I asked my other boss, "Have you ever heard that saying, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?'" "No, why?" he responded. "Just wondering?" I say. "Are you trying to say something?!? Is there something else?" he asks, energetically. "No," I reply, trying to sound meek. I am enjoying it, though.

On the ride home, there is no smoke on the train. We stop somewhere in the twin peaks tunnel for a long time, 10 or 15 minutes, I guess. Some people are having a loud conversation. I think, if it wasn't for them, the other passengers would have gotten a bit tense, being that long in the darkened subway with no word from the operator. I had my book to read, so I didn't much care. We got to West Portal. They had us get off, get on another train waiting on the other side of the switches. I walk the entire length of it, then get off and get on the next car of it and walk its length, searching for good air. I stop at the front of the front car and don my mask. The ventilation is on full-blast. As a result, I am able to take off my mask after the University stop.

At home, there isn't any smoke to speak of in the foyer, on the stairs, or in the hallways. I hear the family talking, while I stand in the foyer, sorting through the mail. "This is bullshit!" I heard the daughter yell, disdainfully. I hear the son cough loudly and vocally a couple of times. In the kitchen, there is pipe smoke. Just a little bit, right where I stand when I tear the leaves off of my kale to throw it in the pot. I try to wave it away, but I give up, get my mask, and put it on.

In my room, there is the usual pipe smoke. The first thing I do when I get home is to unlock my door and leave it open. That dissipates it pretty well by the time I get back. In my room, after the kale, I prepare for another round of swatting the bed. This time, there is hardly any smoke. This is a great relief, because it means less energy spent swatting, fewer blisters, etc. There is smoke in the comforter. When I am done, I have time to read. I keep my mask on, due to all the PM in the air from the swatting. I open my window and sniff. I am checking for wood smoke. If the air is good, I put up my fans to bring in some fresh air, to get rid of the residual pipe smoke and swatting residue. I don't have them on for very long when I smell wood smoke again, so I turn them off, take them down, and close the window. The wood smoke is just as bad for the lower respiratory tract, but doesn't affect the upper so much, not nearly as much as tobacco anyway. I go to sleep.

I wake up and my throat is a little rough, but not bad, especially compared to usual. I don't have that withdrawal feeling, and I wish I did. It's a good sign. Yesterday at work, after lunch, I went to the bathroom. I came back and I was struck by the strength of the smell. Was it this bad when I left and I just didn't notice it? Sometimes, when there is an incremental change, you don't notice so much, the way a frog doesn't notice that the frying pan he is in is slowly heating up, until it is too late, whereas, if he had jumped in it from outside, he will immediately sense the danger and jump back out again. By the end of the day, my palate is sore and hurting. It is painful to breathe through my nose. How could this happen? I had just written in here that it wasn't so bad that day.

I arrive the next day (today) and my bosses spouse has sent me an email. The superintendent was up here yesterday, talking with my boss. I couln't hear anything because my left ear is blocked with earwax. My ears produce too much of it, and they get blocked from time to time, about once a year. Not a whole lot to be done about it. It takes care of itself. It was good to get some rest last night, though. Rest helps the immune system fight off infections, and it was getting a little infected. Today it is better, but still blocked. Anyway, she sends me an email telling me to go to the doctor. When she returns to the office, she tells me that the problem is with me, not the heater, and we talk about visiting the doctor, or moving me back to what is now A.'s desk. She says no one else in the office notices the smell, and that C. is afraid to talk to me, as a result of my dealings with my other boss. When my other boss gets in, I ask him what's up. He says everything is fine and that he's had no conversations with C. Then C. comes in and I ask her if there is any problem. The bosses wife chews me out for being confrontational with her, and when she leaves C. comes back and says that she isn't afraid to talk to me and that she doesn't know what the problem is. Anyway, I stick to my guns, pointing out how much easier it is to remove four screws and look at the heater, than to switch desks with A. or make a trip to the doctor. She resolves to have the maintenance guy take another look at it (he has just done so recently. I didn't monitor him closely, but I did notice a lot of dust on it, and it gets quite hot, all this after the superintendent had said she couldn't smell a thing).

The maintenance guy comes up and says that it's a waste of time, he'll look at it if we want, but he has just done so. I don't smell anything that morning, to speak of that is, whatever may have been there was obscured by the scent of the flowers besides. (The heaters are off at night, and it may be that turning one heater off makes the rest go higher. It's 1920's technology.) I'm wondering how intermittent this problem is, or if it is something that builds up over time, so that I don't notice it until the end of the day. I ask if we can wait until we know that it is occurring, and then open it up at that moment. I ask if I can open it up myself. It's just four wood screws, after all. He mentions liability issues, and says to just call him when it happens again. I mention that I have to go through the supe, and he is usually doing other things, and may be at another property altogether. He says he'll come right over.

The bosses wife and the supe are having their own conversation during this, and they reach a different conclusion. I try to sway them to ours. Apparently, they are unmoved, as the maintenance guy soon returns, vacuum cleaner in hand, to look at it now. This time, I watch. He pulls the cover off, and says "see, it's all clean." All I have to do is poke my finger between the radiator pipes and I come up with a finger full of soot. Yeah, the front half of it is clean, allright. The maintenance guy leaves to get cleaning materials. While he is gone, I wet a paper towel and poke it underneath the radiator with a pen and pull it out. It comes back with a dust-bunny bigger than my nose on it. The entire floor under the heater is covered with a thick layer of this stuff, in addition to the stuff actually on the heater, which is also rather dense. I show this to my bosses wife and the maintenance guy when he comes back. He grumbles something about making work for him. I point out that he was just talking about how we were keeping him employed.

He scrubs the heater with a bottle-brush, some wet paper towels. The entire office smells like a forest for a while. I check it, point out some places that he missed. He rips out the board blocking access to the floor under the heater and cleans some more. We go back and forth until I am satisfied.