#johnny stuff

The whole thing with my aunt fell through, though it wasn’t anything on our part and we were getting along just fine (also i randomly ran into my mom’s sister, whose my only aunt on her side of the family, which was nice!); the long and short of what happened is that my dad never actually looked into checking if we COULD live there or not, and the management was extremely strict on how long people were allowed to visit, and just moving people in was not allowed at all.

My dad was constantly being asked by my aunt to provide important stuff; for instance, documentation that needed to be handed in IMMEDIATELY for them to even begin the paperwork to CONSIDER me being allowed to be there or not. He kept talking about how he would definitely give it, and then he would just... not do that. He kept flaking on literally everything. The one time he DID follow up on his promises, he gave her a letter specifying how much i make in social security, and it was out of date by OVER TEN YEARS.

(Needless to say, they did not take it.)

Complications kept piling up, one after another. We weren’t allowed to be outside at ALL before management went home at afternoon. We had to keep the windows shut at all times to prevent anyone from seeing us. We couldn’t play our computers after 5:00 because then the neighbors would apparently hear it and complain to management. There was a super-nosy neighbor who was constantly snitching on everyone to management for no reason... it just went on. The entire time my dad refused to listen to me when i kept telling him how serious it was getting, insisting that my aunt was delusional and making it up. At one point management came down and gave her a warning, and said they were going to install cameras so they could see anyone who was breaking their rules.

(Fuckin’ landlords, I tell you.)

So eventually my dad just picked us up and moved us back into his place, and further more, had the idea to renovate the garage, or a part of it, into a section for us to live. We’re still working on that, but at least i have a place to put up my gaming computer so i can play it now and use it for things that demand more high power. He’s picked up most of the stuff from my aunt’s, except my desk, which he forget. (Despite it being a huge desk.)

So now we’re in the garage. I’m still living in the living room, more or less, which has unofficially become my space, and my dad keeps presurring me to just move out full time into the garage and won’t listen to me when i tell him that i CAN’T because my cat doesn’t like being out there, and i can’t have her in there at the same time as the air mattress my brother is using, because she WILL pop it just walking on it.

HE says “well don’t let her do that” while his dogs are constantly urinating on the floor and no matter how much everyone is complaining about the dogs doing that, they’re also not making any effort to train them to stop it besides telling them to go outside.

But all things considered, this is still a massive improvement. There are still problems, of course; my dad is still having me pay 500 a month to him and that represents more than half of my income from SSI, as I think I’ve mentioned before. Furthermore, we’re not allowed to eat food from his fridge at all (though seasonings seem okay?) and have to buy all our own food. Good news is, they got us a fridge to use. The bad news is, he expects me to feed two people on less than 160$ a month and, as usual, just thinks its fine for me to live indefinitely in a situation he wouldn’t tolerate for even a day.

Still, its pretty tolerable, all things considered; i am considering doing more frequent but shorter comms for 15$ or 30$ at a time which would make things much easier and allow me to buy more food instead of having to wait for my brother to hopefully get a job (he’s looking, but that can take a while)

on the plus side, my brother was given a higher quality laptop, and gave me his old one. It is indeed old, incapable of running games other than ALpha Centauri or DOS era games, but it DOES make an absolutely fantastic writing computer, which is what I’m now using it for. Since its portable, i can just park it in the living room while I’m allowed to be in there and do my writing, and do game stuff later in the day on my old desktop, which permits a decent schedule.

so far i’ve come to a few conclusions:

1. a lot of this would have been avoided if my dad had bothered asking anyone if what he intended to do was actually allowed, and more importantly, that he apparently operates on the principle of “everything will work out fine because i want it to’

2. my oldest step-brother is undoubtedly my dad’s favorite and i’ve already cracked a mildly bitter joke about him actually being the son my dad always wanted (because he’s into military stuff, got married and has a kid), and I’m certain about this because in the relatively short time he’s been here at some point after I moved out into my sister’s, they completely reordered the house to suit his needs. They cleared out a room and converted it into a child’s bedroom, they got rid of the dining table and made the area it was in into a living room for his use, they fixed the air conditioning when the whole time me and my brother were here they ignored how hot that room got and insisted there was nothing they could do...