Chinese Water Torture, NYC-Style
The question could be posed -- and understandably so -- as to why I am not
only awake at 3am, but why I chose this particularly desolate hour to write
my first blog entry in about six weeks. If you've been in touch with me in
the few days since I moved to New York City, this may seem even more
unwarranted, given how hard I worked in the last 36 hours, and how ready I
was to sleep by just 10:30 last night.
But before I answer that question, I want to say this: all things
considered, my first NYC potluck was a stunning success, and I couldn't be
prouder of myself. I flew into town Sunday afternoon, but my things weren't
due to arrive until Tuesday, which they did, although not until the latest
acceptable hour, nearly 4pm. Having sat around my apartment all day, waiting
for the UPS man, I was suddently forced into motion. The downstairs of my
duplex apartment nearly filled with boxes, I had just 27 hours, or until 7pm
last night, to not only unpack, but to set up a warm, clean, and welcoming
space for six guests, plus my roommate and myself, as well as to prepare the
foundation for a potluck.
These are not my skills. Cooking -- yes. But unpacking, cleaning, organizing
-- all within a brief set period of time -- these are challenges for me. To
do so in the smallest apartment I've ever lived in, and in so few hours, is
a task those who know me best would probably say I'm not up to. One friend
suggested that I cancel or reschedule the potluck, but just the suggestion
made the very thought impossible.
I unpacked until 1am that night, and woke up again at 7 yesterday morning to
clean. When my roommate left the apartment for work, it was a sea of
styrofoam peanuts, cardboard boxes floating like so many ships at bay. And
yet, by 6:30 last night, it was unpacked, clean (with the exception of the
back hall, where I stored boxes that wouldn't fit in the garbage room), and
there were even rugs on the floors and paintings on the walls. It smelled
homey, at 6:45 I pulled a homemade zucchini casserole out of the oven, and
there was fresh lemon-appleade and tomato-cucumber salad in the fridge,
brown rice in the rice cooker, and store-bought dessert downstairs. I could
hardly believe it. I even had time to sit around the kitchen and wait for my
guests, chatting with my aunt on the phone and thumbing through a black-book
guide to NYC.
My friends arrived, and we ate picnic-style in the backyard. It was nice --
good people, good conversation -- everybody left relatively early, and I
went to bed.
This brings us back to the original question as to why I would be up (it's
3:30 now) and blogging instead of enjoying a well-deserved rest.
It's hard to say what woke me up. It could be the heat. It could be the
cramps. Or it could be the Chinese-water-torture-style phenomenon I
inadvertently constructed over my own couch (where I'm sleeping until I get
a bed). We've all heard of Chinese water torture. A victim sits in a room,
unable to sleep, with an irregular dripping of water over his head. The
catch, or so I've heard, is that there's no rhyme or reason to this
dripping, and the victim spends his hours wondering when the next drop will
come.
Whatever it is that woke me up, I found myself hot and extremely
uncomfortable, when I heard something that sounded like a drip. I thought it
was an air conditioning unit, emptying water onto the patio outside. It was
quiet and unobtrusive, and I concentrated on getting back to sleep, when
suddenly it sounded like a whole bucket of water -- this time right above
me. In that way that sounds can be exaggerated in the dead of the night, I
started wondering what could have fallen upstairs. I calculated my position
relative to that of the kitchen and dining room -- was I directly below the
sink? I wouldn't have thought so. And then I heard another small drip, and
another, and started imagining the growing disaster in the kitchen.
Time passed like this -- minutes? hours? -- until I realized it wasn't water
at all. Above me was taped an extension cord, which snaked up around the
ceiling from the television to the ill-placed electrical outlet. It had
already been taped up when I moved in, but this afternoon, when I was
hanging art on the wall, I moved it over so as to make it less conspicuous
and to place a photograph. I didn't know where the tape was, or even if we
had any more, so I re-stuck the original tape in its new location.
Having dismissed the kitchen disaster scenario, I tried to get back to
sleep. But each time I was about to doze off, another piece of tape would
rip off the wall, with the magnitude of sound generated by the original
"splash" that got me so worried in the first place. Suddenly, new images
floated through my head: the cord falling off the wall entirely and onto me,
or -- worse -- the cord falling at exactly the right velocity to offset the
balance of one or more of the framed pictures on the wall, leaving me the
choice of a lighter but cheaper glass frame splintering over my restless
body, or the heavy and well-framed painting prized by my roommate falling
and performing unimaginable damage, from bruising my legs with its blunt
corners to knocking me out cold by its sheer weight.
Terrified by either possibility, I nearly flew to the light switch,
discovering the situation to be relatively safe, but still not entirely
comforting. A good portion of the extension cord had fallen off the wall,
but in the short run, at least, it didn't look terribly threatening to the
nearby frames (or potential weapons). Unfortunately, I could neither
guarantee that they would continue to be so benign nor stop the sound that
had gotten me out of bed in the first place. I had no tape to replace that
which had given out, so I was left with the choice of taking down the entire
extension cord or grabbing my computer and blogging about it. This being the
internet age, I chose the latter -- an option which has paid off, since a
half-hour ago (it's now past 4am), the cord seemed to hit a steady piece of
tape, support itself on the larger work of art, and stabilize itself
indefinitely.
