My apartment building has become altogether hostile. It’s getting an extreme makeover. It’s about time, I reckon. When I first moved in, it was quite nice. Not nearly swanky but clean and polite. But it has gone way down hill in the past couple of years. Graffiti, garbage, crumbling drywall.

And over the past year or so a lot of people have moved out. I hear people gossip without paying much attention. Something like 40 units are empty. Units. Funny word, that. I’m a child, I know. That’s something like 3 entire floors empty. I think they should give the loyal people, or the people too poor or lazy to move, bigger apartments. There should be some kind of raffle. I should like to win a 2 bedroom.

In what can only look like a desperate attempt, they are fixing the place up. At least it seems like things are headed in that direction. There’s not nearly any benefit yet. In fact, just the opposite. They are drywalling my hallway. For the past three days they’ve been out there from 9 in the morning until 6 at night removing things and chipping away and when I wander out in the hall, all the workers look like the dwarves fresh from their caves. Covered in white dust. Tired. Wrinkled. But mostly it’s the noise.

They are also replacing windows. They have to smash the existing windows out in order to remove them. For the past few weeks my life has been accompanied by the sound of smashing, tinkling glass. In the shower, on the phone, working, writing, napping, all to smashing, tinkling, chipping, hammering, drilling noises. It’s driving me up the wall. It’s happening right now too. There’s a truck of broken glass. I want to get in there and take pictures. So far, no one will let me.

I’m sure they’ll figure out some way to raise my rent. I’m tired of paying rent. Rent is a scam. It’s excusable at 25. At 34, it’s embarrassing. I’ve always said I live without the burden of property and that’s mostly true. I’ve also said a mortgage is a commitment to one space and I’m a nomad and that’s mostly true too. But rent is bad. Rent is stupid. Still there doesn’t seem to be any way out of that for the foreseeable future.

Smash. Tinkle. I’m. Smash. Tinkle. Drill. Losing. Hammer. Chip. My. Chip, chip, smash. Mind. Tinkle. Knock it off.

SS