brokedown palace

Yet again, I'm in the midst of one of those cycles where I'm plagued by annoying shit just about every day. It's not as bad as say, having my toes sniffed and sucked by a madman on the R train, but it's aggravating just the same. It seems like once one thing happens, the rest of the pesky crap lines up and follows suit.

It's like, is there a law that dictates that I must run out of swipes on my MetroCard, tampons, deodorant, detergent, toothpaste, etc. during a time when I'm already scratching and crawling my way to payday? Actually, my money situation isn't too bad this week but there have been other times where I felt like begging on the subway with empty coffee cup in hand: "Alms for some toilet paper? [shake, shake] Help a needy person remove stains and sanitize her laundry. [shake, shake] Will work for Tampax."

My recent spell has more to do with things breaking down. First up: Me. I've felt ass-y on and off for over a week now due to my fall allergies. Traditionally, I get all run-down, feverish and nauseous-feeling. However, in recent days a new symptom has been thrown into the mix -- I seem to have developed a skin allergy. My entire body is as itchy as fuck. I know I shouldn't be scratching but it's unbearable. On the upside, my flexibility is improving considerably because I've been contorting myself in various poses to get at those hard-to-reach places. Alas, the handy dandy back scratcher I won in Point Pleasant over the summer suffered a premature death thanks to this rash. During a particularly vigorous back-scratching session, it snapped in half sending plastic purple shards scattering all over my apartment floor. I'll need to grab Jess again to go play several more rounds of Skee-Ball to win me another one.

Secondly, my toilet is on the fritz. Fortunately, it's still functional but until it's fixed, I need to lift up the lid of the tank and fish around in the water to pull on the thingy to make it flush. The plastic connecting the outer handle and the inner device broke. Now I pride myself on my oft-mentioned MacGyver-like ability to fix shit but my idea to generously apply caulk to "weld" the pieces back together didn't exactly pan out. Instead, the caulk detached from the interior handle, solidified into a white bumpy ring and sank to the bottom of the tank. I realize that the water in there is clean but I'm squeamish and this activity didn't sit well with my rather volatile gag reflex.

Lastly, my coat rack nearly killed me the other day. I was bent over tying my shoe and the thing tipped over and landed at a 45-degree angle mere inches from my cabeza. I only got it a few months ago so it shouldn't be behaving this way. I selected this particular model because of its highly-touted rotating mechanism. The marketing ploy was that a user can spin the pole around to easily reach the desired coat or jacket. In retrospect, it's not a long walk to the back of the coat rack so this really isn't a time-saver or an overly convenient feature. Instead, it's a death trap. I no longer have the box but I would hope that there is fine print on it somewhere cautioning that each spin strips the screw securing the pole and the base thereby making it all get all rickety and lopsided after a couple of uses. When it first became loose, I tried shoring up the joint with caulk and spackle but that failed, obviously. For future repairs, I think need to abandon my caulk technique and move on to joint compound.

I hate when things in my apartment aren't "just so." I don't mind spending the money on repairs and new furniture but I loathe that period of time where things are out of order. Hmmm... maybe that's why I have a rash! In that case, it's nothing a trip to Target can't fix. Self-diagnosis and self-medicating = fun.