Lancaster Merrin is fairly confident that EVERYBODY WANTS 
to KNOW this stuff .. fairly confident
Here’s the report. U might find it amusing or . . TERRIFYING~! ,,,,, or insufferably mundane
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Besides the fact that I’m STILL celebrating last week’s successful survival-strategy (stay on couch, ski-clothing, 40 lbs of covers, sleep A LOT, avoid suicide) . . Lanc lost 9 pounds during the 4.5 days of The Great Texas Freezer-Burn~ . . . . . and for a few days subsequent (lost appetite). Down to 160.
It might be concluded that, while wearing ski-gloves, occasionally forcing down a few fork-fulls of half-frozen, fortuitously & previously prepared, rice-concoctions (normal burrito-fillers) will have some kind of affect on those profile shots. Didn’t really need to lose weight; it just happened.
45 degrees inside = no appetite. {don’t try this at home).
Kept certain foods OUTSIDE on balcony, and hoped that they didn’t TOTALLY freeze on me. AGAIN: no power = no refrigerator, no stove, no lights (inside & outside) = abject darkness at night; sparse light during day (cloudy with big trees packed with snow blocking light); gee thanks. Obviously, no Netflix, computer or Internet. NOPE. Nada. Zip . . . . . .
–> 4.5 days + freezing-ass outside + colder’n crapp inside.
Smoked only about 3 or 4 menthols the whole time. Here’s the deal: Stepping onto the balcony carried a predictable, painful price: regardless of gloves and Ugh Boots, 15-degree weather immediately attacked hands and feet; for the LUXURY of a 7-minute balcony-menthol, you PAID an hour to get the 4 of’em back to semi-normal cold INSIDE at 43 degrees.
At one point, early on, preparatory to a balcony smoke, Merrin wisely (…duh) elected to wear a large, semi-puffy ski-type jacket with one of those fuzzy hoods. Guess what. NEVER took that jacket — nor the hood — OFF for the remaining 3 days; -“Go Eskimo”- slept in it – with gloves — under 40 lbs of covers.
. . . and THAT was kinda OK, as long as I STAYED PUT; except Lancaster’s youthful, attractive FACE got very cold~! Considered a plastic-bag; subsequently changed mind.
As soon as I got up — – flashlight or Bic-lighter flicks in hand — to make an unscheduled ‘visit’ down the hall OR for purely survival consumption — things started getting COLD again, PDQ.
NOTE: mortal fear that – just like in a horror film — the flashlight would pull one of those flame-outs, when the Lanc-knob needed it the most. Worried about radio-batteries, as well, so kept it OFF much of the time. Sometimes would cautiously listen to CLASSICAL violin-music to {maybe} GET ME the hell to SLEEP, again.
This ACTUALLY worked: while wearing my “Go Eskimo” outfit and ski-gloves, decided to do some exercises to MAYBE warm up a little INSIDE the APT. Holding onto the kitchen counter, did some ‘deep’ knee bends, some weight curls AND next, paced back & forth along my short hallway. THEN, lumbered back onto the couch; again, under 40 lbs of covers. It became a routine: [1] go pee; [2] ‘work out’ in kitchen; [3] GET back on couch; [4] get to sleep, or [5] zombie stare at nothing.
After the workouts or cracker-snack, sometimes our guy would actually be ABLE to fall asleep for a while OR just lay there STARING OFF somewhere into the dark cosmos. As a routine, needed to check the TIME on my low-on-power, 2013-issue, basic as hell, flip-phone; then, quickly turn it OFF.
If I had NOT known what time or DAY it was, would have descended into madness. Later, found some mysterious, OLD batteries in the freezer which just happened to FIT an equally OLD cd-player & RADIO~! Lucky break.
The “lucky” radio, HOWEVER, possessed ONE bleak annotation: like most people in Austin, my power went out at 1 a.m. on Monday (15th). The morning news personalities on KLBJ-AM KEPT reporting that the outage would likely last about 48 freekin’ hours — until maybe Wednesday afternoon. 48 hours of solitary confinement in the Dairy Department, doin’ the same, basic, stupid stuff over and over again.
THEN THIS: The repugnant sound you could hear was my balloon-head DEFLATING when Wednesday CAME & WENT~! Then, Thursday became a cruel figment of somebody’s warp’d imagination, as well.
So, while the radio blessed Merrin with valuable updates, ON the NEG-side, it served as a prime source and spontaneous trigger FOR notions of blissful suicide followed by a warm, soothing cremation.
Ephemerally, it was encouraging, to wake up and realize that the HERO of this report had somehow struggled to valiantly knock-off a few more hours — ‘chunks of time’ — asleep. BUT then, psychologically a brain-stomp to realize that it was THE SAME mo-fo DAY~!
. . . Then the radio guys would tack-on another 24 hours which, of course, INCLUDED the same THREE simple, primitive, perfunctory, miserable activities OVER & OVER & OVER again AND . . . on the SAME godforsaken day; while being entombed on the couch, forever.
Is anybody actually getting the “Psycho-Screw” the writer is trying to describe, here?
INSIDE the APT, which was naturally and gradually GETTING colder by the day, every object I was required to touch was pretty much ice cold: phone, flashlight, lighters, utensils, door-knobs; even the TOP cover-comforter was cold to the touch and, of course, my jacket was cold on the outside.
Was really getting sick-to-freekin’ death of COLD things; felt betrayed by inanimate objects.
If I had had a girlfriend on the premises, she would undoubtedly have been on the frosty-side, as well.
REALIZE THAT 4.5 days doesn’t SEEM that long. IT IS. The longest 4 and a half days of my heretofore meaningless existence. As stated, it was like being simultaneously trapped and dead. A total psychological brain-fuk + blown relief-expectations + sublime Marque de Sade-type discomfort and ‘vexation’—
— bordering on clinical depression and stuff like that.
The STRANGEST thing, and something Lancaster thought was probably a typical, routine harbinger of impending DEATH, was a hallucination and/or optical anomaly.
- A precursor to a massive STROKE~?!
- A subtle, evil inducement to drink DRANO~?!
Two or three of my krappy sleep-segments ENDED with a momentary, colorful ‘cartoon-dream.’ The final frame of the cartoon seemed to be contained within a ‘computer screen.’ Anyway . . .
AFTER I had clearly woken up in the darkness, no matter where I turned my head, I simply could NOT get rid of THAT LAST dream-PICTURE – apparently super-glued to my eyeballs. 
Was forced to ‘blast’ flashlight ON, to make it GO the F away~!!
Again, it happened two or three times~!! Bizarre & Disconcerting, under those extraordinary circumstances. Maybe somebody should TALK to a professional.