I guess I'm not used to sunshine. Huh. Go figure. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all. I staggered up the trail, making a beeline for the drinking fountain, feeling woozy in this abnormal humidity, thinking, hell, this is what I call humidity? It sure isn't Baltimore! We are so lucky here. And this is such a great neighborhood. Of all the places in this city, this is where I feel at home.
Feeling somewhat revived after gulping brackish water, I meandered slowly out of the park toward the shack I rent, a few hundred yards away. I paused to peer at the new cafe going in across the street where the old drycleaner used to be. (Surely they must know the previous tenant was a drycleaner?) A sign has been hung: Songbird. Yesterday while I was struggling to insert some coherent sentences into my concept paper, some workers were cutting hunks of concrete out of the sidewalk in front, to plant trees, I presume. Looks like it's really going to happen, this cafe.
Last Thursday, while I was out in front carving a path through the brambles so my postgal can deliver my junk mail, a rustic-looking long-haired man walked by, and then walked by again. He came over to me and introduced himself by saying, “We're opening that cafe. I'm Peter.” He held out his hand. I took it and mumbled my name.
“When are you opening?” I asked.
“Oh, sooner or later,” he replied, smiling. I detected an accent. Australian?
“Huh,” I said.
“You should come over, read the newspaper.”
“Yes, I should,” I replied, thinking, I don't have time to sit in your cafe reading the newspaper. I don't even have time to trim the evil rose bush that is swallowing my front walk. My laundry is piled three feet high. Dust and cat hair drift like tumbleweeds across my carpets. My friends have forgotten I exist. My ass is spreading two inches a week from lack of exercise. And you want me to sit idly in your cafe reading a newspaper?Last night some guy parked his fancy silver SUV across the street from my apartment. His windows were up, but I could still hear his music pounding. Even though it was 11:00 at night, I didn't think, I just opened my front door, closed it behind me so my cat wouldn't bolt, walked over to his car, and peered politely into his window. His window smoothly descended. He hit a button and turned down the volume. I explained my mission, he apologized, and minutes later, he was gone.
I mention this because it is a harbinger of things to come. This is summer in the 'hood. Once the weather warms up, there will lots more SUVs driven by self-centered assholes (no, wait, park visitors), parked on both sides of the street, blocking the bus route, endangering bicyclists and pedestrians. And now with this new cafe opening up, there will be chatting people with their panting, yapping dogs, sitting in clusters under market umbrellas on the sidewalk outside the cafe, inhaling all the residual drycleaner toxins, swilling iced coffees and enjoying my neighborhood. My neighborhood. Their voices will carry, as all sounds do in this perfectly formed acoustic bowl. And I, sweltering in my little hovel, will be forced to listen to their annoying stories, along with the music, the traffic, and the irritating barks of their little ratdogs, because it will be too hot to close my windows.
I complained to a friend. She had one word for me: earplugs.
