Today I spent 9 hours generating massive PDFs from even-more massive Microsoft Word files. At first I attempted to do some web browsing while Acrobat churned away, but my puny laptop refused to walk and chew gum at the same time. So I sat and stared at the whirly Acrobat icon, contemplating life, love, and lunch.
It looked like such a nice day outside, with crystal blue skies and a strong sun. At lunchtime the streets were packed with people who had also looked out their office windows and decided to go for a walk to enjoy the nice weather. But you can’t see the cold bitter wind coming off of the harbor. Worse, you can’t make the wind stop. You can only shiver in your light spring jacket and long for better weather.
When the last of the PDFs finished generating, I wanted to smash something in triumph. Instead, I drank a hot chocolate and went to Boston.com, to look at pictures of a woman who was killed Tuesday night in a posh Boston hotel. She had advertised herself as a masseuse on Craigslist. She was just doing her job. We’re all just doing our jobs, if we have them.
Then I left the office and ventured back out into the cool sunshine. The wind whipped my hair around and it became stuck in my lip gloss. The sounds of the cars bother me — the roar of the trucks’ engines, the screech of the buses’ brakes. An ambulance trudges through the gridlocked traffic, sirens blaring. It bothers me like the wind bothers me, like the dead masseuse bothers me, because I can only shiver in my light spring jacket and long for salvation.
