31 January 2004

Center of Gravity

The center of gravity at Big Pink shifted abruptly yesterday 5:15PM.

The happy equilibrium of gravity and altitude came crashing down, the lode-star shifting in the heavens and plunging toward the frozen drifts around the forlorn swimming pool under its taut green cover and crusted snow.

The cable company came and shut down my service. I wasn't there. When I straggled in from the office I was ready for a drink and two episodes of The Simpsons, in exactly that order. Instead, I was out of tonic and greeted not by animated impudence but the Blue Screen of Death.

I was concerned, naturally, but gave it a couple minutes to see if a snow-plow had ripped up a cable box somewhere in the neighborhood. Then I attempted to log on the internet to pass the time until the problem was rectified. Several attempts failed, and I began to realize with growing horror that I was out of cable. A phone call to the COMCAST World Headquarters confirmed my growing surmise.

I had been too smart for my own good. I had arranged for an overlap in service, basking in the luxury of a month of having two places, able to slowly move things and get them set up correctly before the moment I hand back the keys on the rental unit and take up full time occupancy in the one I have purchased.

I had forgotten when I was going to have things shut off on the 5th floor. It was like the checkbook; I have checks, ergo, I must have money. The work was to be well done by now.

But there were unavoidable delays. The Murphy bed still lies where it was stacked, months late on delivery. The bookcases are still at least ten days away. The hardy workmen will not come to install the Plantation shutters for another week. There is no place to put anything and I am drifting into the situation which I had taken great pains to avoid: piles and mounds that will be placed helter-skelter wherever they will fit and nothing will be seen again. Till the next move.

So I had reached that point were an operational pause was required. I needed to assemble, rearrange, and get organized.

This is going to be a huge weekend of organization. The best way to get ready for it was to watch The Simpsons and forget about the coming lunacy of the contract I am working next week. But it was not to be. Great forces were in motion.

The most important of these was the cable guy who turned my service off just after cocktail hour. I hasten to remind you that I am still a subscriber in good standing. The ones-and-zeros were still flooding to my account. But they now were draining out into the new unit where the white co-axial cable snaked across the floor. Five hundred channels and the world wide web are connected to.....

Nothing.

I turned on the DVD player and watched a movie that had been lingering there for a few weeks, failing in the competition with hundreds of channels of college football and infomercials. This movie was about vampire lesbians, one of the topics I am researching for a forthcoming article. It was very informative, but I knew that there were only so many times I could watch this for context and nuance. The Super Bowl is Sunday.

I realized that if I was to watch anything at all, I needed to move the TV and the computer ahead of schedule.

Where you live is directly related to where you sleep. Follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs and you will see the tipping point, the center of gravity in my life at Big Pink. Sleeping and eating, showering and dressing are all vital things. But digital cable has changed our world.

I disconnected the TV from its now-useless umbilical and gingerly moved it onto the red wheeled cart that has slowly helped me fill up the unit five floors below. I padded the black case and unblinking screen it with an bright Afghan war rug with a bold Kalishnikov-rifle motif. I pushed it gingerly over the threshold and trundled carefully out into the hallway to summon one of the venerable elevators.

It occurred to me that I would have to go outside to make this delivery. Big Pink is a building of a certain age. It pre-dates the Americans With Disabilities Act, which mandates ramps for wheelchair access everywhere. There are three marble stairs that lead up from the lobby to the corridor to number 107. Accordingly, the Association had a ramp constructed outside from the service door down to the parking lot and a companion to it constructed to another access door avoiding the steps. Normally it is not a problem, being only a few feet out of the way.

I carefully maneuvered the cart out the back door and felt the icy wind tug at my collar. There was only one small problem. It was the crusted drift of white snow between me and the ramp to the other door. I was going to have to drag the cart and the television through the frozen ruts and through the drift. And then there would be salt and sand all over my carpet from the wheels. The vacuum cleaner, left behind, as being the last to leave the old place had not been not part of the critical mass. It would shortly assume a whole new importance in my life.

C'est le guerre. I rammed the cart forward into the frozen future. The cable calls me. The center of gravity has changed and life must move on. But the situation is bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of "snow" in my reception.