Kyle Hepp

November 30, 2008

Warning: Long post ahead, but I think it’s worth reading.

We shot a double wedding pro-bono for our nana, Mila’s two daughters two weekends ago. I’ve been wanting to blog about it, literally, since we arrived on the scene. The first thing I thought as soon as the festivities got underway was, “Oh my gosh, this is so cool, I can’t wait to write about it!”

But then, as started to write the post in my head, like crazy people tend to do, I realized, words really cannot do the feeling I had at that wedding justice. I knew it didn’t matter how much I went over this post, I would probably never get it exactly right. So I mentally erased everything I had “written,” and now what you’re getting is straight up word-vomit.

We headed out to Mila’s house in the evening. She got a grant a few years ago to build a small house on a plot of land that she owns in Los Noviciados, a rural and not well-off area. So S. had never been to her new house and didn’t have a clue where it was. She gave us directions out past the airport and then told us to wait at the first colegio we saw — she would call at 7pm to double check that we had arrived and then send her son out on foot to come get us. 7pm came and went pretty darn quickly so we started getting nervous at about 20 to 8. The wedding was scheduled to start at 8pm, and while we knew this was Chile, meaning it probably wouldn’t started until at least 8:30pm, we didn’t know how much further we had to drive to get to her house or anything. We couldn’t call because Mila doesn’t have a phone. Finally we called the one comunal phone and waited forever while someone ran through town to try and find Mila and bring her back to talk to us. She had completely forgotten to call us. But, even once we got in touch with her, her directions went a little something like this, “It’s just a little further. You know, just keep going straight, way straight, and then when you come to a little bump in the road….yeah, don’t turn there, pass that…and then you’re going to come to a speed bump, ok wait, maybe it’s the third speed bump…umm, don’t turn there either. Just keep going. And then right around the corner is my house. Don’t worry, you’ll see, there’s a tent outside.”

“Just a little further,” ended up being at least another 20 minutes driving. Mila’s idea of right around the corner is seriously skewed. That might be because her house is so far away that if we hadn’t gotten lost it would have taken us 45 minutes — driving. She gets to Santiago every day by first riding a bike, then hitchhiking, then taking a bus and then the metro. I didn’t ask how long that takes her but I would assume at least 2 hours. Go ahead, ask me if the woman has every taken a sick day.

Getting back to the wedding — as soon as we pulled up a group of old men standing outside the house stared a little bit in confusion at the foreigners pulling up in their neighborhood (S. and I were with another friend who came along to shoot with us who’s also an extranjero living in Chile). But, Mila came out and greeted us and everything clicked into place.

“AAAH! She’s la Kyle!!! You’re la Kyle? [to nobody in particular] Does she speak Spanish?”

Once it was established that yes, I am the infamous la Kyle, from where Mila works, and that yes, I do speak Spanish, the family/friends/neighbors received us with open arms. They already knew so much about me and my life that we skipped right past that awkward stage of, “You’re a Gringa so I’m not sure if I should treat you differently.” I was already part of the community.

In case you’re wondering why S. wasn’t the one being reacted to, since he’s the one Mila’s known for the past 15 years, I think there’s a few reasons for this. Mila loves S. to death. When he’s not around she refers to him affectionately as, “Mi ninito,” listens raptly when I talk about him, and then tells me how “lindo,” he is. But, she’s afraid of men. When S. or S.’s dad come around, she clams up instantly. I can’t tell if this, in part is due to her religion. Mila is an evangelical Christian, and extremely conservative, so I would guess that she probably believes in women honoring and respecting the men, although she’s never said as much to me. And secondly, she’s told me that she’s lived through some pretty horrific experiences with her own dad.

Anyways, we arrived and started getting our gear ready. At no point in time did anybody warn us to be careful with our cameras or not leave anything unattended because it might get stolen. And to be honest with you, this was the first time that I can remember, since I’ve lived in Chile, that I completely let my guard down. Not once did I look over my shoulder to see if anyone was running up behind, not once did I go back into the room where we left our extra equipment to make sure it was still there. I could tell we were safe because, like I said, at that moment, we were part of the community.

