Saturday, March 09, 2002

I thought I'd update this more often than I have so far. I've been playing too much Empire Earth lately, like the game junkie I am, so that eats into my writing time. I keep thinking I'm going to update this while I'm at work, but I end up finding actual work to keep me busy. That's OK; I should probably do what they pay me to do.

I had written a long entry about a problem I have at work, and then I realized that some of the people involved in the issue might happen upon this page, and see themselves in the story, and that might not bode well for my career. So I'll keep those thoughts private for now. In any case, the situation will work itself out next week. I just need to determine the level of my involvement in the outcome of events.

I didn't get much sleep last night. Liz had an early-morning appointment, so I was up when she was up. Since we usually sleep late on weekends, it's strange to be awake and out of the apartment by 10 AM. I had all of my daily errands done by 1, which leaves me with the entire day free to cause trouble. One of the errands was mailing a bundle of letters for our apartment residents' group. We're fighting a proposed rent increase in our building and I had to mail certified letters from some of the other tenants to the landlord, arguing that our high rents already include the increase. It's a waste of time and money, because the landlord will reject the argument right away, but I'm told we're establishing a "paper trail" in advance of possible litigation. We had a tenants' meeting a week ago, where we heard about all the dirty tricks and shady deals the landlord have made in the past. And we found out about recent changes to New York City rental laws that provide tax incentives to landlords who jack up rents and force tenant turnover. It's enough to make you wonder if there are any honest landlords in the city, or if it's worth anyone's money to be an honest landlord. Our lease runs through September 2003, so we are effectively stuck here until then. I don't really want to consider what's involved in breaking our lease. And what's the bigger pain in the ass: dealing with the devil we know in our current landlord, or going to all the trouble of moving in New York City, possibly into another bad landlord situation? For the moment, I prefer to stick with the devil I know.

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