But I got two feet

2005-01-23 - 12:53 p.m.

Do you ever stop to think about how much our lives depend on the people around us? I don't mean the guy who pushes the button that makes your electricity go or the girl who makes your extra foamy latt� down at Starbucks. I mean people. Everybody around us. We depend on them to not kill us. We depend on people to drive their cars straight down the road and not run into us. We depend on people to not leave their pots on the stove when they go to bed so that they don't burn down your apartment building. And for the most part we just have to trust that they will do these things, because what else can you do? It's crazy.

And it really pisses me off when people abuse that trust and endanger other people's lives. Especially when they do it on purpose (like street racing, for example), but also when it's just carelessness.

And I very much resent people who not only endanger people, but who purposefully set out to hurt them. I mean, you and I are pretty much at the top of the food chain. The only real danger we face is other people. Why should that be? Why do people actually want to hurt other people? It makes me angry that I have to be wary and nervous when I walk home from work at night. It makes me angry that there are parts of this city where I just can't go and feel safe. What gives other people the right to take away my freedom to walk where and when I choose? Do they actually think about what they are doing?

Speaking of people endangering my life, last night there was a fire in my apartment building. Specifically, the fire was in an apartment two doors down from mine. I made an audio post about it right after it happened and I'll post that here but I'll transcribe it also for those of you without speakers or reading this at work or for some other reason don't want to hear my lovely voice. This is kind of a long one.

"So at about 4:20 this morning, so about 40 minutes ago, I was awakened by this really loud noise. First thing I did was to jump out of bed and turn off my clock radio alarm like that was going to help. And then I realized of course that wasn't the alarm going off, it's my smoke detector. Only of course I don't know where my smoke detector actually is. So I ran around the house (my apartment) looking for the smoke detector because I couldn't remember where I plugged it in. These are the types of things that happen to me when I'm awakened out of being quite asleep. So I'm running around like crazy trying to find it--can't find it--it's sooo loud! I was sure the noise in my apartment was going to wake up my neighbors. Oh, I was so scared, what am I going to do? And then I finally figure out where the noise is coming from. But there isn't like an off switch or anything it's just this little speaker that I'd never noticed before in my ceiling. So I find it and I don't know what to do and I have figured out by this time that nothing is wrong in my apartment. I've unplugged everything, turned off my heater, there's nothing funny smelling in my apartment. So I open up the door because I figure well my neighbors must be awake anyway and maybe they can help me turn off this noise. And there, out in the hallway, it smells like really bad. Some sort of smoke. And there's a couple of my neighbors, one of them in a bathrobe and shoes and the other with his hair all funky, and they're like heading for the exit. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, good idea, maybe I should evacuate. It's not me after all, it's the building alarm going off." So I went back into my apartment and put on a pair of shoes, grabbed my purse and my camera, like that's the most important thing to me, and put on my big jacket and went outside with like the whole rest of my apartment complex. So I get outside and there's like two fire trucks out front and they look like they're actually serious, you know, they're running around with hoses and everything. And they do that for a while and we're all standing there--thank goodness it's not snowing, you know, it's plenty warm outside. And then finally they come out and they tell everybody they can go back in. So, you know, everybody heads back in. I'm going in with the people who live on my floor and we get in our hallway and it's still really smoky. And there's these fire doors. We go through one of them, you know, and it gets smokier. And then somebody opens up the next one and it's like still like solid smoke and the firemen are wearing their masks and like the whole suit--they yell, "Shut the door!" And like everybody freaks out, you know, and shut the door and go running back out. It turns out it was safe to go back everywhere except my floor because somebody--one of my really brainy neighbors--left a pot on the stove and they were airing out the place or something. But anyway, so we went back out front and got the story from one of the firemen up front. And now I'm back in my apartment. And I guess I will try to go back to bed. But that was my interesting story for the night."

In other news, I met up with my new boy again yesterday. It worked out sort of funny. He had to do something and I had to do some shopping so he just met me where I was shopping when he was done with what he had to do. We met up in IKEA where I was buying myself a new bookcase. I felt a bit like a dope, actually, because earlier when I told him I need to buy some more furniture for my apartment he had told me that he had a second job in interior decorating and he'd be glad to help me. Turns out he was kidding about his interior decorating skills but I totally believed him. On the other hand, he wasn't kidding about being willing to help. It turned out that the bookcase I decided on came in a box much too big for my car. He drives an Element, though, so he offered to drive it to my place for me. My place isn't particularly close to IKEA (which is out in Renton), so that was very generous of him. Plus, he did all the lifting of the box for me without any help from me. He made it look so easy. I tried to move it later and could barely even budge it! After putting the box in my apartment, though, he left and that was it. I totally thought dinner was in order, but that didn't happen. He had recently eaten, though, so maybe he wasn't even thinking about food. I don't know. But I really like this guy. Anyway, I put the bookcase together all by myself and have already filled it up with books. Here's a picture of it in my apartment. You can see that I still have half a box of books left to unpack. I think I can find places for them around here somewhere without buying any more shelves.

So tonight I'm going to be lead pharmacist. I made cookies for everyone. What do you think, will that help? I have to admit I'm a bit nervous.