Madeline the Edifying (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zdashamber) wrote2007-12-29 12:39 am
zdashamber) wrote2007-12-29 12:39 am
Entry tags:
In which I am vaguely delirious from a brain too cold
You know that feeling, when your hands are so cold that they can't tell what temperature the water you're running over them is, just that it's quite different, kind of peppery? I do. In other news, I'm back in California!
I just did a deep exhale and saw my breath. It's a repeatable phenomenon. And, let me note, this is with my 400 watt space heater cranked to the max for the past six hours. The internet says the outside temperature is 6 C... I just had Google convert that from 43 F: apparently after working in a lab for five years, I find it much easier to think of non-viable temperatures in celcius. Stuff that arrives on dry ice to be refridgerated, for instance, says on the bottle to store it at 4-8 C. The readout on the glass-front refridgerator in my lab shows it running at 4-6; same with the cold room where I'd rather not be sorting out plates of DNA samples for minutes on end. I'm not a huge fan of celcius, because the difference between 68 and 70 F is major, and yet people still screw with the thermostat... I have this fear that on a celcius thermostat you'd get people claiming it wasn't no thang to bump it from 21 to 19 C. Bastards! Anyway, I stick with F for high temperatures, but when it gets down to the question of "how close is stuff to freezing, how long would I survive if I was in water," it's very convenient to have a scale where water freezes at 0. (Interested in death by hypothermia in water? I found this neat website just now with charts and suggestions. Ah, that H.E.L.P. position... It's like they're looking through the monitor... And here, at 5 C in water, you have 20 minutes to unconsciousness, which is longer than I'd thought...)
I just found the thermometers. The house seems to be at 9 C. My room is perhaps 10 C.
But this is a post about the bright side! The interesting thing is that a year or maybe two ago, after 8 years in California, something in my body finally ticked over, and I because much more comfortable in low temperatures. It might have been picking up another 5 pounds, in which case, hell, I could do with another 10... It might be some sort of proteomic/genetic adaption... The fricking natives of this state wander around in shorts, oblivious to the death the Pacific Ocean wishes to visit on humanity. Anyway, when I went back to Colorado recently, I was cruising around in t-shirts in situations where everyone else in the house was in sweatshirts, and some cold at that. And honestly doing fine.
So these days being in a fleece hat, gloves, a pashmina scarf, wool slippersocks, fleece pants, and a sweatshirt are enough to keep me almost sane and active here; as opposed to the past, when I'd have to add a wool dressing gown on top of all that, and at that only last for about two hours instead of the four I can pull now.
The gloves are actually a new thing... I've been wearing thin gloves for the past few weeks, roughly since it got down to frigid here, but I could only do one hand because I couldn't mouse on the laptop's touchpad through the glove. Today I stopped off at the drugstore and happened to find some knit gloves for $3 a pair, which was cheap enough to make an experiment of cutting the tip of a finger off. So far, it's working out great. Hands still with some feeling, and a stylish cyperpunk look. Well, at least to the hands. Anyway, gives me insight on why cyberpunk hackers are always with the fingerless gloves: they need to type, but it's a future noir world and even the people doing well can't afford to heat their house.
I live there now! Yay!
...I blame hypothermia for any oddnesses you may detect in the tone and composition of this message.
Oh, and the other associated bright side/measurement thing: today I popped over to Home Depot on my lunch break and bought some 4'x4'x.75" styrofoam panels, with the idea of blocking off my windows with them in case it would add another degree or two to my room. Alas, I had more hope than anything else when it came to how I would put them in my car... No way 4'x4' stiff sheets were going in. So I schlepped the panels by foot the mile to work, then walked back and collected my car from the Hone Depot parking lot. I seem to walk at about 3 1/3 miles per hour when swinging along pretty good. Two miles was a bit more than I'm accustomed to walk at a stretch, but not so much more as to screw me up. Anyway, with luck there will be a time this weekend when it's light out and there's very little wind and no rain, and I'll walk the 3.5 miles from work to home with the panels... Eh, maybe I can tape them to the car instead. Styrofoam is light. Or bring the bike, inside the car, in a sort of transportation terducken, to see if there's some way to rig a sling on the bike to bring the insulation home...
Right, well! Someday soon, I hope to report on a vaguely sortof maybe even a bit warm room full of styrofoam crumbs.
Ah, now it's late enough that my body's temperature requirements have dropped. Thermoregulation: It's the simple pleasures.
