Thursday, December 02, 2004
My Shame; The Game; His Name
Oh, so many things to share and drone on about.... but even with a notebook packed with onanistic ramblings, there’s only one topic that really has my attention: IT IS FREAKING COLD IN THIS HOUSE. I’m sure some of you have it tougher, but please don’t assume I’m just some weak watered-down westcoaster who can’t stand a bit of a chill: temps are down in the 30s at night, only up to the mid-50s in the day; visitors to this fair city know that temps in San Fran feel about 10 degrees colder, usually, than they do anywhere else. Something about the moist pacific air, the upjutting peninsula (heh), the breezes attendant upon this being the only break in a 600 mile mountain chain that divides the largest ocean from an entire transcontinental nation with its head buried in its own sand.... my fingers are cold; I slept wearing socks, and - o cursed fate - our furnace pilot light has gone out again.
The gas company tells me they can come out in a little more than a week to fire things up.... but that just ain’t gonna cut it, especially when it’s been FROZEN SOLID. But it does remind me that they came out a month or so ago to light the damn thing once already, and gave me some instructions on caring for a very large and important piece of machinery to which I’ve paid absolutely no attention in the past decade or so. “Here’s a filter,” the man told me, withdrawing it from an unexplored crevasse in the avocado-green behemoth that is my heating system’s heart: “Brush it out and put it back, but then go and buy a replacement. It’ll work better. Over here -” (indicating an area underneath a removable panel I hadn’t known existed) - “there’s a lot of lint built up - take a vacuum, clean this out. And over here - “ (pointing to an area where ductwork emerged from the furnace’s firebox) “ - you need to get some tape and seal this gap. You’re losing heat here.”
“Tape?,” I stupidly asked, my mind a whirling welter of instructions, cautions, and prohibitions in the gloomy light of the disorganized garage. “Just regular tape? I think I have some masking tape, or packing tape - and maybe some electrical tape....” He cut me off with impatient disappointment that I, a fellow y-chromosoner, could be so painfully off the mark with what should, by rights, be a genetic sex-based characteristic, like growing a beard or standing too close to the weber kettle when fire is being created in it. “No, not masking tape, not electrical tape. There is special tape for this kind of job. It’s called ‘duct tape.’”
His eyes searched mine for recognition and shame, and he found them. This product has about thirty billion uses, at least six for every person on the planet. It’s the subject of books, fundraisers, webcams, endless conversation. It can be seen in innumerable places on a daily basis. And when it was time for me actually to use the damn stuff for its intended purpose, I had repressed its existence entirely. I’d almost think I’d given up my entitlement to the masculine gender, except for certain other details I will reserve for a less public audience. Meanwhile, I think I need a refresher course in garage maintenance. I don’t want my beard to get disgusted with me and leave for someone with a deeper voice. It’s the only thing keeping the bottom half of my face warm these days, and Brenda Vaccaro would just look funny wearing my soulpatch.
OKAY! That was sufficiently distracting for me to be able to share perspectives on two news stories of interest to everyone involved in baseball steroids scandals and oil-for-food fraud.
* Jason Giambi is reported to have testified to a San Francisco grand jury that he’s taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs, including testosterone and human growth hormone. My interest in this story is limited to Kel’s response: she raised her arms to shoulder height, started stomping clumsily around the kitchen (where we were listening to the story on the radio), and insisted in a deep growl that she’s been taking INhuman growth hormone. Maybe that’s why she’s grown so inhumanly funny. Maybe not.
* Kofi Annan’s son Kojo has been implicated in fraud related to the Iraqi oil-for-food program. No, really. Press reports this morning included my contribution as a field correspondent providing this illuminating look at his descent from grace: Kojo missed the boat, the day he left the shack - but that was all he missed, and he ain’t coming back. From such ignominious beginnings, how could we have expected anything else?
Damn. Still chilly. Must walk torpid old dog in frigid dawn air. Landlady may find someone to fire up our furnace by tonight. Meantime I’m buying duct tape in bulk - I can’t rely on using heating oil after the Kojo fiasco, but at least I could wrap myself up in tape for insulation. As for this morning’s other top news story, notwithstanding my shameful failure to recall modern Man’s most important contribution to civilization as we know it, I intend to continue to manufacture my own testosterone. As for my growth hormones, human or otherwise - well, that’s between me and my growth.
