buisiness Minded

so yesterday was the Home Owners Asscoiation meeting in my lil compound. Christi bravely went. She wanted me to stay home because she feared I would make trouble, so I stayed home. "Making trouble" refers to redirecting the conversation to more entertaining controversial subjects, such as removing the parking lot and using it to grow plants. anyway, clearly it was a mistake for me to stay home.

the problem with HOAs is that happy, easygoing people who want to let others be don't go to these meetings, because the anal people cause them stress. then the anal people take over. Apparently one of my neighbors. An "artist", who, though famous, hasn't done anyhting in more than 20 years, apparently has enough fre time to stare out her window monitoring for wrongdoing. When I was a kid, the woman across the street did that. she would stare out her window, glaring at he kids, hands ready to dial the police should something ever slightly illegal occur. she made good cookies, but she kept calling the cops on my brother. anyway, that is surely the clearest sign of being an old lady. Once you have nothing better to do than make sure the nieghborhood kids or dogs or whatever are obeying all the laws, then you're old. Probably sad and bitter too. Anyway, this old lady, who was incidentally, also the person who managed to chase away a Taiko Drumming school, goes to every single one of these meetings. the other folks are also anal, but not to such an advanced degree.

so nine people went to the meeting. nine people constitutes a simple majority of the association. christi was there as the lone member of the mellow contingent. Everything was agreed upon 8-1. this is the problem with politics. the majority doesn't partcipate. Anal, annoying folks get to make all the rules. anyway, it was determined that out of "respect for or neighbors," dogs should not run in the parking lot because it creates an un-buisiness-like atmosphere. The most vocal proponents of this also sugested that childrens toys do not belong outside, in front of doorways because that is also un-buiness-like. Those vocal proponents do not actually live here. they own two units, but the go home to someplace else. also, they have an enormous very dominant and somwhat agressive dog. the dogs weighs more than both of them put together. I've seen them struggling and failing to control the dog sometimes. some of those times, I used to thin were comical. Xena would be downstairs looking out the glass doors at the big dog. the big dog would then drag his owners over to our window and then the big dog qould urinate on the window, right at xena. It's a dog thing. He wants to say that he outranks her. Her territory is his territory. I used to just think it was a stupid dog thing and was a good example of who hoses were invented. But these are the folks who are worried about off-leash dogs and professionalism. Their dog pees on my window. My dog runs in the middle of a parking lot. which is more unporfessional?

anyway, this is not a rule, it's a suggestion, so that "we respect our neighbors." Several words have changed meaning since I was a kid. One of those is "respect." I never knew that respecting someone meant curtailing activites that have nothing to do with them. Shold we next "respect our neighbors" by refraining from having anal sex? If nobody is around and a dog runs in a large cement lot, who is disrespected exactly?

christi has decided to roll over and give in to this non-rule. Christi wonders why people take advantage of her and then talks about boundary issues. this is a boundary issue. The supreme court has said that a person's freedom to swing their arms in the street ends at another person's nose. fair enough. But all the noses are inside, even if they are in my buisiness.

I'm really quite angry. Dogs have been allowed to run around since I've moved here. a bunch of anal people want to make a bunch of rules. (they've also desiced that people should not be permitted to pur potted plasnts on their balcony, in case one should fall and hit somebody. the ironic thing of this idiotness is that if a pot should actually fall from a balcony and injure someone, now the HOA bears responcibility. if they had left well enough alone, it would be the potted plant owner's problem.) christi warns me earnestly that if we don't aceed to all of the demands of the increasingly conservative and meddlesome HOA, it will strain relations with our neighbors. Like maybe they'll hate our dog. Or make rules about her. no, that already happened, through no fault of our own. maybe they'll decide we're out-of-control youth. nope too late. Maybe they'll disrespect us as overly young, immature scruffy artists. no, too late again. maybe they'll stop inviting us to dinner parties! ack! oh no! I really want to be invited to hang around people that hate my dog and think that i must "respect" them by being subservient. F--- them. If nobody's around, it doesn't hurt a f------ thing to let her run around a bit. after a certain time, the big gate closes. That's considered after buisiness hours. if the dog runs then, nobody's stupid business will look unprofessional. The trees will still fall of the leaves in the winter. the plants in the planter boxes will die back. the sprinklers will break as people step on them and the suun degrades them. Property values will continue to fluctuate. But nobody's buisiness will be harmed.

The moral to this story: if you want to live in a live/work thingee to do art, you need to move into a an arts live work thingee. stay far away from people who love capitalism so much that they want to take it home with them

I know I get along with others. I lived in a dorm for years and was popular among my neighbors. I rented for years with no problems. In one place, my landlord and i shared a yard and there was no problem. the problem here is not me and is not my dog. It's conservative assholes who desperately need to get lives.