Naked Windows!

Exposed, naked windows shock me. They haven't been this naked, this empty, since I moved here in 1998. No curtains. No blinds. No hanging plants. Nothing near the windows. No-life land.

When I cough, there's a echo off the one hard, bare wall. The barenness holds my eye. Stops me. I feel more exposed to the larger world. My built-up comfort has been breached.

It's almost 7 am (again). It took me all of yesterday morning (except for the uphill bike ride to the doctor's office for the hep A+B vaccine needle) and some afternoon to move tables, chairs, La-z-boy, dressers, a bookcase, the not-so-wee tv beastie, CD racks, 40-odd plants, drillpress, boxes and boxes, stools, wall art, every curtain, blind, track, hooks I want to keep. Plant planks unscrewed from the inside lip of the window. The hall is half-full with stuff that had to go somewhere else. The forced emptiness in every room obscures the hyperclutter also in the room.

Soon, the contractor's crew will be here. Yesterday, there was three: two men and a wrecking boy. Took all afternoon for them to remove and replace five windows on the top foor. Hammers, pry bars, electric jigsaws used to destroy the old window framing. A steady shower of debris falling past my window. The walls and everything shaking from the jigsaw and sledge blows.

Don't get me wrong. New windows will be appreciated. Windows that are more than a rattlin' single pane. Windows that shouldn't need to be sealed with inside plastic against howlin' downriver winter winds. Insulated windows to keep heat inside the apartment. They'll be good. Great.

Soon the crew will be here. They're not using scaffold. Two of them at least will be inside the apartment to do the window from within. I fear that I may have to unhook this computer and move the desk because it does overlap the window (how else could I sit and write while looking out the windows down the centre aisle of St Paul's across the street?) Will have to ask.

I've no focus. I wonder, What inside work will need doing later to finish the wall around the new windows? A timing problem since I won't be here. I don't envision complete restoration until mid November. I won't be installing new plant shelves or hanging curtains tonight or tomorrow before cabbing to the airport. I still have to pack. Still have to get to CRA customs. Need travel money (more than the few Euros and dinar left from last year's Belgrade Book Fair trip. Still need to finish that paper. Might have to take the laptop to the library and work there for a while . . .

shirt: Simple
loc: comm centre
temp: 6 C
sound: Killing Joke Pandemonium