MAKING OMLETTES

It's official. After running the space heater in the bedroom at full blast for three straight days, the thing has died.

As Lenin famously said about cooking, sacrifices must be made. In my case it was the source of warmth for our bedroom. Fortunately, the second heater (which is so bright we can't use it when we're sleeping) still works, so I have a way to keep cooking my dresser.

I've kept at throughout the day (day #4) and am about to declare the thing done. The outside doesn't smell at all. With drawers shut I can be right next to it and breathe easily.

I only get a wiff of the fumes if I stick my nose right down into an open drawer and really breathe in. And I'm so tired of keeping my clothes in laundry baskets in the living room that I'm ready to put aside my paranoia aside about the chemical smell seeping into my t-shirts while they sit the drawers, and just put my clothes in the damn thing at this point.

If my underwear does end up smelling like the chemical coating on a flimsy IKEA dresser, I'll take them out, wash them, and start the process over. For now, I'm ready to be done.

On the upside, with the aid of the air purifier running on high, I've been able to sleep in my bed for the past two nights. After the previous nights on the sofa it feels truly luxurious to stretch out on a mattress, even there is a pile of transient sweaters next my pillow.

In the end this is all about getting all my clothes and possessions rearranged into a paragon of efficient space management, thus allowing me to have a functioning desk with a functioning desktop computer on it, that is to say, a space of my own to write. For Virginia Wolfe it was a room of one's own, but for me it is coming down to a desk of my own. I envision this as not just opening up a space in the apartment, but also a space in my brain, somewhere I can go physically that will allow thoughts to develop and stories to gestate.