Cold

Winter’s impatient coldness is sneaking up at night. It’s cold inside my house. I can hear faintly what sounds like a dog howling or maybe a kid crying. It’s scary. My mom secures the house for the night and everybody gets ready for bed. I am a nonsmoker now because it’s been several weeks since I’ve had a cigarette. The crickets encompass the night air, and every once in a while a car’s engine revs by or a plane. I can feel the air circle my cheeks trying to steal the heat from them, and I can feel the air brush by my bare knee like somebody walking by too closely. Voices bounce across the water and land in my ear with a clarity which fools the perception of distance. Voices peeking around corners and walking through walls like ghosts. A smell of ripe, bitter cedar. It’s just me and my senses for a while. A time to break away and hopefully relax. Being beside myself; that’s what it’s called.

Rain with no cloud in sight
A dog with no owner
A mistake with no fault

It is fricken cold. My roommate keeps our window open all the time. It is snowing in September and she has the window open and the heat off. It is going to be a long winter.

Also, she thinks she is a pirate.

I am so freaking cold right now. Why did the weather go from February to May to February. I do not approve of this at all.

I hate my land lords. They refuse to turn on the heat till later on in the year. They say that it is a very big boiler and that once it gets started it's very hard to turn off, and they don't want to waste energy. But by law my apartment should not be kept at a temperature of 40 degrees or below. Last year they didn't get the heat started till sometime in November.

Where I am stuck leaving my pc on all night, burning many candles before I go to bed so the temperature of the room is a few degrees higher, and going to sleep each night with a heating pad just so that I can actually sleep.

I am paying 400 a month for this shit. I shouldn't be treated as if I call my landlords just to annoy them, I should be treated like there is a problem they are willing to solve.

Example our stove broke. Myself and several room mates called to help remedy this problem, no response except to pester us about keeping out kitchen clean and about a room mate who was currently out of the country not paying his rent on time. The contract says all appliances included, but they gave us a lot of shit before they finally owned up and fixed anything. Each time we talk to them about a problem they act like we are making up problems to annoy them.

Having an infestations of bird mites due to pigions nesting on the roof is a problem. Having no stove for almost a week when it is included in the contract, is a problem. Not having smoke detectors is a problem. Having all of the hallway lights out because the cellings are abnormally high and we can't reach them to change industrial flurescent bulbs is a problem. And yes having the house be colder then 40 degrees is a problem.

And I feel really bad for the old man who lives in the appartment below us. I have arthritis, cold just makes everything more painfull makes everything freeze up; it must be ten times worse for that man.

Slumlords oh how I hate them

Oh, fuck the cold.