2004-09-29 - 10:57 a.m.

Hooray, they finally took the scaffolding down!

This entire summer the Roommate and I have had to deal with blue metal and wood planks right outside our windows (they�re repointing the building).

While the possibility of hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock and seeing some guy�s head outside my third floor window, of course, remains, it�s far more remote now.

No more having to figure out where the workers are and then going to where they aren�t. No more peeking into the living room and then running down the hallway past it from my room to the shower, and then back, towel wrapped around my waist. No more waking up in the morning and realizing that there was a distinct possibility that dudes could have been watching me sleep. No more having to sneak into rooms in my apartment to snag something.

And I�ve gotten so used to living like this, too. This morning I woke up to them taking the scaffolding down--they haven�t used it in weeks so all of the blinds are open--and there they were, and I didn�t care one bit. It�s not like I waved hello, but it�s not like I flew out of the room either. I�m here, you�re here, if you want to see a dude stumble out of the room in his boxers, knock yourselves out, pervos.

Pretty soon, the day after I wash all of the floors in the apartment, I won�t be noticing a fresh coating of pink dust everywhere.

This is so great. I have my life back.

There�s guys here to �fix the buzzer� too. It�s kind of a semiannual thing. The buzzer does not work. It never has. For all I know it never did. Every few months or so we�ll get a letter from the landlord proclaiming a visit from the buzzer people. Sometimes they actually show. Sometimes they don�t. When they do show, they look at it for thirty seconds, mumble something about old wiring and that they�ll be back later in the day or possibly the next, and then return months later to repeat the entire process.

It�s kind of a ritual.