I don't know how I get myself involved with such unbalanced people.

My roommate does these little things that annoy me. Little things, like not paying bills and not doing her dishes and never taking out the trash. I suppose when you put trash in the hall, it just goes away.

Or perhaps that's the signal that I'm supposed to clean up after her again.

I don't like being involved in other people's messes, and it seems that I've actually moved right into someone else's mess. My mess now, I suppose.

I don't appreciate when people play games with me, because they always prove far more transparent then they could ever imagine. Why is it that pathological liars always think that no one can see through their manipulations? It's as if, beyond all the lies they tell the world, they constantly con themselves into believing that people actually have faith in them.

I especially like it when she calls from work, breaks into my mailbox on the answering machine and erases messages left for me before she thinks I've had a chance to hear them. Who knows how many irate messages I've received from the landlord since I've moved in.

It's not so much that I demand respect, it's that I would like to think I deserve it. In my book, respect would include the courtesy of privacy and the simple decency of honest disclosure.

This situation is already far too tainted for me to ever feel comfortable, but that just brings up the logistics of extrication.

I'm not interested in dealing with logistics right now.