Cold Room Behavior

[soc_puppet]

Over the period of time my parents and I spent without a working furnace, I noticed a few related changes in my own behavior, two subtle and one much less so.

Subtle change the first: I got hungry more often and so ate more. I expect this was because my metabolism was trying to keep up with the sudden influx of indoor cold. 50°F/10°C doesn't seem very cold, until your house doesn't really get warmer than that without a space heater.

Subtle change the second: I left the house less. Part of this was related to the accompanying snow, it's true, but also there was the subconscious knowledge that I would be going back to a house that it would be very difficult to warm back up in. Going out in the cold is a lot less attractive when you can't go someplace you know will warm you up when you're done.

Less subtle change: I've had problems keeping up with hygiene for most of my life, and only successfully managed to switch to basically-daily showers (from every other day or so) in 2020, as a response to Covid. I still miss a day or two here and there, or take especially brief showers where I only soap up the extra stinky places and keep my hair covered, but I'm pretty lucky in that my body odor isn't particularly pervasive.

For the time we've been furnace-less, I managed only an abbreviated shower, and that only once; going from a chilly bedroom to a chilly bathroom to face the prospect of leaving a hot shower to go back to the rest of a chilly bathroom and eventually a chilly bedroom was not attractive to me in the slightest. Even less so was the notion of doing it with wet hair. And since I'm a night bather and don't have my own blow-drier, tonight was the first time I washed my hair since Sunday night. I had plans to borrow mom's blow-drier if our new furnace hadn't been installed today, because enough was enough, but I am very glad I didn't have to in the end.

Overall, I am very, very glad to have a nice, warm house again.

Comments

[gwydion]

My Father used to say this is why nouvelle cuisine never caught on in Quebec City. They'd open a restaurant in spring and it would take off, but as soon as it got could the restaurant would empty and everyone would be eating traditional with it's heavy sauces because in the cold people want calories, not art.

[sasha_feather]

Those are interesting insights! I hope you are nice and cozy now.

[soc_puppet]

Very much so at the moment! The basement is a bit chillier tonight than it was yesterday, but I turned my space heater on for a bit, and I'm tucked in under the covers, so I should be good until I can bring it up with my parents.

[soc_puppet]

I would absolutely buy that. I went digging through my "winter weather" tag on Dreamwidth to check for tips from when Texas got frozen over, and one of them was to eat extra carbs, fats, and proteins, since that's what your body needs when it's cold. I can easily see those cravings reflected in restaurant sales.