Of course, like the Chinese water torture, it could always start up again,
(d)ripping away, or even crushing my body under the blunt corners of a
large, framed work of art. For now, I think I'll take my chances.
only awake at 3am, but why I chose this particularly desolate hour to write
my first blog entry in about six weeks. If you've been in touch with me in
the few days since I moved to New York City, this may seem even more
unwarranted, given how hard I worked in the last 36 hours, and how ready I
was to sleep by just 10:30 last night.
But before I answer that question, I want to say this: all things
considered, my first NYC potluck was a stunning success, and I couldn't be
prouder of myself. I flew into town Sunday afternoon, but my things weren't
due to arrive until Tuesday, which they did, although not until the latest
acceptable hour, nearly 4pm. Having sat around my apartment all day, waiting
for the UPS man, I was suddently forced into motion. The downstairs of my
duplex apartment nearly filled with boxes, I had just 27 hours, or until 7pm
last night, to not only unpack, but to set up a warm, clean, and welcoming
space for six guests, plus my roommate and myself, as well as to prepare the
foundation for a potluck.
These are not my skills. Cooking -- yes. But unpacking, cleaning, organizing
-- all within a brief set period of time -- these are challenges for me. To
do so in the smallest apartment I've ever lived in, and in so few hours, is
a task those who know me best would probably say I'm not up to. One friend
suggested that I cancel or reschedule the potluck, but just the suggestion
made the very thought impossible.
I unpacked until 1am that night, and woke up again at 7 yesterday morning to
clean. When my roommate left the apartment for work, it was a sea of
styrofoam peanuts, cardboard boxes floating like so many ships at bay. And
yet, by 6:30 last night, it was unpacked, clean (with the exception of the
back hall, where I stored boxes that wouldn't fit in the garbage room), and
there were even rugs on the floors and paintings on the walls. It smelled
homey, at 6:45 I pulled a homemade zucchini casserole out of the oven, and
there was fresh lemon-appleade and tomato-cucumber salad in the fridge,
brown rice in the rice cooker, and store-bought dessert downstairs. I could
hardly believe it. I even had time to sit around the kitchen and wait for my
guests, chatting with my aunt on the phone and thumbing through a black-book
guide to NYC.
My friends arrived, and we ate picnic-style in the backyard. It was nice --
good people, good conversation -- everybody left relatively early, and I
went to bed.
This brings us back to the original question as to why I would be up (it's
3:30 now) and blogging instead of enjoying a well-deserved rest.
It's hard to say what woke me up. It could be the heat. It could be the
cramps. Or it could be the Chinese-water-torture-style phenomenon I
inadvertently constructed over my own couch (where I'm sleeping until I get
a bed). We've all heard of Chinese water torture. A victim sits in a room,
unable to sleep, with an irregular dripping of water over his head. The
catch, or so I've heard, is that there's no rhyme or reason to this
dripping, and the victim spends his hours wondering when the next drop will
come.
Whatever it is that woke me up, I found myself hot and extremely
uncomfortable, when I heard something that sounded like a drip. I thought it
was an air conditioning unit, emptying water onto the patio outside. It was
quiet and unobtrusive, and I concentrated on getting back to sleep, when
suddenly it sounded like a whole bucket of water -- this time right above
me. In that way that sounds can be exaggerated in the dead of the night, I
started wondering what could have fallen upstairs. I calculated my position
relative to that of the kitchen and dining room -- was I directly below the
sink? I wouldn't have thought so. And then I heard another small drip, and
another, and started imagining the growing disaster in the kitchen.
Time passed like this -- minutes? hours? -- until I realized it wasn't water
at all. Above me was taped an extension cord, which snaked up around the
ceiling from the television to the ill-placed electrical outlet. It had
already been taped up when I moved in, but this afternoon, when I was
hanging art on the wall, I moved it over so as to make it less conspicuous
and to place a photograph. I didn't know where the tape was, or even if we
had any more, so I re-stuck the original tape in its new location.
Having dismissed the kitchen disaster scenario, I tried to get back to
sleep. But each time I was about to doze off, another piece of tape would
rip off the wall, with the magnitude of sound generated by the original
"splash" that got me so worried in the first place. Suddenly, new images
floated through my head: the cord falling off the wall entirely and onto me,
or -- worse -- the cord falling at exactly the right velocity to offset the
balance of one or more of the framed pictures on the wall, leaving me the
choice of a lighter but cheaper glass frame splintering over my restless
body, or the heavy and well-framed painting prized by my roommate falling
and performing unimaginable damage, from bruising my legs with its blunt
corners to knocking me out cold by its sheer weight.
Terrified by either possibility, I nearly flew to the light switch,
discovering the situation to be relatively safe, but still not entirely
comforting. A good portion of the extension cord had fallen off the wall,
but in the short run, at least, it didn't look terribly threatening to the
nearby frames (or potential weapons). Unfortunately, I could neither
guarantee that they would continue to be so benign nor stop the sound that
had gotten me out of bed in the first place. I had no tape to replace that
which had given out, so I was left with the choice of taking down the entire
extension cord or grabbing my computer and blogging about it. This being the
internet age, I chose the latter -- an option which has paid off, since a
half-hour ago (it's now past 4am), the cord seemed to hit a steady piece of
tape, support itself on the larger work of art, and stabilize itself
indefinitely.
Of course, like the Chinese water torture, it could always start up again,
(d)ripping away, or even crushing my body under the blunt corners of a
large, framed work of art. For now, I think I'll take my chances.