Before we got started shooting, I asked to use the bathroom. Mila’s son Mitchel took me out back. The day of the wedding, they had constructed a particle-board type shelter and installed a toilet and sink. Mitchel was so thrilled about this luxury that I take for granted every single day of my life…not only that, that Mila sees me taking for granted every single day. Well, not literally, she doesn’t sit there and watch me pee or anything, but you know what I mean.

The cement around the base of the sink was still wet and after I came out three more neighbors went back in to hammer away and put on the finishing touches. While they were doing that, there were at least 15 women running about putting silverware and plates at the long tables that had been set up for the reception. 5 others were going back and forth between the two brides, sharing makeup and a curling iron, trying to get them ready. And there must have been an army of people cooking, because they just kept bringing over more and more food to store until the party got started. Others were decorating the getaway car, and some were hanging up white balloons and ribbons outside the house. Keep in mind Mila’s house, which has 4 tiny bedrooms, is maybe 60 square meters. With this many people everywhere, it was chaotic, but nobody was pulling their hair out. The brides were relaxed and happy and just kept screaming not to let any men see them. The atmosphere was festive.

Finally, around 9:00pm, the brides emerged from their respective rooms and got in a car to be driven to the church which was about a mile away. Almost everyone else walked, following behind. Outside the church on a dusty field, a pick up game of soccer was being played. The physical building looked more like a house than a place of worship, but inside the place was packed. The pastor was in the middle of a sermon, which seemingly stopped for the brides to walk down the aisle and quickly get married. There were so many people we could barely move to get photos! The actual marriage part lasted maybe 10 minutes and then the bride, groom and the 100 or so people who had came to bear witness all walked out, and the sermon continued on for the people who were already in the church.

As the newlyweds got into their white cars and started to drive away they began honking. The huge crowd of people was standing outside cheering them on, when a cloud of dust rose up. We could hear the horses hooves before we actually saw the huasos (Chilean cowboys). The huasos arrived, rode up in front of the two bridal cars and begin making their horses rear up, jump and neigh loudly. It was seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Chills rose up on my arms as they began to gallop away and as I looked at S. he said, “Tengo escalofrios.”

Before the party really got underway, we went over to Mila to inform her that we had to hit the road. Her face got very serious and for a split second I thought she was mad at us. But, then she burst into tears and hugged me burying her face in my shoulder. Note: Mila is the most stoic person on the face of the planet. She does not show emotions, good or bad, nor does she voice her feelings. She’s basically the female version of my husband. (Total joke, playing off of male stereotypes, S. is actually surprisingly expressive if you know him well. Mila is not). She told us how happy she was that we came and that she loves us. My soul fell off the stairs we were standing on and died of shock, then came back to life at that very moment.

Mila is so well-respected in her community. You can tell that people look up to her, and that this wedding not only was a big deal because girls from the neighborhood were getting married, but because they were Mila’s daughters. It was interesting to see her in a different light, outside of her role as the nana (that’s maid for you non-Chilean speaking readers).

But, the funniest thing that I could not get out of my head all night long, was how comfortable I felt. In a little village, where saying no gringa has gone before is probably a safe bet, I should have been more conspicuous than ever. But in Los Noviciados, the only blond girl within miles, with my giant camera hanging around my neck, I felt so much more at home than I EVER do walking down the streets of Santiago. Nobody stared, nobody treated me like a stupid tourist, and not one single man so much as looked at me disrepectfully. It would not be any sort of an exaggeration to say that this one big group singlehandledly restored my faith in the Chilean people.

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November 26, 2008

Shameless bragging below. You’ve been warned.

I’m accidentally awake about an hour before I have to be. It’s not enough time to fall back asleep but not really enough time to start working on anything else before I have to start writing for the afternoon. So I thought I’d aprovechar and write a little blog post.

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. It’s just that I’ve had a TON of photography-related business to take care of in these past couple days. 1 wedding + 3 boudoir sessions + 2 family sessions next weekend = an insane amount of photo editing for Kyle to do before she leaves on her trip to the U.S. Every day these are things on my to-do list.

