A dog in the wall.

Ceiling, actually. Erica and I spent most of last week pulling our hair out while having to endure the constant barking of an upstairs neighbor’s dog. It started a couple of weekends ago when the folks moved in. See, they’re not exactly above us; rather, they have access to the attic above my apartment instead. It’s a little complicated to explain, so I won’t.

Anyway. I think it was around Sunday that the dog started barking. And barking. And more barking. It didn’t stop until sometime after 11 o’clock that night. Seeing as how I have to be up early during the weekdays, I wasn’t pleased. Neither was Erica.

So I figured, hey, they’re probably still in the move-in process. We’ve been there. They’ve probably got the dog locked up in the attic so it’s not in the way of arranging furniture.

Yeah, well, four days later, the damn thing is still barking. I did what anyone else would do: I called my landlord. He said he told them to mind the folks who live below (we had a problem earlier this year with neighbors up there–their kids liked to throw parties late at night, which isn’t a big deal, but then I started smelling pot in my bathroom coming down from the vent, and that just wasn’t cool), and that he would call them the following day.

That was last Friday. The dog was still barking. By this point Erica and I were a little concerned. I mean, that attic has to get hot, right? And they’re keeping it locked up there all the time.) The damn thing barked until 2:30 Saturday morning. I had to be at work at 8. I was not happy.

Erica left our neighbors a note that day that explained our situation (my early work hours; her health and sanity) and asked that they not lock the dog in the attic after 9 PM. She also said that if the dog barks that late again (i.e. 2:30 in the morning) we would call the cops and animal control.

The dog, I’m happy to report, has been almost entirely silent since then.

Otherwise I’ve been rather tired lately. I need to find a new job, ASAP. My current one is sucking the life from me day to day. Not only is it weighing upon my sanity, it’s also making it harder for me to write.

I did start something new yesterday. It may or may not become a novel. And no, it’s not the Channel Zero story. It’s something entirely different, that the dog barking incident partially inspired. Funny how little things tend to balloon into bigger, much crazier things. Such is the novel effect I wrote about last time.

Oh, and I added two more pieces of flash fiction to the Work section. They are The Collector (a Channel Zero piece) and Time Enough for Twilight (a light-hearted ode to Rod Serling). Both are available for download.

There’s so much shit I have to do. The dog incident set back my hopes of test-recording ALT, so now I have until the 30th to hand over -something- to Salli and Charles at Soundzine. Having thin walls doesn’t help things.

I approved ALT for distribution on Friday. Even if Lulu’s printer sucks. It’s going to be a long 6 to 8 weeks. Cross your fingers and hope there are no snags.

In the meantime, I’m off to go send out some resumes and try and write something that doesn’t suck.

More soon.