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Almost exactly four years ago, I read a newspaper article entitled "Chilled by Choice." It told of several different people who, for a variety of reasons, chose to go without heat. One was an engineer/landscape designer living in a stone house 7000 feet up in the Colorado mountains. She kept the pipes from freezing by letting the faucets drip,"15 to 30 drips a minute; any more than that causes an ice buildup and the dishes freeze in the sink.” Another was a Manhattan woman whose upstate NY getaway, an old one-room schoolhouse, didn’t have heat (although it had a wood-burning stove). She made regular winter trips there, and said that surviving the cold focused and clarified her mind.
I was in my home office at the time I read this. The room is heated, but it gets pretty chilly on cold days. I don’t find cold rooms clarifying. I don’t think well when I’m cold, and that puts me in a bad mood. So I shot off a letter to the writer, denouncing it all as “cold chic," although I admit that I wasn’t being entirely fair. But I still hold to one of the things I said: I hoped the people in the article used some of what they saved on heating bills to contribute to others – the ill, elderly, families with babies - who can’t afford to heat their homes properly - or at all.
I would have included Okiciyap, but I wasn't aware of it then. I'm aware of it now.
