Mark of shame.

Last winter and this, sometimes I'd set water to boil in my one big white enamel pot, to humidify the air while I was home and up and about doing stuff.

One night like a month ago I got home and the apartment air was super dry, so I filled it up a ton and set it on high, and then I put my stuff away and did like ten minutes of yoga.

All of a sudden I smelled something, and the water had boiled so hot that all of it had disappeared, and the pot was just sitting there heating up!

So, I turned off the burner and quickly threw some water in, but the water must have been too cold, because the metal contracted and the bottom enamel actually suddenly broke up into large shards and started flaking off in the center, like a handmirror breaking or something like that, only not the whole bottom of the pot, just the big white enamel layer on top of it.

And, since that happened, and since the top was also missing its handle and had been for some time, I set it aside after it cooled down to go throw out in the big dumpster in the alley that's behind this big apartment building there.

And, I did that, but like a week later after trash day, I noticed my pot just sitting out there beside the dumpster, beside the big rotting tree stump there.

Either the garbage men didn't want to put it in the dumpster, or the (wizened) (old) hippie had fished it out and set it there.

And now, it's just there, for several weeks now, as a mark of shame, and every day I see it.

Maybe I'll have to go fetch it and drill some holes in the bottom and try to use it as a pot for the avocado seeds that I'm trying to sprout.