Ways to feel better about the weather
My top three coldest apartments (none of which is my current home):
#3 A room I lived in during college that was a converted garage with walls as thin as you’d expect from a garage. There was a heater, which hung down from the ceiling and blew gale force winds of hot air through the room, but a few weeks into November I realized that I was getting nauseous and light headed whenever it was on, and after that I only used it under duress.
#2 My Northampton apartment, which was wonderful in almost every way except for the fact that it was completely uninsulated and only had a pellet stove for heat. In the coldest parts of winter I would huddle in front of the pellet stove to stay warm, and one time caught myself on fire. Actually two times.
#1 My St. Louis apartment, against which all my other cold apartments are measured. There was a heater, but it didn’t seem to actually heat the apartment and besides it made a funny smell, and I have been wary of strange smelling heaters ever since my concerning experience with the cancerous heater in my garage room. As a result my roommate and I never turned it on. All winter. In St. Louis, which is brutally cold to begin with and particularly cold that winter. (We were also trying to save money, and maybe not completely in our right minds).
The pipes froze, and then they burst, and then the water in the sink froze, which is never a good sign because it actually means it is below freezing inside your apartment. My roommate and I took to staying out until hours (because wherever we were was warmer than our house) or, when we were home, sitting together on the couch, under all the blankets we owned, trying to warm ourselves with an ancient portable heater about the size of a brick and copious amounts of whiskey, which at least made it easier to fall asleep while bundled in two pairs of long underwear, sweatpants, wool socks, a sweatshirt, a fleece, a hat and a scarf. In a sleeping bag. Under a blanket. And still cold.
A friend of mine who came to visit that winter still talks about the whole experience with what I imagine to be awe. But I think it might actually be horror. I never did tell her that just at the beginning of spring my roommate and I discovered that the only problem with the heat was that we’d never let it run long enough.
