December 8, 2010
Wednesday

I am a fan of Passive-Aggressive Notes, a site that compiles notes, signs, e-mails, and other often anonymous written communications that showcase “painfully polite and hilariously hostile writings from shared spaces the world over.” Some of them are rants posted on bathroom mirrors alerting roommates that they have been using too much of the note-writer’s personal stash of cotton balls, or missives tucked under windshield wipers informing a motorist that he has parked six inches over the line at an apartment complex and thus has made his door open dangerously close to the door of the car parked to his left. The better strategy, I guess, is for the aggrieved person to contact the offender directly and explain how his behavior is inconveniencing or annoying the other.

Some of the notes, however, seem to be merely the only way that one person can inform a lot of people who normally don’t see each other of some practice that, if observed or curtailed, as the case may be, will make communal life better for all. Like, for example, an “out of order” sign on a public toilet or an ATM, so that each user doesn’t have to discover individually that there is a problem. Or a small notice that someone (don’t ask me who) placed in the second floor bathroom of the Maverick Studios in Vermont saying that one had to hold the handle of the toilet down for a few seconds in order for the thing to flush completely. I mean, really, was the person who noticed that three out of four flushes were incomplete supposed to go down the hall, knocking on doors and making the same explanation six or seven times? Hmm?

It was 26 degrees outside when I arrived at my studio this afternoon. It was 41 inside.

The space is a single room at the top of what was once a local industrialist’s mansion, a structure of some 7,000 square feet. Mugsy lived on the second floor and used the room I have above it as an office. The first floor was occupied by relatives and other guests, and the basement level was a garage and work space. The building was heated by a furnace that probably burned coal. The chimney runs up through my room, and there is evidence that there were once radiators there. Now, however, the six apartments each have their own heating and air conditioning units that use duct work, and my space has what Ron calls “toasters,” electric baseboard units.

The electricity usage for my room is included on the house meter, the one that measures how much energy it takes to run the outside security lights and the lights in the laundry room (which I have never seen) and other common areas. My agreement with the owner is that I will pay any portion of the bill that goes over $100 in  month. Typically, a monthly electric bill is under $60.

Last year the amount of electricity needed to heat my space (which, you must understand, is not used every day and is never heated at night) cost $600 more for the season. That works out to $50 a month over a whole year, a modest amount, really. But the space is hard to heat (except, of course, in the summer, when a sunny hot day beating against all those windows can make the inside temperature reach 100 degrees even if it’s only 85 outside). The furnishings don’t retain heat, so every day when I walk in, I have to start all over again to raise the temperature.

41 is cold, that’s for sure, unless maybe you’re at a football game and jumping up and down cheering. I turned on the heat, put on a thick sweatshirt, thermal underwear under my sweatpants, and a knitted hat. I set to work on some writing, and thought about Stephen Crane, who is said to have burned unsold copies of Maggie, A Girl of the Streets to stay warm. By the end of an hour, the temperature had risen to 51 degrees.

My room is over an unheated storage space, so it doesn’t get any heat rising up from below. By about 4:30 the inside temperature was 59. I lay down on the bed, under several blankets, for a short nap.

Not long after five o’clock, I heard voices in the hallway downstairs. I rarely see any of my neighbors, since I’m there only during the day. I don’t even know their names. In the eighteen months I’ve been using the space, only one apartment has not changed tenants.

I got up, thinking it seemed colder than it should be, even taking into account the fact that sun had fallen below the tree line to the west and the outside temperature had also fallen. I made some hot cinnamon tea, had the salad I’d brought, and by 6:30 was packed up and on my way to church for the Wednesday Advent prayer service.

At the bottom of the flight of steps that takes you down from the room to the landing above the main staircase, it seemed colder still. When I opened my door I felt as if I had walked into a refrigerator. As I descended the main staircase, which leads to the original front door of the building, I saw why.

The front door was standing open. There is a storm door in front of it, but it doesn’t hang right and is more of a nuisance than it is a protection. The big wooden door is rarely shut tight — it doesn’t hang quite right either, but it’s usually pulled almost closed and can be pushed open with a shoulder rather than having to be opened with a key.

But it was standing wide open today, as it does so often in the summer. The baseboard heating units in the hallway were streaming out heat, most of it wafting along the floor and out the spaces the crooked storm door allows.

I pulled the big door shut as I left.

Can I leave a sticky note on the door? “Dear Friends — I am the phantom fiction writer who doesn’t live upstairs. My room is hard to heat (except in summer) — today it took all afternoon for the temperature to reach 59 degrees, and it was difficult for me to work. Could you be sure to close this big door completely when the temperature is below about 45? It might help. Thanks. — M”

Or will that be considered passive-aggressive and earn me a spot on the website?

 

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