Edit ____ photo session
Meet with client
Write stories for: Holidash, Stylelist, I’m Not Obsessed, Green Daily and sometimes TONIC.
Do my online work for my dad’s company
Run almost every day as part of my training plan for the half-marathon I’m doing in April (I’m in week 5)
See husband
Have social life (try to leave the house every once in a while)
Walk Papito
Update JMCS

So that means something’s gotta give. In this case, social life and updating JMCS were the first things to fall by the wayside. Then “See husband,” went out the door. Seriously. We live together, yet two days have gone by in which he’s arrived home while I was at the gym and was asleep by the time I got back so we haven’t even exchanged a single word, except via telephone.

While I do feel bad that I haven’t been updating as regularly, in this case I don’t have much of a choice. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Some people critiqued me on the survey saying, “Please don’t disappear for a week at a time, I hate when you do that!” To those people, I respond, “Haven’t you ever heard of real life?” It gets in the way of online every now and again.

Anything photography related will always be a priority to me. Making my clients happy comes first because this is MY business and nobody is responsible for the success or failures except me. Yes, S. is a key player and second shoots for me frequently, plus he was the one who taught me how to use a camera and all that jazz. But, ultimately since I am the one who deals with the client, I am the one responsible for their satisfaction.

Writing blogs and getting recognition as a writer is nice. I enjoy when my posts are featured on AOL’s welcome screen. I like when I see that what I write gets lots of comments. But, it’s not the same as running my own business.

With my photography business, because I’m so freaking competitive, every time someone books a session with me I feel like:

I WIN

While I know this isn’t necessarily true, each time a client chooses me, I think of it as a smackdown on every other photographer in Chile. I like to win.

Yesterday I handed over photos to a client for her boudoir session. I had been working round the clock to get them done. When she came over and saw them her reaction was, “OH MY GOD, I look like a model!!!!!!!!” She was SO excited. Then that in turn makes me so happy and proud and I WANT TO EXPLODE. I’m doing my job well. That’s like winning and scoring the tie-breaker goal.

If you’d have asked me a year ago whether or not I thought that a person could run a profitable wedding photography business in Chile I would have told you no. But, somehow, everything has been slowly falling into place. I’ve been working steadily since last May and right now during the busy season, summer here, I have more work than I can handle. I actually had to turn two dates for weddings down because I was already booked.

That’s why Kyle Hepp Photography goes at the top of the priority list. Because I’m proud of this thing I’ve built up from nothing to what could actually be considered a reasonable Chilean monthly salary. I’m proud that I am mostly self taught in photography and that through my own hard work and dedication to the craft over the past four years, I can continue to see improvement in my work even on a month to month basis. People hire me because of my own merit and the way I see behind the camera, not because of a degree.

More and more I am convinced that this is what I am going to do with my life. If I can make it work in Chile, I can make it work anywhere.

So if I don’t blog much for the next two weeks, that’s why. Check the photography blog to see what I’ve been doing (although I still can’t post the boudoir sessions because their men haven’t even seen the photos yet!).

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November 21, 2008

While I did write about my own Crazy Wedding, I don’t think I’ve ever really touched on Chilean wedding traditions in general in JMCS. I have weddings on the brain constantly since, you know, I’m a wedding photographer here in Chile and all that and I’ve been going to TONS of nuptials lately.

One of S.’s best friends got married last weekend. We were the first of his group of five to bite the bullet and this couple was next. I’m betting money on them announcing spermination within the first year of their marriage because that seems to be the normal for all our Santiaguino Chilean-Chilean couples that have tied the knot recently. Comparatively, in the U.S., where I’m from in Michigan, I know a lot of people that have gotten married fairly young, but more are waiting to have babies, except my friends Lindsey (Hi Nashy and Blake!) and Haley (Hi Kadzbans and Baby K.!), who is pregnant, but older than I am and has been married a little longer. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I do not know a single person who went to college with me that’s already taken the plunge. I went to school at the Most Beautiful Place On Earth, University of Tampa, for anybody who’s wondering.

So to break it down for you:

Chile: wait longer to get married, get married, have babies right away.
Michigan: get married sooner, wait longer to have babies.
Florida: don’t get married, don’t have babies, ever.

