It's Autumn and the Furnace Pipes Are Calling!

            On Friday morning during song practice I was looking outside and I saw a few snowflakes. Then there were more and more until there was a full-fledged first snowfall. It wasn’t surprising that it would snow in November but the first few occasions tend to consist of a few flakes coming down, looking like confused and lost out-of-towners that had gotten detached from their tour group, then they melt and disappear on the concrete. This time though the Dollarama parking lot was covered in white and the wind was blowing spiralling ghosts of powder along Queen Street. Of course since the ground wasn’t frozen it all went away when the sun came up, but it was an impressive first snow nonetheless.
            That night when I was putting my bike out in the hall to get ready to go to work, David came in. He said he had a bike light for me if I wanted. I told him I’d take it if he didn’t need it. It’s a Via Velo front light that takes two AA batteries instead of two little CR2032 disk batteries like the dollar store flashers use. Plus it could also double as a flashlight when it’s on steady mode. I didn’t put it on my bike yet because the one that I have is still working fine. I worked nearby for Artists 25 at Brock and Dundas. It was the first of a three-week nude pose that Cy Strom had hired me for on behalf of the guy that usually runs that session. Cy showed me a little stepladder that he thought it might be interesting for me to pose with. But it had a parabolic handrail that made it impossible to sit on and I explained that standing with one foot on it for a 2.5-hour session would mean that most of my weight for that time would be on the other leg. When I was in my 30s I could handle things like that but not anymore. Tom Phillips, one of the founders of Artists 25, and the only one of them left, tried to demonstrate how one could actually sit on that step ladder. As soon as he lifted his octogenarian leg and threaded it through the parabola at the top of the ladder I looked at Cy and commented, “We might end up having to call the paramedics to get him out of there.” Once Tom had his foot through he realized he’d made a mistake. We had to help him get out again.
            There were four members that came to the session. One of them expressed agreement with the theory that Vincent Van Gogh did not commit suicide because it wouldn’t have been possible to shoot himself in the chest at the angle that the bullet went in. I said, “There was a second gunman on the grassy knoll!” I’d always thought that Van Gogh had been schizophrenic but it turns out that is not one of the many theories. The most likely was probably that he was bi-polar but another theory, which this lady agreed with, is that he had been drinking too much absinthe.
            The usual pay for posing 2.5 hours at Artists 25 is $45, which is the lowest rate in town. Most places pay $20 an hour with a three-hour minimum. That’s what Peter; the guy that runs the Friday sessions pays. He’s not supposed to because whatever money doesn’t go to the model is put towards the rent of the studio. Cy complained to me that he has sometimes had to put money in out of his own pocket to cover the rent, plus he said that it makes him look cheap for paying $45 to models for the Thursday sessions that he runs. I got $60, but a lot of it was in change.
            When I got home I could hear that same squeaking noise that’s been bugging me for the last few days. I had developed a theory about it that I decided at that time to test. There are two vertical pipes that run up through the middle of my apartment. They appear from a hole in the left side of the mantle in my kitchen area and rise to disappear in my ceiling. I assume they come from the basement and carry steam, since they are hot when the furnace is on. I walked over to put my ear close to the pipes and sure enough, that was the source of the squeaky hum. Or rather it is one of the sources. I noticed after that that the noise was coming from the pipes leading to all the radiators in my apartment and that’s why it sounded like the noise was coming from outside the building. It’s actually a quadraphonic serenade from hell. I don’t recall it sounding like that last winter so I guess the furnace is getting old.