Fire vs. Ice

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This is not exactly a weather entry, and most definitely not another "complain about the blizzard" entry. However, today's entry begins from the premise that it sucks to receive 2 feet of snow, 20-30 mph wind, and temperatures in the single digits.

On the plus side, I live in a building that is steam heated. Which means that I don't pay hundreds of dollars for natural gas every winter.

On the minus side, I have no control over the temperature generated by the giant steam pipe that bisects my apartment along the ceiling. In the winter, when it's particularly cold, the temperature inside can reach into the low 80s.

On the plus side, cozy. Tshirts and shorts.

On the minus side, if you've ever lived with steam heat, you will know that it is not unlike living in an oven. Or underneath a rest room hand drier.

On the plus side, I sleep with a humidifier at one end of the room and often open my window at the other. The window's old, but I have four different items that I wedge in it to let in varying degrees of cold.

On the minus side, I'm a very warm sleeper. Which is fine when the heat goes off at around 4 am, but makes it really hard for me to get to sleep (dry skin, itchy, heat, tossing, turning, insomnia) unless it's decently cool.

On the plus side, I can usually open the window early enough to cool the apartment sufficiently.

On the minus side, my building is next to a big driveway/multi-car garage. Whose owner takes some delight, I've discovered, in trying to bury our building in snow. My apartment extends below ground level, and so my windows are particularly easy to bury.

There is no more plus side. If I open the window enough, as I did last night, I end up with wind, snow, and eventually soaking wet (and cold) carpeting. Also, the books. The books!

All of which is to explain why tonight, when I go to sleep, in the dead of winter, I'm probably going to have to waste money by turning on a fan.

(And that doesn't really help with the whole dry skin thing. Nor with my mood.)

That is all.

5 Comments

We also have steam heat. We were running the fan when it was -10 the other night.

This post makes me feel less alone in the world.

We turn the (gas) heat off at night, but we run two fans and a white noise machine just for the noise. Love that noise!

My skin feels like I rubbed it with sandpaper for an hour. I need a humidifer. It's weird to go from the land of humidity (i.e. Texas) to a place where I'm *paying* for damp air!

This whole entry read like some horribly complicated word problem from high school algebra. My head hurts now.

Also, in my opinion, one can never moisturize enough. Think Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.

It rubs the lotion on its skin, and then it snows a bunch again...

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This page contains a single entry by cgbrooke published on February 15, 2007 11:44 PM.

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