Seeing the geographical trends of my own friends is really interesting because I can see people in most regions following similar paths.

When I got married, 4 days before my 23rd birthday, nobody from Michigan ever said, “Oh my god you’re so young!” But, a lot of my college friends freaked out and were like, “What the hell are you doing?!?” In Michigan I was the first of my close group of friends to get married, but a lot of girls were already engaged as well and walked down the aisle shortly after so I don’t think many people thought anything of it (aside from the fact that I always said I’d never get married, but that’s a different story for a different day). And unsurprisingly, a ton of people’s reactions in Chile were (and still are), “So you’re married, great! When are you having a baby???” It just goes to show you that our perspectives of what’s normal are heavily influenced by what’s going on around us.

Since we have a community of people from all over the world reading JMCS, I’m curious to know where you are — what’s the norm when it comes to getting married and having kids?

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November 20, 2008

The year has been flying by. I truly can’t believe we’re almost into December, which means it’s almost time for our trip to the U.S. which in turn means we then have just ONE YEAR until we leave for our trip around the world.

This is something we have been planning and saving for, for so long now that I cannot even fathom we’re actually going to do it. Because of the amount of time that’s gone into preparations it’s always seemed like something of a pipe dream even though I know we’re slowly but surely working on making it a reality.

All of a sudden both S. and I were both hit with a jolt of reality when we realized just how soon we’ll be departing (a year may not seem soon to some of you, but we’ve already been working towards this goal financially for two years now so in my mind, just one more year is definitely soon). Because of this, we’ve really decided to buckle down on saving. Now that my tax situation is resolved, I’m trying to work harder, write more stories, say yes to all the photography jobs that come my way and just make more money in general. And we’re cutting back in every way possible.

My monthly spending limit for extras is now 50,000 pesos. “This is rough,” I think, as I sit typing away from Starbucks, even though I know that fifty thousand for entertainment is more than enough. I’m not exactly a thrifty person. And to be honest, this year, which was the first year of both S. and I’s lives in which we were making enough to be able to freely spend and buy things we wanted. We went overboard. The spend spend spend is out of my system now, but I’m not going to lie…not struggling financially for the first time ever, was so nice. We were able to afford a great lifestyle and still save up about $25,000 dollars. However, we want to buckle down in the upcoming year. So, going out to eat is being cut back and like I said, I now have a self-imposed allowance.

It’s been hard to get used to. Old habits die hard. But, the upside of it all is that I’ve lost 2.5 kilos now that I no longer eat lunch out every single day of the week. The downside is that never leaving my house is boring. Which is why I ponied up $2,500 (pesos) of my spending money to get a frappucino and come sit at Starbucks in the air conditioning. It’s worth it to me. I’m often a lot more productive when I change up the environment where I’m writing. Anyways, the plan is to save $35,000 dollars more in the next year. It amazes me that by cutting back we’ll be able to sock away and additional $10,000 bucks! I mean, I don’t love not being able to order sushi delivered to my house at my every whim, but when we’re able to travel for another couple of months because of our extra savings, I know it will all be worth it.

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November 17, 2008

Ha. We win. We’re not being sued. The jackass was totally bluffing. Today was supposed to be the day where if we didn’t bring in checks for more months of rent the landlord would sue us. S. consulted with our lawyer, whose dad is doing better, btw, and our brilliant legal mind told him to cuss out the landlord and make it clear that we’re not fucking around and we’re not paying him another fucking peso. So S. went in to the meeting with the landlord, told him so, and the landlord shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ok.” He’s not suing us, there will be no further drama, thank goodness.

I celebrated with a glass of Frangelico and spent some time editing pictures not for work, not for other people, but for me! FUN.

Here’s a shot that a friend took of S. and I at a wedding. By the way, S. is considering doing a guest post for me. Do you guys have any questions for him?!? He wants to write but he says he needs more inspiration so if there’s something you want to ask, now’s the time.

No no, Papi isn’t cuddling with S. as he sleeps…

She’s actually attacking!

This is quite possibly my favorite picture ever taken of Papi. I LOVE her. Seriously, it takes all my willpower to restrain from blogging about her every single day.

