Dear Metropolitan Transportation Authority/New York City Transit:
Thank you for your continuing work to keep the elevated subway tracks in my neighborhood both safe and attractive. I understand that a little inconvenience is necessary when the time comes to repaint the peeling paint and rusty spots on the track supports, and that said inconvenience is a small price to pay for (literally) getting the lead out. (Additional thanks for filling in the subway steps with insulating foam, so that we commuters will not inhale more than our share of lead dust.)
I do appreciate the work, really I do, and I know that once the painting is done, the neighborhood will look much cleaner and cheerier. Having said that...whatever you are using to remove the old paint, that stuff that smells like nail polish remover mixed with burning chemicals, it is giving me headaches. Bad headaches. When you find yourself wishing that you were at the office because it gives you some relief from the pain, that's when you know that it's a bad headache. I have resumed my Excedrin-as-Pez diet, but this headache laughs at my Excedrin, pulls its underwear over its forehead, stuffs it into a trashcan and rolls it down the block.
Here's the thing, dear Authority: I had such plans for the day. After weekend after weekend of cartoon-watching sloth, I actually made it to the market early this week. I have newly-laid eggs and chicken sausages. I have the first asparagus of the season, juicy and snapping-fresh, and four pounds of rhubarb, destined either for the oven or the copper kettle. I have a recipe to hand from Dan Lepard for a cheese pie made with focaccia dough, soft goat cheese and roasted shallots, and to that end I have three pints of shallots and three buttons of fresh cheese. I have new spinach, new arugula and did I mention the newly-laid eggs? I have currants and saffron for Swedish saffronsbrod. I have canned pumpkin and chocolate chips for the high-protein pumpkin bread that fuels some of my best breakfasts. I have a shawl-in-progress that I'd planned to knit in the kitchen while preparing all this lovely stuff. Best of all, I have a neighborhood in the full luscious swing of spring, a neighborhood where I can walk around while sipping on a foofy tea drink from my local caff, looking at the neighbors' narcissi and grape hyacinth and the trellissed branches from which roses will spring in a few short weeks, stopping for a water ice at the Italian bakery and picking up some pignoli cookies to take home. I have all these wonderful things to remind me just how good life is in beautiful uptown Astoria in the spring -- but dear Authority, I also have the sensation of a giant punching a hole in the back of my neck, and wrapping his enormous hand around my skull, resting pinky and thumb against the points where my jaw and cheekbones meet. This does tend to impede one's enjoyment of the good life, as you can imagine.
The new improved N line will be a thing of beauty once it's finished. Please, for the love of all that is good and true, please finish it as soon as possible. Consider this my official crying of uncle. I will put up with any indignity you can throw at me -- sporadic rush-hour service, conductors who don't understand how shrill their voices are when they shout into the intercom, even perpetually-overflowing, rat-attracting trash bins -- if you will only finish the job quickly, pack up the hazardous chemicals and give me my neighborhood back.
Yours, etc.,
17 Years of More-or-Less-Happy Ridership and Counting
Astoria, Queens