girl with blue lips, age 3

I thought about calling the gas company and telling them I have an infant, because then they wouldn't leave the gas off. The temperature in my living room right now reads 47. The sun brought it up from 46. Annabelle's outside sunning herself in the 32-degree weather. Direct sunlight feels good on her little body.

The hot water heater, insulated as it is (just learned that yesterday), gave me enough lukewarm water to wash my hair really really fast. And the gas man is supposed to be here within the next hour or so. So I'll make it. The girl with blue lips will make it.

Warm things I've taken for granted (and, apparently, for free) these last six months:
heat
stove
dryer
hot water.

As Ward Churchill* might say, these things are coming back to bite me in the ass. FORM OF: whopping gas bill. Can't wait.

*He might also say that I'm so goddamn self-absorbed that the only time I choose to mention his work is in the context of my own pathetic little problem while millions of people are starving to death and quite literally freezing to death. Point taken.