One more…

And lastly a few photos from when we went to Ky a couple weeks ago. Can you believe Rodolfo’s arms are long enough to get us all in the picture?

K…bye!!!

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November 16, 2008

When I went to school at Campus Macul of la Chile university here in Santiago, every Thursday was dubbed “Protest Thursday.” It didn’t really matter whether there were any real issues to get up in arms about — Thursdays the students protested, rain or shine, with or without cause.

Sometimes I was annoyed because my classes would be canceled if the protests were big enough, sometimes I was happy to see the students stand up for their rights if I thought they were protesting an issue worth talking about and once I was really scared when they were protesting APEC and someone threw a rock that hit me in the head.

In the news, I get upset whenever I see injuries and violence at protests. I know that a lot of kids who protest are intelligent and speaking out against the injustices in their country, which is a wonderful thing, but on the other end, there are so many who go just to make trouble. They throw giant rocks and molotov bombs at the police. The police fight back and chaos breaks out. The kids who incite the violence are often painted as innocent little babies being crushed down by the big bad government. I’m not saying the police are always in the right. I’m just saying, the violence comes from both sides.

Anyways, I’m getting way off topic. What I wanted to write about is the fact that Chileans have often asked me why people in my country don’t protest when we don’t like the way things are going. I tell them what I think is the truth, “Our generation has had it so good for so long, we don’t think we have a lot to protest about.” However, I also explain that we often do have protests, they just don’t make the news down here in Chile. For me, during college I participated in protests fighting back against the injustices illegal immigrants in the U.S. face. I picketed Taco Bell, who buys (or maybe that has changed, I haven’t been following the sage since I moved here) tomatoes picked by illegal immigrants and refuses to pay them humane wages. That was a concept near and dear to my heart because I’ve always worked in restaurants and been friends with cooks and bus boys and managers, who were illegal. I know they’re not a faceless evil coming into our country to take down the good ol’ American boy. They’re people trying to make a better life for their families. I don’t fault them for that, and I think every human, regardless of government status, deserves humane treatment. So yes, we do protest, although my generation hasn’t protested nearly as much as the generations before us because we’re lazy and used to our cushy lives.

After my country voted Obama president, I was proud, yet still felt immense feelings of disappoint and shame that we are so bigoted we took rights away from a minority group. I was SHOCKED that so many people voted for writing discrimination into the constitution and want to refuse gays the right to marry. However, this weekend I was proud to see my people stand up against something so wrong. Protests were held in 50 states and 10 countries. Chile blogger Clare just wrote about the Milwaukee protest and has pictures of some really great signs people brought out.

This isn’t about what the religious fanatics believe it is. This is about seperation of Church and State. That’s what our country is based on! Our founding fathers are probably rolling over in their graves right now after seeing that line, not even blurred, but completely crossed. If you don’t believe gays should have the right to marry, then that’s fine. Be part of a hateful religion that treats people as second class citizens, not as equals as the Jesus you claim to believe in preached. But, don’t try to impose your religion upon the government. Discrimination is WRONG.

Remember back in the day when people thought women and blacks were second class citizens? We look to our history books and can barely even conceptualize how ridiculous that concept is. One day, in my lifetime, we will look back and have our minds boggled again by the fact that people tried to denied gays and lesbians the right to marry.

Free love, peeps, free love.

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November 15, 2008

Well, we haven’t been sued yet. This guy seems to be all talk. S. had a meeting in the morning with the guy on Thursday, and then he was supposed to go meet with our lawyer and we were going to go back in the afternoon to meet with the landlord again with our lawyer. Well, our lawyer’s dad got run over by a motorcycle that afternoon.

Sidenote: I know a frightening amount of people that have been run over lately. BE CAREFUL crossing the street. Sure, it sounds like common sense, but tell that to the people getting peeled off the pavement on a daily basis in Santiago.

Our lawyer is also a friend. He’s the Chilean husband of another gringa (Australian/Brit gringa) I hang out with regularly, so I was less concerned that we had lost our brilliant legal mind, and just overall more worried for their family when we got the news. Anyways, thank god our lawyer’s dad is going to be ok.

