One would think that, at this juncture, there’s nothing left to build or renovate, but the daily noise level from 34th Street up to 57th tells one otherwise. To sit in an office while listening to the incessant rattle of jackhammers, drills, bulldozers and the like closely mirrors one’s own internal frenetic insanity. In fact, there are certain moments when the inside of your mind and the outside noise coalesce into one. It’s almost rather beautiful until the onset of that migraine.
The only thing to do, really, is put headphones on. Though this tends to affect your “work performance” negatively by taking away your total concentration (I guess listening to “Wrecking Ball” in surround sound is not conducive to productivity). Unless, of course, you’ve left your headphones at home, in which case you must make your way out into the sound blast to purchase a $9.99 pair from Duane Reade or Walgreen’s (even though they’re both apparently the same thing). You will encounter all manner of auditory rapings, from the mechanisms of construction to the loud foreign languages of tourists. But, in a way, it was all worth it to re-enter the world and remember what it was like outside of the gulag.