Fat and Sad and Caught in a Fire

I'd like to take this opportunity to familiarize those of you who aren't Dean St. regulars with what it means to live on this block. See these photos over here? That ravine (moat? maybe it's to protect us from invaders. oh wait, too late for that) is just a few feet from where we lay our heads at night. It now extends the entire length of the street and then some. It poses an annoyance in the form of making me walk farther every time I have to go somewhere and an extreme fire hazard in the form of preventing any convenient access to our building should it catch on fire. The walking further I can deal with. My work requires me to load and unload a lot of heavy gear into vehicles, and now I have to carry that stuff a good distance further, which sucks, but that's just me, and I can deal.

The fire hazard issue is of greater concern. As it turns out, our building almost never catches on fire, which is great, but we have had a few gas leaks in the last couple years where firemen did have to rush into our building to take care of business. I am pretty sure if we had an emergency now we'd have to fend for ourselves. Fancy that, our building at risk and city agencies can't help.

Also in the hazardous to our health category is the fact that at 7am sharp every weekday morning our building starts shaking and echoing with sounds reminiscent of a Jurassic robo-battle. My work also requires me to work late many nights, so sleeping in is how I get my z's. The ruckus makes that difficult so I consistently sleep less than is optimal. According to a recent NYTimes article sleep deprivation can lead to high blood pressure, depression, being over-weight and diabetes. Meaning I'll be too fat and sad to get out my building when it catches on fire.