Displacement Activity

Lately I feel sort of like these guys - giant robots duelling at a mermaid festival. Displaced. Out-of-sorts. Out of context, too.

There's a massive and incredibly, horribly noisy (our whole building shakes) construction project happening right outside my window now, and for the foreseeable future. They'll be done some day, you say? Clearly you have never lived next to a NYC construction project before. I, unfortunately, have.

My last apartment was completely unliveable for two and a half of the five years that I lived there. So much so that in the end, I gave up and moved in with Boywich.

I really love my current apartment, and I do not want to give it up, but already I am doing that PTSD thing where I cringe and creep around, ducking and freezing in place like a wild animal waiting for the Big Scary Noise to start. Already I am not at peace here even at night when it's quiet.

It's not a good situation for a sensitive creature like me.

And I am not sure what to do about it. I am shopping around for an alternate work space - a wireless cafe would be ideal, but that gets expensive because you have to keep buying things, and I just can't drink that much coffee. I have an aversion to public libraries, and while there are parks, they're not much of a long-term solution because of a) weather issues, and b) the wireless thing.

Yesterday I bicycled long and hard with my laptop on my back (in addition to the 15 lbs. or so of locks and tools that I usually carry), and ended up with a very sore and numb shoulder/arm, and cranky knees.

I am actually considering whether it would be possible to rent a workspace. It would kill a couple of birds - I have also been wishing for some company during the day, and to share space with another couple of freelancers might be cool. But there really isn't air in my budget for such niceties, so we will see.