i hate the rain

normally i love rain. i especially love catastrophic downpours, icy beads from awnings, the sound as it hits the window sideways.
my apartment leaks. badly. tuesday i found that not only was the floor-bucket again full, but that a leak had developed over the bed... the brand-new mattress, the brand-new bedding, all the frivolous things that i had uncharacteristically purchased in a self-affirming fit. it looked as though a colostomy bag had burst over it. i actually cried. called the landlord, again. aired my mattress overnight, the bed pushed over to the side of the room (under the laden bookshelf, for surely an earthquake will soon follow), slept on the living room floor with a bare pillow, a solitary blanket, and sympathetic cats. mark (the landlord; a very sympathetic man, overall, though i garauntee he is not getting dripped on) came by wednesday to "fix" the leaks. all was better until today, when the two fixed leaks have become three. i am befuddled and disgusted and trying to find the humor in all of this. perhaps this is my come-uppance. perhaps it is an old and crappy building.
left the apt in a frustrated snit and was driving on aurora when the lady in front of me hit her brakes and i slammed into her. her car was unscathed. she was PREGNANT and very nice about the whole thing. my car has a weird hole in the bumper from her tow-knob. we had pulled off onto one of the precipitous side streets to assess damage. i got back into my car to leave, a car pulled in directly behind me, and i couldn't shift into reverse quickly enough to avoid hitting her AGAIN. this time i left a dime-sized mark. she was nicer than she had to be. i was fucking mortified. i feel like a complete dumbshit.
every song on the radio reminds me of something else, which does not help at all. i assessed my journal, out of a need for affirmation that i really was that miserable, that this is really what i need to be doing with my life now. on january 13th, 2005, we got into a fight, i got into my car to leave, and tony threw a full can of coke at my windsheild, cracking it across the driver's side. i never have gotten it fixed. i had semi-forgotten about that incident; reading about it made me feel much better, as sick as that sounds. all of the entries were so fucking morose: "i'm so unhappy, we have no life together, i miss seattle, i don't feel like myself here, we always fight," blah blah BLAH. i closed the journal and felt exactly 2 emotions, simultaneously: smugness that i have, however belatedly, done something about it; and disgust that i let it go on for as long as i did. i don't miss him at all. i feel horrible in stating that. i miss what was, vehemently. what used to be is what breaks me down now. but the present, the recent history, the only reality: i am glad to be away. the potential is the depressing part, but 'potential' is a fucking cop-out. the 'here and now' should be bombastic, dammit.
we meet tomorrow to 'go over things.' i am dreading it mightily.
i was waiting for a bus today and met 'crackpot charlie, the capitol hill creep.' that was how he introduced himself. he is 76 years old, tiny and with horrible posture and very bright eyes. i was towering over him and we were both getting drenched. he gave me his business card. i will check the site when i am done pontificating here, so it may be bollocks, but here: ccbxyz@webtv.net
he was reciting his poetry to me. i could only hear every third word. he rode the bus for two stops and got off. the entire time he was talking i was trying to picture him young. the first time he fell in love. what his home looks like. i suppose i do that with everybody.
i went to pike place. it was desolate. i kept walking into umbrellas. (i possess neither raingear nor an umbrella.) a guy at the produce stand yelled at me "hey miss, you look like someone who loves good fruit!" it made me laugh. i drank free samples of market spice tea and smelled roses and read trashy magazines and looked at dia de los muertos figurines and watched the ferry loom like a ghost in the fog. it is fun to be a tourist in your own town. and i love the bus. the grouchy sopping woman who clambered on and yelled "value village! does this go to value village?" the man muttering into his cellphone in russian. people wearing expensive trenches and inverted garbage bag-ponchos, in pairs or alone, everyone boarding wet and fluffing themselves like ducks.
and i fucking love yerba mate.