After just a week of iPhone, my laptop feels really expansive.
It’s still harder to blog on the phone, though I’m getting better at the little keyboard. But I type probably close to 90 wpm, and verbose as I am, I’ll never be able to express everything in miniature. Perhaps I could reserve the iPhone for haiku entries.
It’s been a very busy week; overloaded, really. I had a rehearsal and a recording session at the band’s house, one on the weekend and one after work; I sanded and re-coated the dining room floor for the last time (still not a professional job, but it will simply have to do at this point), ran to the gas station multiple times for a few gallons of diesel to hold me until the oil tank could be filled (yes, ran out of heat last week), and still went to work as usual.
I also had our dear neighbor come over and look at my skipping furnace a couple of days ago. It was skipping off and on every few seconds by that morning and I thought it couldn’t wait any longer. He really didn’t do anything other than take the covers off of a couple of parts to look at what was going on inside, and drained some more water out of the little floaty tank thing. Then we stood there for over half an hour waiting for it to skip so he could diagnose, and it wouldn’t. And it hasn’t skipped since.
We’re meeting tomorrow to walk the bottom of the property where it abuts his, and to talk about my selling him a bit more space to augment their tiny lot. Meanwhile, today I’m putting the final touches on the stove platform, and when K. gets back from a firearms show, we’ll put the stovepipe in the chimney. It’s possible we’ll get the actual stove installed today, too. If not, it’ll go in tomorrow, so in any case I’ll have pellet heat this weekend. I’m thrilled.
We’ve devised a plan to block off the upstairs, by affixing something thick and insulating (a blanket plus plastic, maybe) in the middle of the downstairs hallway and blocking off the frontmost living room doorway. Then I’d move my sleeping quarters into the little sitting room where I am now (a nook! A sleeping nook) and live downstairs for the winter. The stove will easily heat this amount of area, and gradually I can make the back utility room into a dining room, and have the old dining room (the first room one comes into, the one with the stove) as a parlor. I’d still have access to the living room where much of my stuff is, and be able to watch my Netflix on the tv. A perfect, wintry little life, all needs met, no struggle to make the heat stretch. The bathroom upstairs has no water in it anyway, so there’s no danger of frozen pipes up there. I can pretty much turn the furnace off, and maybe this tank of oil will last the winter.
I just need to come up with a twin mattress, I think, or a double. The queen is a bit large for this room, not to mention difficult to wrestle down the stairs.
I must go bathe the sparkly stuff off me (from last night’s office Christmas party – more on that later; it was such fun) and get next door to touch up the platform so it will dry by the time we need to move it. Later I will have time again to sit and breathe.
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So much for that. The chimney liner wasn’t long enough, and therein ensued a search for stove pipe. The proper size was not to be found. It got dark. We came up with a plan B for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the party: great fun. These folks have been having the office Christmas party for 12 years or more, and Karl said this one was the best. Not because of the food; sometimes it’s been better. But I brought my red boa scarf, and it was the perfect prop for even the most shy and retiring among us. Everyone danced, and everyone passed the scarf around to dance with. My sister was indefatigable. Having lost 35 lbs., she felt beautiful in her spaghetti-strap dress, with her shoulder and back tattoos of hummingbirds and morning glories and butterflies. Her hair was big and curly. We laughed and laughed. I lost a pretty hair comb, and someone found it later.
I hardly EVER find myself in dancing situations, and used to be quite self-conscious about it. Not so much any more, but it was still very novel. I liked that there was a room full of people sharing in sacred movement. Because that’s what it is, I thought; communities need to dance together. It gets stuff out, it brings stuff in. I was told I had to bring the “lucky scarf” every year.
That’s the short version, I guess; I was going to write more about it but it’s late now, and I’m tired and my fingers are swollen and itchy. The eczema’s bad these days. Time to go home, brush my teeth, and go to bed. Tomorrow first thing I have to call around for stove pipe.
Healer, Musician, Bookmaker, Poet 
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