Alone in the Dark

I was going to post about the upcoming presidential inauguration today, but it'll have to wait (I may also have pictures of the thousands of portable toilets that currently form a defensive structure around the Capitol tomorrow): I have another story to tell.

Yesterday around midnight, my flat powered down: no light, no power in the sockets, no nothing - and most importantly, no heat, as my place is warmed by two electric heaters. So I called my landlord, he came down (people from to other flats had complained, too), and found it was a blown fuse, but not a standard one, so we would have to wait until morning to get a spare. Right, I thought, time to show some spirit, so I tried to pretend I was camping as I wore two sweaters to bed and wrapped myself in blankets. I'd seen worse, and it would all be fixed in the morning.

I came home an hour ago from an open mic, with a bag full of food and fond thoughts of Friday night basketball on TV. It was not to be. The flat is dark, the flat is silent. The flat, above all, is freakin' cold: it's -10 outside right now, the temperature didn't go above -4 all day, and the walls here are wafer-thin.

I've been calling Edward (the landlord - keep up) at 10 minute intervals, but he's not answering his phone, so I assume he was lost in his quest for the mystical spare fuse of make-the-cold-go-away. Dunno what I'll do - I'm kinda reluctant to call people from the Library up at 23:00 and ask whether I can sleep at their place; however, the other option is spending the night slowly but inexorably turning a deep, quiet, frozen blue, which I suppose would be fitting for political reasons, but is otherwise not that attractive.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Edit: a friend's landlady agreed to take me in for the night, and equipped me with a mattress and a comforter. Things are looking up.

Edit 2: we have power. I repeat, we have power. Proceed as normal.