window.
© 2004, 2005 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>

6 Dec 2004:

The Mexican at the window is going to put a serious cramp in my nakedness and nakedness-related program activities:



Goodbye sunlight. Who knows when I'll see you again.

21 Dec 2004:

Today is the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year. And as of this morning, this is the view from my window:



So much for the dramatic scaffolding-front views! Now they've made the world go away via duct tape and dingy plastic. If the progress that has been made on the other side of the building is any indication, I can expect it to stay this way for six months. I am now having flashbacks to my childhood in the Blighted East, since the current view out the window is pretty much exactly what the sky looked like all year round.

See, apparently my building's roof leaks, and this was understandably upsetting to those people living on the top floor. So the condo association hired someone to fix the roof, and this contractor did that thing that happens in cartoons where the irises of their eyes turn into dollar signs and the musical cue goes "ka-ching!"

"Oh," they said, "we could just plug the leaks in the roof, but you know what would be cool? If instead, we stripped the entire coating off the exterior of the building, wrapped the whole thing in a giant building-shaped condom, and re-plastered it all." They went on to add, "Toxic mold! Asbestos! Lead! Dogs and cats, sleeping together!"

"Two weeks!", they presumably concluded, laughing hysterically.

29 Dec 2004:

Today, blood rains from the sky:



There is this sickening reddish spooge rolling down the outside of the windows, and sticking to them in big muddy clots.

6 Jan 2005:

The beach-head has been secured. The universe is now 8% bigger.



Today I have a view! They have peeled away the plastic covering my windows, and so I again have a scenic view of the scaffolding! Which is itself still wrapped in plastic. But I can assure you that having a view of the outside world, even if the edge of the world is only four feet away, is a dramatic improvement. Perhaps the so-called "dark matter" will allow the universe to continue to expand. I can only dream.

7 Jan 2005:

Dear Diary, today the eave elves brought me a bag of intestines! How did they know? I've always wanted a bag of intestines. These were dark gray and foamy.



Later that evening, the bag of intestines was gone, and instead there were a pair of pods clinging to the scaffolding. Egg sacs? Perhaps the intestines were not intestines after all, but larvae of some kind! I wonder what sort of winged urban industrial nightmare will hatch. I wonder if it will be my friend.

31 Jan 2005:

Well, that was short-lived. Today they re-covered my window with plastic. The universe has shrunk again. There has been some auditory evidence of painting.

2 Feb 2005:

And the universe oscillates once more! Today they took the plastic off the windows for the second time. This time for sure! I still can't see the outside world, but at least now there are stylish new-wavey paint splatters on the plastic.



Every morning I wake up, look at the window, and my first conscious thought is "snowed in again."

3 Feb 2005:

Yesterday I got my first glimpse of the sky! Far off to the right, down at the end of the scaffolding, the outer plastic was down. Sky! Cars! Completely visible with the naked eye, if I stood right next to the window and craned my neck. I love you, cold unfeeling plastic tarp.



And then -- and then! Today came the great unveiling! It may not be obvious to the untrained eye, since today the sky is approximately the same color as the plastic itself, but it's so very much farther away. And now I can again watch the interminable construction project across the street, instead of the interminable construction project that is attached leech-like to my own building.

9 Feb 2005:

It has truly been a glorious week, what with the sky and all. But I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, or rather, the other tarp to appear. The process they are taking with the work on the building doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. They're painting the building white, with gray-green highlights in the inset areas under the windows. So, as far as I can tell, the order in which they did this was:

Cover windows. Strip paint off building. Uncover windows. Repair cracks with concrete. Caulk around windows. Hand-paint the white bits near the windows. Hand-paint the gray bits under the windows. Cover windows again. Do not mask off the gray bits. Spray-paint whole building white. Uncover windows.

So that means that the gray bits have white spatter all over them and look completely halfassed, so I must assume they'll be painting them again. But, it also looks like the white paint they did is cracking off already. I keep seeing inspectors walk by, and every time they do, there's a new thumb-shaped hole pushed through the paint on the ledge just outside the window where you can see concrete.

I don't think these guys are very good at this.

11 Feb 2005:

At around 1:45 AM (that's right, "amateur hour") there arose such a clatter, I sprang toward the window to see what was the matter. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but a gel-haired yuppie whom I met with a sneer.

Yeah, some drunk guy in a suit-jacket was climing up the building, just reaching the level of my window. I opened the window and leaned out:

"Hey, Asshole!"
"Yeah?"
"Get lost!"
"Okay."

Then he climbed back down. That is exactly verbatim, and is probably my favorite conversation I've had in weeks. I love it when people answer to "Asshole!"

So about ten minutes later, there's another ruckus. I go to the window, and he has apparently returned with a retort of some kind, but by the time I open the window, he's already climbing back down. "Is it time for me to call the police?" I ask. Now I see that there are four or five other people down on the ground. One girl looks completely mortified and says "We're really sorry, we're trying to get him to leave!"

Good times, good times.

Proving that I am no journalist, I forgot to take his picture. Dammit.

8 Mar 2005:

The day before yesterday, someone finally climbed the scaffolding tagged it with a 12' graffiti blob. I'm amazed it took this long for that to happen! Apparently this was the impetus that the construction crew needed to actually take the scaffolding down. "Oh, yeah, I guess we haven't actually used that for a month. I guess we can stop billing the client for it now."

So they packed it up and took it away. And there was much rejoicing.