So this mean that we went back to the meeting with the lawyer in the afternoon with no other legal knowledge than what we had already known in the morning. The landlord took our coming back with no lawyer as a sign that we were bluffing and continued to try and extort us into leaving him with checks for three more months worth of rent, and threatening to sue if S. didn’t sign a document there on the spot.

Mark my words, he’s the one bluffing. I am feeling confident that he won’t sue. And if he does, we’ll win. Simple as that. There’s no way he’d get the six months rent he keeps saying he’ll sue us for. The contract is only ambiguous with regards to one month, and I doubt it’s worth his time to sue for that, plus, our lawyer says that the law is definitely on our side and this guy doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

I half want him to sue us just so we can beat this jackass. Come Monday we’ll find out what happens.

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November 13, 2008

After two days in a row of being this pissed off, I’m surprised I haven’t dropped dead of an anger heart attack yet. Yesterday taxes, now today, court.

Yes, you heard that right. We may end up in a legal battle with our former landlord. The contract states we could terminate at any time with 30 days notice via email. So we did. Not so fast. He called to tell us that we understood the contract wrong and that we were actually bound through December and that we have to give 60 days notice via notarized letter and since we haven’t done that yet, then technically our contract renews for another 6 months and we need to pay through July. He also threatened S. when S. called to tell him that wasn’t right and we followed what the contract says to the letter by giving 30 days notice via email.

So S. went and consulted with a laywer friend. It turns out that the contract says both things, what we think it says and what the landlord thinks it says. It’s ambiguous says our lawyer friend, but in Chile laws heavily favor renters, not landlords, and Chilean law says the way any ambiguity is interpreted is the person who drew up the contract’s responsibility, or in this case, the landlord’s.

Our lease was paid on the 6th of every month. So on October 6 we paid in full for the month of October 6th-November 6th. We gave our 30 days notice on October 23rd, meaning that we would still owe the guy rent from November 6th-23rd, or basically a little over a half a month’s rent. But, since nothing was resolved we did pay rent for November 6th-December 6th, meaning we overpaid what we owed.

S. went in today to see if we could come to some kind of agreement with him. We offered to let him keep the extra half month’s rent, as well as tell him that we’ll clean the old apartment and give him the keys today, even though we’ve paid to live there through December 6th, that way he can find other renters.

The guy said, “No, that doesn’t work for me. Here’s a new contract, sign it. It holds you responsible for 3 more months rent and all related expenses. You need to pay that now or at least leave checks for three months worth of rent. However, if I find another renter, I’ll refund you the three months rent.”

S. responded by telling him politely that he was going to talk with his lawyer but right now he absolutely wasn’t going to sign anything. The guy FREAKED OUT and shouted, “NO, you can’t leave unless you sign.” S. was like, “I’m sorry, but absolutely not. First of all, we’re talking to our lawyer because if you don’t uphold your end of the contract we’re taking this to court. And second of all, even if I do decide to agree to to your terms, I’m not signing another contract with you that I think says one thing and you decide means something completely different. How do we know you’ll actually give us our money back. At this point you’re already breaking what our old contract said, there’s no way we’re leaving you with more money in the hopes that you’ll ‘refund it.’”

Then the guy started threatening, and get this, told him that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we allowed to remove anything from our apartment. He goes, “Don’t even think about moving that refrigerator.”

Ummm, yeah, about that. A. Nowhere in our contract did we sign anything that says, “We’re your bitches,” and B. HAHA, we already moved. There’s not a damn thing in our apartment and today we’re going to get our bikes out of the storage space belonging to that apartment too, so he can’t go in and change the locks or do something crazy.

I’m freaking out. I don’t want to go to court whether we’re in the right or wrong.

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November 11, 2008

For the past couple weeks I was pretty stressed out. My dad left me to babysit the company while he traveled for almost the entire month. Moving is never fun. I started blogging at a new site and was wondering if I would be able to keep up for a while. I was behind on photo editing for clients.

But, now in the past week, I’ve felt like things are really under control. Everything has calmed down a little bit and the fact that we’re all settled down in our new house has definitely helped. I was feeling good.

