Postcards from the Imagination

For the past few days my thermostat gets to 66 degrees and stops, no matter how high I set it. And that's 66 degrees on an innermost wall in front of a closet. The other three sides of the apartment are exterior facing and made of cinder block. With the white paint and icy surface temp they're very igloo chic. On the other side of them, the current wind chill temp is 11 9 degrees & it's snowing. I tried to warm up with a cup of coffee, but the ceramic mug keeps cooling my drink off.

As is often the case, things could be worse. Growing up we had a furnace that was so bad my mother had to call the health department to have it condemned in order to force our landlord to replace it. To supplement the clunker, she used to turn the oven on and keep its door cracked. I hate to be a natural resource devouring Earth-killer, but I may need to do the same periodically until maintenance can take a look at my thermostat.

In other news, I received a signed copy of Kevin A. González's chapbook The Night Tito Trinidad KO'ed Ricardo Mayorga in the mail today (w/thanks to Eduardo!) The opening poem, "Flat American Waltz," begins:

Beneath the cracked roof of the bus shelter,
where a school of cigarette butts gathers

to worship the thin lines of the sidewalk,
a man is muttering a cliché as deep

as the best metaphor you could conjure
for America...

I just know something important is not going to get done tonight because I'm reading this instead. Damn!