CONTRIBUTORS
LINKS
INFO
Summer Guide 2006
- No Sweat
- The Great Indoors
- 'Oh, that's Grandma. She's just cleaning her gun.'
- Magic Carpet Ride
- The Coldest I ever was, by Wayne Garcia
- A Volley of Tiny balls
- Get Your Play On
- Hang In There
- The Swing of Things
- Head for the Pool
- All Shook Up
- Take me IN to the Ball Game
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Kelli K
- Ice Cold
- The Coldest Beer in Town
- Myth Busting
- Milkshake Marathon
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Leilani Polk
- The Cold War
- Summer on Ice
- Cutting the Ice
- Ice Age
- Ice: It's not All the Same
- Go Dry
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by David Warner
- Cool Rider
- Bubble Boy
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Eric Snider
- Cold-Heart Snakes
- Play it Cool
- The Agony of Defeat
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Joe Bardi
- Freeze Frames
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Anne Arsenault
- Mix, Burn and Chill
- The Coldest I Ever Was, by Scott Harrell
- Lists of Summer
Was also maybe the dumbest I ever was. Why did I think that in Portland, Maine, in January, I wouldn't need a heavy winter coat? It turned out that I needed one inside, let alone for frigid forays into the truly, deeply cold outdoors.
Chalk it up to the treacherous January thaw. In NYC, where I was living that year, the weather was downright balmy. Surely this warmth was spreading northward to Portland, I reasoned (and I use that verb ironically). But I'd not counted on the truly, deeply cheap-ass nature of political campaigns.
I went to Portland to spend two weeks with my partner, Larry, who was working on a Maine U.S. Senate race and living in campaign-provided quarters: an attic apartment in a nice old house that was quite charming except for the extreme LACK OF HEAT. Maybe there was a space heater, I don't recall; all I remember, because I was trying to write a paper for grad school at the time, is that I had to wear gloves to type on my laptop. Finally, it got so cold that I turned to a place that has long been a refuge for those seeking warmth. Together with a good cross-section of Portland's homeless population -- mostly white, bearded and flannelled, which meant they looked like 90 percent of the other men in Portland -- I enjoyed magazines, table space and the wonders of central heating. You gotta love the public library system.