That is, until two seconds ago when I started doing some calculations and realized that I am on the verge of being bumped up into the next tax bracket. In essence, if I make just $1,790 dollars before the end of the year I’m FUCKED. Because of having to pay a high percentage in the next bracket, but being on the very low end of that bracket, when all is said and done I’ll have less money in my pocket then if I stopped writing from now until the end of the month to keep me in the lower bracket, even though I will have earned more. I’m so pissed off. I’m going to owe like 5k more.

My stress levels are back through the roof. Just three hours ago I was lollygagging at the pool, enjoying a sunny afternoon. Now all of a sudden I’m freaking out and trying to figure out if there’s any way I can just NOT work for the next month and a half without pissing any of 5 bosses off….yeaaaah, not going to happen. The other option is work like an insane freak and never sleep for a month and a half, to make even more than normal and offset the tax cost, but I would have to be a MACHINE to do that. ARGH, I don’t know what to do and I’m never going to be able to sleep tonight.

Ps. Sorry for so much SHOUTING in this post. I know it’s not good blog etiquette. I’m just really worked up and can’t contain myself. I can’t just pull 5k out of my ass!!!!

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We moved, literally, two blocks from where we used to live. I know a lot of people were a little surprised that we just packed up and left, especially after hearing me gush in this blog about how much I loved my home. I did and do love it still. There were just some extenuating circumstances that had to be dealt with.

For a while we had been passively looking for a new apartment because we (I) wanted more space. I thought a two bedroom would be nice so I could have an office spot to work in during the day.

Walking Papito, we would go ask buildings that looked like they would be nice places to live if they had any apartments for rent. We hoped that we would find something good and bigger but we weren’t desperate and thought that we would just renew our lease for another year if we didn’t stumble across something that we liked.

One day, both of us passed a big cement building and from the outside you could clearly tell the apartments were lofts. We passed maybe 3 or 4 times and never went in to ask if they had anything available for rent in the building because every time we passed there was a ridiculously nice, shiny black sports car out front, making us think that only rich people live here. Not true…anymore at least.

So anyways, going back in time from before the move, way back, something weird had been happening in the past months. Over the course of about a month and a half or two months, on about 4 different occasions someone knocked on my door in the middle of the day. Since I’m a paranoid freak and don’t open up for anybody unless I’m expecting someone I would never open my door, I’d just say, “Hi, who’s there.” And every time I would here footsteps running and the door to the stairwell slam shut. It happened twice and I didn’t really think anything of it. Then my friend Emily’s apartment was robbed during the middle of the day. A week after the breakin at her place, she and I were supposed to go out and it happened again. Someone knocked on my door and then ran away when I asked who it was. I was freaked out and still on edge after what had happened to Emily so we ended up staying in that night. Then the last time this happened was about three or four weeks ago.

The next piece of the puzzle to fall was a memo from our old building’s administration. If I hadn’t been slightly worried for my safety and security I would have thought it was the funniest thing I had ever read. First of all, the head concierge was caught embezzling money, we’re talking like hundreds of thousands of dollars and supposedly they’re now going to sue him. Secondly, he was also co-conspiring with people to help them rent out their apartments as “Apart Hotels,” meaning temp. apartments that people can rent out for one night if they want. So people in the building were renting out to anybody and everyone for short term use and in a few of those, thieves rented, had access to the entire building and robbed a couple apartments blind. The memo said this happened three times, but I talked to other people in the building who said there were something like 8 break-ins unaccounted for.

The BEST part of the memo, and of any memo I have ever read, gave yet another reason for the firing of the head concierge: “He was found in a compromising and inappropriate position with one of the cleaning ladies.”

At moments like these, I sometimes wonder if my entire life isn’t actually a TV show, like that Jim Carrey movie. Audiences everywhere laugh hysterically as they see the bewilderment on my face when I read the piece of paper slipped under my door and wonder, “What the hell??? Why would they include that information in a memo?!? What am I supposed to do with this juicy tidbit?!?”

Blog about it, I guess…

Needless to say, he and the entire cleaning staff were let go. However, S. and I thought it best to move on, and the memo inspired us to ask the loft building if they were renting. They were. We did. End of story.

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