My apartment is on a noisy, busy street. I have a ground floor apartment, but because of the way the street slopes down, my bedroom window is about eight feet from the sidewalk. It’s sort of a bay window, coming about two feet out from the side of a building. Now that it’s spring, and we’ve been getting a lot of rain, my window seems to serve as a shelter for people stuck outside on the street. People gather underneath it and chat, waking me up, scaring me into thinking someone is in my apartment. It literally sounds like someone is in my bedroom when they stand under my window and talk. It’s especially nice after the bars close, and drunk girls from the Thirteenth Floor like to stand under the window, protecting their hair from the rain. Being a writer, you would think I would enjoy this, people watching without even leaving my bedroom. But I don’t. It kind of makes me feel exposed. If I can hear people outside so clearly, then they must be able to hear me as well. It creeps me out. I wish I lived on the second or third floor.
