Chapter 5

To say my love life suffered once I was no longer an accomplished actor would be an understatement. I did date several girls off an on, but nobody special. Of course everybody who I worked with ended up dating each other which really led to some great workplace dynamics. Lupe I believe had a fling with every Guatemalan bus-girl that came through the place, I myself stuck to the hostesses and waitresses. That became more trouble than it was worth after awhile, and I swore off dating co-workers all together.
To be quite honest my life had become very routine and stale. I went to work at my usual 2 - 12 shift and watched a lot of crappy T.V shows and decided to go through the entire catalogue of foreign cinema classics off Netflix.
It just dawned on me that I've already told you that I don't have my acting nest-egg anymore and you must know that IHOP cooks don't make too much money...so how do I get by you ask??? Well honestly I live a pretty cheap life, and I don't do well with living with others so I if at all possible I like to live alone. I can't necessarily afford an apartment on my salary so I rent the basement from a widow who advertised it in the classifieds. She only charges me...get this...100 bucks a month! I have some stipulations for living here which she layed out for me when I approached her about the place, they are
1. I must always take out her trash every Tuesday morning at 6:20 am (there are no
exceptions
2. I must be her defacto security guard and if anything happened to her I was to be held
personally responsible
3. I can play my music as loud as I want but if at any time it awakes her from a slumber I will
immediately asked to leave and never come back
4. I must never pass judgment or question her lifestyle
Now, I've lived in this lady's basement for about 2 years now...I can't even tell if she has a lifestyle and I see her everyday. I'm still wondering what she's speaking of when she says her "lifestyle", I mean as far as I can tell she leaves once a day for about an hour and comes home to watch Golden Girls and talk to her cats. I've had dinner with her on several occasions and I really know nothing about her other than she has no kids and her husband died around 4 years ago. What if her lifestyle is randomly beheading Mexican immigrants...I mean that would kind of be exciting when you think about it...I could probably end up even writing a book about my experiences living under a serial killer. The truth is though that would cast the spot light on me which I tried so hard to leave...so I really hope she's not beheading Mexicans.
She was very interested in my parents and upbringing but found out really quick that that was not a topic that was up for discussion. So we usually just had meaningless conversations about what Bea Arthur was up to that day on the Oxygen network. Until she just happened have dinner at my work and bump into me she didn't know what I did for a living. Come to think of it I could have been the one beheading the immigrants.

I found out about her "lifestyle" though, now is not the time for that info so let's move on...

Anyways...once most women found out I had no motivation at this point in my life and lived in Granny's basement, the whole relationship kind of died. Screw em', I still had Lupe and Tim and a wonderful collection of Bollywood classics to digest.

Then SHE got hired...and I think, without sounding to mellow dramatic, my life began...