November 23, 2008. Cold and Sunny.

10:47 a.m.

Snippet of dream: There was a guy, youngish, dark hair, and he invited me to follow him. He was going to show me something really cool. We walked through this restaurant or hotel where he used to work, and my inkling was confirmed when he went to one of the walls and pushed on a hitherto invisible panel, and it opened into a secret room or tunnel. This was something he'd learned about when he worked there before, but no one else knew about. It was off hours so no one much was in the place. I was delighted -- I squeezed inside into the dark right away, saying, "I'm in!" and then there was a girl with us but she had fallen behind and I was telling her to hurry up, we had to get inside and close the door before anyone saw us. Someone passed and might have seen it. But I hadn't had any secret passageway dreams for a long time and this was very exciting! That's all I remember.

I closed off the living room last night against the faint smell of paint, and this morning when I opened the door it was frigid in there.

FRIGID. It's clearly the least well insulated room in the apartment. There's a space around the balcony door, the cracks at the bottom of the walls... I've got to do something about all that. The heat was at 65 and the rest of the apartment was fine. I see a trip to Home Depot coming up and maybe some weather stripping for the door and... there's a kind of clear caulking on the bottom of some of that baseboard, and now I know why. I wonder why they didn't caulk along the whole front wall. When the paint's dry maybe I'll try to get some of that. I've never caulked before. I've balked, of course. I've talked, I've squawked. I've hawked -- books, CDs, the like. But caulking is a different matter.

I just don't want to spend any more money on anything. What do I have on hand that I could use? I have a little tube of Household Goop. That wouldn't go very far, and it's stinky. Oh -- I have lots of hair products. Gel, shiners, mousse. Maybe I could blow in the mousse like insulation.

Update: talked to boyfriend of landlady Sunny, downstairs. He'll come Tuesday to finish the caulking and Sunny told me about weather stripping she got at Job Lot. No more shrink plastic. And I guess I can afford something at Job Lot. Here's to a warm and toasty winter with an affordable gas bill.