Fixing a fan

The perceived connection between machines and masculinity has always confounded me. My father took it as a matter of faith that every male felt it and accepted it. There was nothing to explain, it simply was. So many times through the years he would look in awe at a new Harley motercycle or v-8 engine and point it out to me, expecting me to feel the same, and I would simply look back at him with a confused dog stare, leaving him equally confused by my ambivilance.

I have an upstairs apartment, the air conditioner is tucked away in a corner window of my living room and is functionally worthless without my house fan to blow the cold air through the rest of the apartment. My place is simply uninhabitible in summer without the thirty dollar "Hawaiian Breeze" that I bought at Target last year.

During the night, one of the arms of the fan got bent behind another one and killed the machine. I woke up at dawn and noticed that it was unusually stuffy. I quickly noticed that the fan wasn't working, but it was six in the God Damn morning, so I stumbled to my couch in front of the air conditioner and continued sleeping till ten thirty.

By then, the sun was beginning to bleed through my the windows and it wouldn't be long until I would have to either do something about the fan or abandon my home and become a functioning hobo until the sun went down. I walked to the fan and discovered the bent arm.

Track down a phillips-head screwdriver, is it buried under the newspapers or the textbooks? Ah, there it is. Take the screws out, now gently rip the cover off. Gently now, but rip. Grab the bent arm and bend it in the opposite direction to get it back in place. Five minutes, okay, it looks more or less in place. Put the screws back in, use the screwdraiver as a makeshift hammer to pound the plastic slats of the cover back into the slots.

This is satisfying. I'm sitting alone in my boxer shorts, unwashed and unshaven, reparing my machine with my bare hands, my tool, and a little improvisation. I like this. I'm going to change my own oil twice a week just for fun.

Set it back up and try it again. It still doesn't work. Fuck. Am I going to have to go to the thrift store and get a new one? No, no. I have the right idea, I made the correct diagnosis, just pull the cover off again and continue counter-kinking.

Another five minutes, it's still out of sync with the other arms. Put a book on it, okay, that didn't work. Put a stack of five on it while you go to the bathroom. Ha! That worked surprisingly well! Put the screws in, hammer the cover back in, plug it in, turn it on. Ha! There we go.

I got dressed and walked to the corner shop for cigarettes ant the Sunday paper. I return home and point the fan directly towards me. The double blast of fan and AC makes it possible to have a cup of hot coffee on a ninety-degree day.

I went to the Coco Montoya show at "Celebrate Lincoln" last night and spent about twelve dollars on Arab and Italian food and beer. It soon became clear that Coco Montoya sucks and I had wasted my money. So I left early and bought a bottle of Night Train wine to punish myself in proper Catholic fashion.

I've had bad experiences with roomates in the past, but perhaps I should get over it. Living alone is starting to affect me.

I woke up hangover-free. Perhaps I had sweated it out during the night. I hope so. If the train doesn't leave one absolutely devestated, than one is drinking too much.
But weather we feel contentment or not at any given moment has more to do with the moment than our general positions in life. Life would be unbearible if this wasn't the case, no one who is blessed with self-reflection is satisfied with their position in life. Not in this culture at any rate. If you're not longing than you are cheating.

But I'm content now. I have coffee and "A Prarie Home Companion" and my fan is giving me a Hawaiian breeze because I fixed it, and this would be satisfaction if I could allow myself to feel it. But I have a term paper, and a show and a movie I've been meaning to see all weekend and I have to get to work soon.