Cold comfort

I'm sitting in my office trying to work with a blanket draped over my back, but my fingers are so cold I can't type straight and icicles are forming on the end of my nose. Everyone who wanders into my office comments on how cold it is and offers a helpful suggestion: "Why don't you turn on your space heater?"

And I could turn on the space heater, but then the first time someone uses the microwave in the next office, the circuit breaker will pop and we'll have to call the helpful guys from the physical plant to come and restore power and as soon as they walk in and see me huddling under a blanket for warmth they'll yell at me for operating a space heater in violation of a campus policy designed, I believe, to keep professors focusing on the cold so we won't have any energy to spare for looking for work in a warmer place.

Not that I am bitter.

Bitterness, in fact, might provide some heat. Trying not to think about how cold I am does not produce any measurable warmth. Maybe I should get really, really angry, angry enough to make my blood boil--but not boil over, because as soon as the anger is released, I'll start cooling off again.

I need to work on maintaining a constant slow simmer, a mumbling, grumbling, griping undertone of discontent, just enough to keep me bubbling but not enough to make me boil over. And where shall I find inspiration for this simmering anger? Why, the people who keep my office so cold I can't function, of course! As long as they insist on making me work in a subzero environment, I'll continue to harbor enough anger to keep me warm.

And if the Powers That Be decide they want to douse the fire, there's one simple solution: turn on the heat.