The terrible thing about working
The terrible thing about working in big towering buildings--and post-9/11 my building is in fact the tallest in downtown Manhattan--is that, in addition to being targeted by the occasional airborne maniac, the damn things continually make noise. It's not the shooshing of the elevator shafts or the creaking of the steel bones--the place groans like a galleon on windy days--it's the thuds and bangs that get me. They echo in a peculiar way, which sounds pretty much like you'd expect a large explosion in Midtown to sound. It's nerve wracking. Fortunately, my nerves are being soothed by beneficent chemical concoctions at the moment.
Which is an excellent thing: buying a house, it is said, is number three on the list of Life's Big-Ass Stresses, after divorce and death of a spouse or some such things. They weren't kidding. It's not a big smack-you-in-the-head kind of stress, though...it's a sneaky, squirmy kind of stress that creeps up on you (damn--more bangs...sonofabitch) and tells you that you really don't know enough about the contracts that you've just signed and they're going to take all your money and leave you with nothing, or, failing that, you simply won't get the house that you've just spent the better part of a year looking for.
But, as I said: beneficent chemical concoctions. Legal, mind you, with a proper prescription. Little... shiny... happy... pills! Gotta love 'em.
A temporary fix for what is, no doubt, a lifelong affliction etched into my very molecules. But right now, all I want is to not be afraid of mysterious booms and to get my damn house. No big thing, right? Not to much to ask, hey? Right?
Right.
