spacey

(originally from 13 July 2008)

My space heater is having a bit of an identity crisis. Maybe it’s because it’s used to being called a radiator here in Australia, but somehow it fails to see that its main purpose in life is to heat a space. It prefers to think of itself as a piece of decorative furniture. Whoever gave it the idea that a large hunk of beige metal was decorative remains a mystery, but that’s the only plausible explanation I can come up with as lately it’s taken to strutting around the room in my tight pink shirt when it thinks no one is looking. Not that I’m complaining: it’s the only way any of my clothes, pink shirts or otherwise, have the slightest hope of staying warm. Which is not to say that my space heater emanates excessive, or even noticeable, fragments of heat, but it does a good enough imitation of other space heaters (the non-decorative sorts) that cloth or hands actually clutching it tend to remember that spring exists somewhere in the world.

You see, it’s actually cold in Australia now. Well, "cold" might be stretching things a bit, but it is certainly less warm than suburban American creatures traditionally prefer. I don’t actually know what the outside temperature is. I’d like to blame my lack of knowledge on the Celsius/Fahrenheit fiasco, but the truth of the matter is I just never pay attention to the degree mark, regardless of temperature scale. There is one prominent digital sign in Neutral Bay that recently announced it was –1º Celsius, but I’ve kind of lost trust in it since it’s been announcing the same temperature for roughly the last four months. Its competitor of a slightly more erudite nature, The Sydney Morning Herald, is currently reporting temperatures between 41º and 61º (though of course it calls them 5º and 16º, so maybe my space heater isn’t alone on the identity crisis front). Not that I’m calling the digital sign a liar; I just don’t happen to ask it for personal advice any longer.

Now, I do realize that it’s a bit much to swallow the idea of a natural-born Bostonian whinging about cold on the world’s, or at least the Southern Hemisphere’s, most surfable continent, but let me point out one very important concept: central heating. In Boston, they have it. In Sydney, they don’t. That means that no matter how cold it gets outside, it (this is truly a freakish glitch of nature) gets even colder inside, resulting in the fact that I am now slightly more obsessed with temperature than Frosty’s mother.

So, since I came back to winter in Australia from America’s June heat, I’ve been layering up, snuggling up in the very friendly fuzzy purple blanket and justifying increasingly disturbing quantities of Max Brenner hot chocolate, which is why I decided to buy a space heater. It was down to that or another warm blanket and, as I’d just bought a fuzzy purple blanket which I loved, but which was banished to the bedroom as it left purple fuzz on anything it touched, including other pieces of purple fuzz, I opted for trying a new route. The problem with new routes is that, of course, they’re new.

And that was how I found myself standing hopelessly in front of approximately fourteen space heaters of varying sizes (some I could carry, some I couldn’t), shapes (some were ugly, others were uglier) and voltages (none of which I understood, but some of which appeared to be impressed with themselves for the figures they boasted). I was just about to break down and call my dad at three a.m. his time when it hit me that, of all the options, only two had the Very Special Clock, which allowed the time that they were to radiate to be set in advance, which would prove very helpful indeed when returning from a chilly night trek back from the Seaforth bus stop. Of the two space heaters with the Very Special Clock, only one fit into the carry-able category, so $70-no-refunds-allowed later, home it came and at home it promptly made itself.

Having decided that it was now safely inside my room it could dispense with formalities of, say, communication, Spacey sat in its box and stared, offering only a thin instruction manual that announced the deep, dark secret it had hitherto kept from me: it came with some assembly required.

Assembly is not one of my strengths. Not assembling large groups of people, not assemblies at school and certainly not assembly of space heaters who don’t tell you they’re not coming with wheels attached. We thus spent a long evening together, Spacey and I, and I’d like to think we bonded, but unfortunately there have been some gaps in communication, particularly as regards who’s turn it is to keep the room warm which night. Maybe it’s unfair of me to put Spacey on duty every night, but I could have sworn the agreement was for me to put the wheels on and Spacey to keep the room warm. I got those little wheels on quite well, thank you very much, just as soon as I figured out that the U-wrench wasn’t part of the contraption and that half the screws were still buried in the bottom on the box, those sneaky little critters. Call me crazy, but ever since I brought it home, Spacey’s had me wrapped around its little finger.

Now it’s pretty much the depths of winter here and the cold is enough to leave me thinking longingly of my red elf suit on those February evenings in Michigan when my roommates insisted on sleeping with the window open. I’d fly back there immediately if only I could, but I can’t tonight. Spacey and I are playing dress up.