Fleeing into the avenues

Today I was feeling hungover and braindead for the fifth day in a row, despite not having had anything (much) to drink the past couple of days.

Then I thought about an issue I've been too lazy to follow up on for a couple of months: the carbon monoxide seeping into my apartment. A while back a plumber told me that the water heater located right about underneath my bed in the basement (that is covered only by wooden floor with giant spaces between the slats and a matted shag carpet over that) has had the ventilation pipe removed and thus is venting carbon monoxide into my apartment.

The plumber promised to follow up and I believe that he did. I mentioned it a while later to the gardener, who said he thought there might be a new water heater on order, as mine was too tall for the short-ceilinged basement and needed to be replaced by one that's legal. It was sure to come any day now.

It occurred to me today through my perhaps-not-hungover-afterall haze that I never heard them install one, which seems odd because I never leave the house. And it also occurred to me that as it has been especially cold and I've had the heat and furnace on and been staying inside with all the windows closed tightly for a while, that perhaps the carbon monoxide was building up.

So I decided to check in the basement. No new water heater. So then I went to the internet to see if beyond cloudiness and confusion there were any other symptoms I should look for. They are:

• 1. Headache (yes)
  
• 2. Dizziness (nope)
  
• 3. Irritability (no, and fuck you for asking)
  
• 4. Confusion/Memory loss (yes)
  
• 5. Disorientation (yes)
  
• 6. Nausea and vomiting (yes and no)
  
• 7. Abnormal reflexes (yes, but that could be caused by prescription drug abuse)
  
• 8. Difficulty in coordinating (color-coordinating? most definitely. but otherwise no.)
• 9. Difficulty in breathing (a little)
  
• 10. Chest Pain (a little)
  
• 11. Cerebral Edema (ce-wha-wha?)
  
• 12. Convulsions/Seizures (not)
  
• 13. Coma (yet)
  
• 14. Death (duh)
  

So I just had most of the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, including three others from another list of warning signs.

I thought this would be a good time to take a walk in the fresh air. I opened all the windows and headed off to the avenues for a few hours. Now that I'm back and the windows are closed again I'm not sure if the symptoms are returning or if I'm just sleepy. Very, very, sleeeee