I suppose this can be the point in winter where the navel gazing recommences, because lawdy knows it is too damn cold for much else.
Our house is an icebox. Something about the hole in the ceiling that lets all the warm air escape, the single-paned windows, the lack of insulation in century old walls. Go figure. Try as we might with electric blankets, space heaters, fireball, winter coats, dancing, cuddles and literal house-warming parties of 40+ and soup, we just can't seem to get the place above 54 degrees. I am tempted to buy a pair of heat-vision goggles just to marvel at the lack of vision they would provide. Alas, this would be a waste of money that I do not have to phenomenize something that really just sucks. So for now, I just pretend to have said heat-vision goggles by closing my eyes because it seems to be the cheapest and most comparable alternative.
When you live in a house, you start to fill it up with useless items (see--many slug-covered couches in the basement, knicknackspaddywhacks, tchotchkes, do-hickys, randomcrap, junk, treasuretroves, wtf is this?! ). It is a well known fact. What is less well known is the fact that when you live in a dwelling, you start to take on the characteristics of said abode. Sort of like how married couples become indistinguishable after 60 years of marriage, or the way that people often resemble their pets.
Keeping in the same vein, it has recently come to my attention that just like Rayegrey, I too am in pursuit of warmth. I am in a season of patching windows and sealing doors and hanging thick drapes and insulating the walls because when it comes down to it I am literally and metaphorically tired of paying for heat that doesn't last. And yeah I want to be comfortable but some work has to be done first to insulate the extremities of this lovely wreck of a house.
This all involves--
Patience. Gah! Patience kills me. It involves lots of over-sized Saran wrap and hair-driers and contractors coming in and making noise and insulation spewing all over the place and will the oven please just pre-heat already because imhungryandeverythingisfrozenbecausewhatthehellisthisthearctic?!
I've never put too much thought into patience because, well, that would take too much time, but there seems to be something to it that often yields better results than I typically produce. I have been witness to the benefits of passing time and admire the virtue of tenacity, but up until this year I was fairly convinced that I did not hold such capacity. But now that it is the bleak midwinter and the survival of my limbs/those of my friends depends on our ability to spend hours of time putting up this damn window plastic, I am starting to believe that maybe I have it in me after all.
I think I can do this. The whole process without immediate results thing. We'll start with the plastic wrap and if that endeavor yields warmth, I'll try something bigger. Because, as planet earth has taught me, survival and (more importantly) life requires it.
I want to feel my fingertips again. I want to be a vessel that can hold heat and warmth again. And lawdy this patience thing is taking up the most of my time! But I live in this dwelling and the story goes on. Muddled mixed metaphors aside, there's that.
And I have an awesome sleeping bag, so there's that, too.
