The Trouble With Heat

I thought my life would improve after re-connecting my firnace and enjoying circulating warm air, but I was mistaken. In the two weeks since permitting 65 degrees of warmth in the house, turned to 55 at bedtime and kept that way until returning from evening overtime at AeroKnow Museum, I have been coming home sooner, finding things to do at home, and hitting the sack significantly later than I used to. Since returning heat I have watched Letterman three times. After a friend gave me a working television in September, before the heat came back, I watched him ZERO times. I LIKE LETTERMAN. The house was so chilly I coccooned under blankets in the living room easy chair and slept long enough and deeply until I jerked awake, often about 2:30 or 3 am. Then I listened to the radio dozing in and out and sometimes thinking THINKING THINKING until 4:30 when I’d arise and work at the Museum until time to visit my employer for eight hours. I was okay without a working furnace. True, I came home from the airport too tired to eat more than basics for dinner and was sometimes sleeping by 8 pm in that chair,  but I was getting by.
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Since heat returned, I’ve started reading again after dinner. Watching DVD’s on the Christmas present — which amigo Tim Sheehan came over and properly connected it after my proving incapable of same — have pulled me past 11 into the night. That didn’t happen sans furnace that workace; I was busy sleeping.
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I’m becoming soft in the heat. I’m arising later and driving out to the airport as the eastern horizon begins to glow. Losing the hours from 5 to 7 is costing me in lost production at the airport. It’s costing me too much.  Too often since Christmas, I’ve not worked late-late at the Museum. More lost time.
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I haven’t written a poem or song lyric in more than a month. I feel indicted by this sorry circumstance. I like to write. I consider poetry a parlor antic the more I want to write it and do not, but I’ll get over this. I feel like a pouting lover, daring circumtance to smile at moi-the-poet so I will smile back and start writing again.
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My likely solution seems to be backing off the DVD rentals. A few nights ago, my pilot friend Warren Stiska donated almost 100 aviation VHS tapes: a lot of things from Turner Broadcasting System and what else I don’t know. I haven’t even taken them out of the box. I have to watch these in moderation as well. I don’t have a TV and VCR at the airport; otherwise I’d watch them there as I file things in the Research Room. Mayhaps I’ll limit DVD and VHS play to weekends.  Mayhaps I’ll buy a new car and eat steak. Slim chances every one.  
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I think that once the new wears off this heat fad, I will crank back the thermostat to a permanent 55. After all, I discovered a few days ago that I can even shower and shampoo in a chilly house. After not showering for more than a week and a half, I found it is possible. I had to shower. I was getting a haircut in a few hours and didn’t want to be asked to leave before it was done.
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The good news is that I’m evolving with all this, going for the middle ground. I can be warm at home without ever being hot. I will spend as much productive time at the Museum as I can without hurting myself and impairing my outlook. In the meantime, I’ve discovered something worth remembering.
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I’ve concluded that a warm man is a lazy man.
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Live long . . . . .  and proper.

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