It's probably clausterophobia, but I like to think of it as a need for broader horizons.
I prefer to have my computer by a window, the bigger and broader the view the better.
For years I looked out over backyard pools, garden birds and basketball goals imagining my someday window on urbanity.
The windows would be huge and high enough that no curtain or shade would be necessary, the feature I noticed the minute the agent opened the door on this place.
Because this is Buffalo in the summer, the upper and middle panes offer nothing but blue sky and warm light. A few more stories up and we'd see the marina where the basin becomes Lake Erie.
From this perch I get a piece of the mammoth Art Deco city hall structure. When I was a child I believed the black-and-white Superman lived there.
I see the top floors of the old Statler hotel behind the windowless butt-end of the convention center. The modern, soul-less Federal building, white and utilitiarian, juts up behind the ornate carved marble and brick facade of three-story square brick building with Ionic columns, extravagant stone window embellishments and the words "Ancient Landmarks" chiselled in stone at least two feet high just below the roofline. There's a great story behind that building... and I'll make several more up looking at it.
There's another classy old building brimming with tales, straight out of Ghostbusters without the gargoyles, with dozens of special architectural details I've promised myself to learn to describe.
But front and center is an antispetic glass and steel, four-story office building and... health club. The atrium, being nothing but glass, allows me to look through to the old buildings on the next street, but try as I might, I can't look past it.
I attempt to focus my attention on the four-story flagpoles that place the US and Canadian flags directly at eye-level.
But it's like trying not to look as you pass an accident scene.
I can't actually see any "healthy" activity going on, but its sleek, sharp lines mock my round ones.
While the other buildings whisper of the glory days of the "Queen City of the Lakes" this one shouts and sneers.
"When was the last time you were on a treadmill?"
"There certainly wouldn't be any problem getting to THIS gym"
And my least favorite-- "You're going to be 46. You need me a lot more than I need you."
So I'm stopping over there before work this morning -- sincerely hoping I can't afford it.


Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs