Blinking at the screen.

While my brain isn't going haywire or anything resembling haywire (the origins of the word "haywire", anyone?), circuits are still firing.

Went over to C's new apartment. Just a few blocks down the way from mine. Getting there made me grateful to have a parking space, as I ended up having to park in front of what I believe was a lesbian bar two blocks away.

It's a cute place. Large, lots of built-in shelving and cabinets. Not enough windows for my taste- there's never enough windows. One of the reasons I picked the apartment I'm in now was because the windows take up more than fifty percent of the walls they rest in.

She has so much stuff. Wandering around piles of boxes and clothes, random assorted things that I've never seen before though I couch-surfed with her for nearly a year. I don't have a lot of stuff. I'm not a monk or anything, but my belongings, furniture aside, would probably only need the smallest U-Haul and not necessarily fill that.

Her boyfriend was there. I watched them interact. She had mellowed down significantly, and I have to wonder if it is because of another man she has recently started dating (she and her boyfriend believe in open relationships)... the whole available resources thing.

And this other guy is a douche. I really cannot stand him. I've tried, for her, I've tried. But, as of last night, I've reached the amount of my time I'm willing to spend in his company. No more.

He's slimy. Manipulative. So very self-centered. Martyring. Socially job-centric. Materially validating. Damp. He's constantly damp, his hands, his hair, his skin, a slight sheen of sweat. Sneering lips, baby-cheeked, his hair cut in a slight A-line, curving around his jaw, up at a tiny angle. Too-small glasses. Clothing over-tight. Not because he's fat (not at all), but because he has to have the skinny-fit everything.

And he provokes. And he condescends. Plays "poor me".

I've shut him down twice now. Once on C's birthday, when he was going on and on about how the restaurant she had chosen (start nasal accent here) obviously wasn't high quality because he asked for a refill of his cappuccino and it never came, and he was just going to sit there because he shouldn't have to ask twice, if they were doing their job right. He'd rather go without his refill, he said, that deign to ask a second time. More annoying was that he also refused to ask a second time for a refill he had requested for C because of the same reasoning.

So I got it for him. Not in an obvious manner, but by meeting the gaze of the waiter, raising my eyebrows, he came, bent down, I asked for a refill of the drinks, not loud enough for anyone at the table to hear... and then when the waiter brought them less than two minutes later, he brought them to me. And I handed them out and went back to eating without saying a word.

It was, in its own quiet way, an amusing way of rubbing his nose into his own shit. And he knew it.

Last night, at the birthday dinner, he started bitching about his ex-girlfriend. C spurred this conversation, because she thought I would want to hear it.

After the second time of him whining that he never would have invested so much time and energy into this relationship if he had known she was going to leave him, I ignored him.

And not in a "I'm still looking at you, smiling when you smile, nodding when you nod, frowning when you frown" way.

No. I simply decided that I was no longer interested in his conversation and broke eye contact, shifted my body towards C, and waited for him to trail off in confusion and then I started a new conversation.

Was it bitchy? Myeh. It was a snub, but one that did not seem to get noticed by those around us.

When I hung out with C tonight, she was telling me that Mr Damp was also dating a stripper. He would meet her at her work and, apparently, allllll of the other strippers would hit on him and flirt with him and, apparently, pretty much any girl hits on him if he goes out and, apparently, he gets numbers all the time.

And, apparently, he's so sick of it and just wants to be left alone.

Apparently, I might punch him in his face if I'm forced to interact with him again.

... ... ... ...

On the sister-front, her ex-boyfriend used the key he had and let himself into the house last Thursday morning, 3AM.

His mission was to retrieve some coathangers he left there and get his apartment key back. They broke up around Easter of this year, tried to remain friends, despite his continued freak outs that she might be dating someone.

So he let himself in, went upstairs (luckily for him, my parents were out of town, or he would have gotten his ass handed to him), confronted my sister, and since the coathangers were scattered, he grabbed her phone as hostage and bolted down the stairs.

She chased after him, he jumped into his car (a car, by the way, that my parents gave him half the down payment for) and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. She leaned in to grab it, he took off (squealing tires, according to the girl who is renting my old bedroom) and shoved her out of his moving vehicle into the street.

She called him from the renter's cellphone, he said he would bring her phone back in exchange for the keys and hangers, then didn't show up for an hour.

When he did show up, he wanted to go inside the house. My sister wouldn't let him. The girl who is renting my room, a friend of my sister's, came outside the house with her.

Of course, then the nutbag grabs her, breaks one of her fingers, bruises her wrist, cuts a divot out of another finger with the key he's so desperate to suddenly get from her at what is now 530AM. Both girls start shrieking and hitting and kicking him but he won't let go and since they are both girly girls, neither of them knows how to do an ounce of damage (kids, this is why you spec for DPS).

While they are trying to get them off of my sister, the roommate digs her cellphone out of her pocket and calls the cops (yes, while continuing to ineffectually hit him).

The screaming wakes up the navy guy who is renting the guest room.

He comes downstairs, diffuses, does the exchange, and minutes before the cops pull up, the nutbag drives off into the night.

Statements are taken, pictures of her hands and arms are taken, police go hunting for the nutbag, my sister gets a temporary restraining order.

Once the police leave, my sister finds out why he didn't show up for an hour.

You see, he had logged onto her Facebook, changed the email associated with the account, and proceeded to go through all of her messages and any that were from males, wrote to them that "we can no longer see each other". And then messaged her coworkers saying offensive things. And then posted degrading status messages. And then texted some people, in particular the girlfriend of one of her male friends informing her that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with my sister. And other things.

Whether or not any of this has any lasting impact on her very active social life, it's fairly clear that he's a nutbag. When you add into this equation that he has an autistic kid he's fighting a losing custody battle for, he's obviously gone off the deep end.

My sister, having been shielded from any sort of asshattery like this in the past by either my parents, myself, or her own defensive mental barriers, was not really psychologically prepared for it.

I spent Thursday day hanging out at the parents' house, letting her sleep, looking into getting the locks changed, talking with the roommate, then driving us all to Taco Bell for quick dinner and girltime.

My parents are trying to get her to get a permanent restraining order, but she's balking because she doesn't want him to lose custody of his kid. We'll see how things go.

And, though I was planning another thing in this post, I think I'll get running to bed. Places to go, pillows to visit.