katharyn fared and we decided to go downstairs to the site-- i with prayers and sea salt for cleansing and she with incense. She had already lit and left a white candle and there was a white rock with a wreath of leaves and her candle, burning, invisible to the eye but visible in the glass and this i saw with discomfort was right in front of the rear entrance.... the wide glass entrance


and people tracked right through his blood and flies still buzzed and i saw the wavy white lin of salt
i had cast as i rolled and prayed.....

we spoke with Dolores a tall long bowlegged woman like a walking sculpture with pink and white nails and a short thick fro an african bracelet on her ankle she was distressed and knew that Sam
the deceased had attended East House, a program not a place and that he lived in Savannah Gardens, the units facing Midtown Manor that framed the courtyard and her plump pretty little girl contributed a small branch to the shrine and then a woman who looked to me to be in pain but who smiled named Sabrina came. She had many tiny teeth and was dressed all in black .

she had placed the stone and had come upon the dead man and had watched the fireman spread his blood with their hoses, sadly she said washed up on the building.

She asked me if I was Wiccan. LOL! and she appreciated how there were three women holding wake
making peace in the space.

I worried about the young mother who had seen him fall. Dolores said these young people treat it like watching a movie, not like you or I. after i had suggested that maybe the young mother might need to see someone after seeing such horror.

I spoke of my godmother, a woman I loved and respected and admired, who losing her sight, wrapped her head up and leapt. She had been a psychiatric nurse and so I guess her brains weren't spalltered to hosed off the sidewalk.

Did the children now thronging the courtyard see. Dolores was concerned that no one had tracked Sam... someone should have been in touch with him, I confessed that I had considered doing the same thing but remained, if only because so many worked so hard for me to be here even in this half life.

Last night i had not slept well. Jacquie told me the same. What good is prescience, if we could not act, send out comfort, put out the fire of despair, discomfort that woke us in the wee hours.

Though Sam lived in Savannah, I head he came to Midtown Manor to say goodbye to a friend on the 18th floor. Who was it?

Sabrina thanked us. We thank her for her good intention. She thought it might have been a friend of hers, she couldn't tell from the bashed up body. But the detectives told her no it wasn't.

She said she wished she had met me earlier. Earlier than what I wondered. I asked her if she was in pain and she said yes, but she was blessed because she could still walk, unlike me.

Too true.