In which smell-shiners are accepted

It's been super hot and muggy the last couple of days in the city. There was even an announcement from the electricity company (ConEd) in shops for people to turn off unused lights and computers as the cooling equipment used in this kind of 'event' uses bezerk amounts of electricity.

I still haven't gotten around to buying a cooling/airing device though I continue to gaze at them - both up in the rises, and on street level where they buzz away like a sort of insect doing a soft mating call and yet serving humans at the same time.

I am lucky, apparently, to have 2 sets of windows in my place. There are 2 big windows that look out to the street and other apartments across a tree. And there is a back window which opens out into a light/air-shaft that comes down in the middle of the block. It is a long narrow shaft meaning neighbours in the same block have facing windows only about 8 foot away. They remind me of staying in unluxurious city hotels and my sister's room in the nurses accommodation she had in Paddington when I was 14.
It's a peculiar thing the shaft. It is a totally inaccessible space and therefore is unloved and dirty. It allows light and air from quite far above, rendering the room depending on it, still pretty dingy. Air quality isn't great anywhere and this shaft is worse because people have their aircon machines perched on the sills shining out their living smells and air into the shaft - and at me! who hasn't got one to shine it right back!
One night when I had a bad headache I got quite down about it. The light coming from windows when I needed dark, and the musty smell from the shaft. It smelt sawdusty and furry - not awful but just not fresh. And I began to smell things into the sawdusty smell, like pet's piss - only very slight. This was worsened on my first night sleeping in the backroom (which is the kitchen) by the large US fridge coming on abruptly through the night: Ber-kw-ARP! a-dum-whirrrurrrurrurrurrurrurrurr.

Headacheless and rested though it's fine. It's not that bad at all. And now I'm 4 weeks in this place I don't notice any smell. In fact it got better in a jump last week when I realised that the sawdust part of it was coming from my homemade shelves near my bed! Which I am pleased with. I was breathing the wood. Funny how once you know the source of the smell, it becomes ok - mind stops running riot.
Then the shaft reminds me of the ugly naked guy in Friends which makes me laugh. For I am naked in the apartment often, or atleast underwear only and cannot be bothered to worry about the fact that neighbors can/could/do see. I notice that they keep curtains and net curtains and other things which gather dust, restrict light even more and just look depressing to me.

The fridge cure came from my mother's practical influence as a child. I remember her explaining that an ice-pack made a cavy type space cool, and that a sealed metal container heated, is an oven. Wonderful to find that you can bake scones in a pan therefore. And you can turn a box into a fridge.
What am I getting at? Simple: keep a large bag of ice in the ample freezer box in the day. And transfer it to the fridge in the night; and turn the fridge OFF! Victory.

The shaft also reminds me of a large seemingly bottomless black round hole in the ground in Malawi called Chingwee's hole which terrified me as a child. It reminds me because I can't lean out far enough to see the shaft's bottom. I've been having wild dreams in NYC too and a dear friend fell down the shaft on a visit in one of my dreams last week. They were ok though...

So I do plan to buy an aircon machine - but I shall shine it out of the windows in the gorgeously light end of the apartment. There is lots of good influence in the room to balance out its crude technological insectness. I guess when its wafting back its cool air, I shall come to love it as a friend. The good influence is the rich brown oak table, large wooden-framed mirror, mahogany guitar and comfy black beautiful leather Danish futon. Massive bunch of daisies in a wine decanter on the table aswell.

I've gotten used to the fridge now too at night. And why sleep in the kitchen or rather, have the kitchen in my bedroom? I want the light and beautiful room, with its 'view', to be a place to sit uncompromised by a bed - albeit by an aircon machine eventually.
But the main thing is I sleep well and can achieve a level of comfort where I feel rested and good walking out into dreamy Manhattan. I'm sure that those of you who visit, or use it as a vacation pad will really enjoy it too.