Osama Bin Dickhead rides again

I haven't died (happily) or been kidnapped by aliens (sadly. At least it might be somewhat entertaining). I've had to deal with the deranged, fake Muslim, filthy (the words soap and water clearly don't appear in his dictionary), foul-mouthed, obnoxious, threatening, total asshole neighbor from Hell. Either he is off his meds or he has worked out that the restraining order I took out against him has now lapsed. He's at it again.

For a couple of weeks, he has been screaming obscenities at me from outside the building-and from outside his front door, upstairs where I can't reach him-not that I would want to, because I don't know how far his bugs can jump, and I'm not planning on finding out, ever. Add this to the constant drilling and hammering at all hours of the day and night (perhaps he's been building an extension. For six years).

Now, we have had a horrendous heatwave; the temperature hovered between an unbearable 85F and 100F-closer to 100. And this country is so backward that the only places with air conditioning are large supermarkets, banks, and (hopefully-for the tourists) the big hotels. I've kept the windows open, but there hasn't been much wind, either. So I have been one big bag of sweat, and I don't like the heat to begin with. So you can imagine how grumpy I was anyway. I showered a lot. I also swore a lot, although it was summer (ish), so there wasn't anything I could do about it, except look forward to October.

Add this to the fact that I didn't just mangle my arm, or have a hairline fracture-but I also fell hard enough to (as subsequent xrays showed) fracture a small bone in my wrist. When I mangle myself, I really, really mangle myself. And for the past seven weeks I have been pretty immobile, arm-wise. Actually, I have been using my arm, since I'm right-handed, and a total klutz with my left arm-but I haven't told anyone. Much.

So Osama has been calling me "Walking Dead" and a lot of other things which are really too disgusting to mention. I finally called him the "walking Brain-dead", told him that he is an asshole and a lunatic, and told him that if he had any balls at all he would come downstairs and face me and call me names while I'm standing in front of him. Silly me: one smack and I would be on the floor. But I said that anyway. Then, on Saturday the 10th I called him Osama Bin Dickhead. Osama, I said, you are not a Muslim. You are a fake, a fraud, a deranged lunatic, an insult to Muslims everywhere. Come on, dickhead, face me or be a coward forever. I called him a shithead and a gutless coward.

Did he come downstairs? No, of course not. He kept screaming at me from upstairs, just outside his front door, and then started screaming in his native language (is there a language known as asshole? I'll have to google it).  I kept hoping that he would have a heart attack, or an aneurysm-or, even better, spontaneously combust. Then at least I might have the chance of someone normal moving in. But no, he went inside and slammed his door.

That was on the 10th. I was already distressed, partly from the extreme heat, partly from the pain in my arm, and partly because the next day was the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. That got to me, as it does every year. I remembered back 15 years; I recalled exactly where I was, and how long it took to be able to call home to see if everyone was okay. I knew that my very closest friend worked in the next building to Tower 2- and I finally reached her the next day, at 4AM New York time. I woke her up. When she realized how hard it had been to actually get through, she stopped being annoyed. And everyone I was worried about was all right.

It's back to being cool and damp, and I'm glad for the change in the weather, because every change affects my balance. I had to force myself to walk in extreme heat, and you can understand why summer is my least favorite season. I personally would like to abolish summer altogether. If I could find a place with temperature hovering around 20C (68F), sunny but with low humidity, and rain only at night when I'm sleeping, I would move there tomorrow. And so would everyone else!

The 9/11 disaster, the memorial service (I got to see part of it-on US television, because the Brits didn't cover it), I didn't expect the black dog (depression) to come out of nowhere and bite me. But-it bit me so hard I thought it would rip my face off. I sat and watched the horrors unfold, and my husband turned around and said that the US deserved it. He actually said that. We deserved a massive terrorist attack on our soil, so we would know how it felt, and because we were so arrogant that we never thought anyone would go after us. I was in tears, and he was-just plain evil. Cold and evil.

9/11 was the day that I finally decided that I'd had enough of this unfeeling bastard, and that I was going to walk, even if I had to walk with only the clothes on my back. That was the final nail in the coffin of my miserable marriage. So I won't forget that day-probably ever.

I finally have been able to beat the crap out of the black dog and send it packing-but it took nearly three weeks to do it, which is something of a record for me. I walked, I wept, I walked some more, I hibernated and would only get out of bed to go for hospital appointments-and I went to the hairdresser and got my hair cut. I figured out what was bugging me, and that some things I can't change, so I need to learn to let them go.

Letting go has never been something I've been able to do. I can hold a grudge forever. I might eventually learn to forgive, since I know that those of us who don't forgive are the ones who suffer the most. But I never, ever forget.

I decided that watching something funny would probably put me in a better frame of mind. Humor always seems to help, so I took myself to see the new Bridget Jones film yesterday. I recommend it highly; I laughed so much in parts that I forgot that I was depressed.

I recommend humor. Funny movies. Walking off depression (without falling over, obviously). Daydreaming about killing your enemies. And, of course, I highly recommend Kettle Chips. I should buy stock in that company...