I just did a deep exhale and saw my breath. It's a repeatable phenomenon. And, let me note, this is with my 400 watt space heater cranked to the max for the past six hours. The internet says the outside temperature is 6 C... I just had Google convert that from 43 F: apparently after working in a lab for five years, I find it much easier to think of non-viable temperatures in celcius. Stuff that arrives on dry ice to be refridgerated, for instance, says on the bottle to store it at 4-8 C. The readout on the glass-front refridgerator in my lab shows it running at 4-6; same with the cold room where I'd rather not be sorting out plates of DNA samples for minutes on end. I'm not a huge fan of celcius, because the difference between 68 and 70 F is major, and yet people still screw with the thermostat... I have this fear that on a celcius thermostat you'd get people claiming it wasn't no thang to bump it from 21 to 19 C. Bastards! Anyway, I stick with F for high temperatures, but when it gets down to the question of "how close is stuff to freezing, how long would I survive if I was in water," it's very convenient to have a scale where water freezes at 0. (Interested in death by hypothermia in water? I found this neat website just now with charts and suggestions. Ah, that H.E.L.P. position... It's like they're looking through the monitor... And here, at 5 C in water, you have 20 minutes to unconsciousness, which is longer than I'd thought...)
I just found the thermometers. The house seems to be at 9 C. My room is perhaps 10 C.
But this is a post about the bright side! The interesting thing is that a year or maybe two ago, after 8 years in California, something in my body finally ticked over, and I because much more comfortable in low temperatures. It might have been picking up another 5 pounds, in which case, hell, I could do with another 10... It might be some sort of proteomic/genetic adaption... The fricking natives of this state wander around in shorts, oblivious to the death the Pacific Ocean wishes to visit on humanity. Anyway, when I went back to Colorado recently, I was cruising around in t-shirts in situations where everyone else in the house was in sweatshirts, and some cold at that. And honestly doing fine.
So these days being in a fleece hat, gloves, a pashmina scarf, wool slippersocks, fleece pants, and a sweatshirt are enough to keep me almost sane and active here; as opposed to the past, when I'd have to add a wool dressing gown on top of all that, and at that only last for about two hours instead of the four I can pull now.
The gloves are actually a new thing... I've been wearing thin gloves for the past few weeks, roughly since it got down to frigid here, but I could only do one hand because I couldn't mouse on the laptop's touchpad through the glove. Today I stopped off at the drugstore and happened to find some knit gloves for $3 a pair, which was cheap enough to make an experiment of cutting the tip of a finger off. So far, it's working out great. Hands still with some feeling, and a stylish cyperpunk look. Well, at least to the hands. Anyway, gives me insight on why cyberpunk hackers are always with the fingerless gloves: they need to type, but it's a future noir world and even the people doing well can't afford to heat their house.
I live there now! Yay!
...I blame hypothermia for any oddnesses you may detect in the tone and composition of this message.
Oh, and the other associated bright side/measurement thing: today I popped over to Home Depot on my lunch break and bought some 4'x4'x.75" styrofoam panels, with the idea of blocking off my windows with them in case it would add another degree or two to my room. Alas, I had more hope than anything else when it came to how I would put them in my car... No way 4'x4' stiff sheets were going in. So I schlepped the panels by foot the mile to work, then walked back and collected my car from the Hone Depot parking lot. I seem to walk at about 3 1/3 miles per hour when swinging along pretty good. Two miles was a bit more than I'm accustomed to walk at a stretch, but not so much more as to screw me up. Anyway, with luck there will be a time this weekend when it's light out and there's very little wind and no rain, and I'll walk the 3.5 miles from work to home with the panels... Eh, maybe I can tape them to the car instead. Styrofoam is light. Or bring the bike, inside the car, in a sort of transportation terducken, to see if there's some way to rig a sling on the bike to bring the insulation home...
Right, well! Someday soon, I hope to report on a vaguely sortof maybe even a bit warm room full of styrofoam crumbs.
Ah, now it's late enough that my body's temperature requirements have dropped. Thermoregulation: It's the simple pleasures.
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That's it exactly. I have been trying to figure out how to describe that feeling, and you nailed it. Peppery.
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That was in April, in RI, many moons ago. Oh, how we laughed! Once our lips could move again.
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You had a hood, right?
We cheated a bit, since our dive truck had a hot water hose. So we taped everything up then piped hot water in before and after the dive. And we had hot liquids as soon as we got out. But still, it was a great way to do the open water dives, because if you can learn scuba in those conditions (and five feet of vis), you can dive anywhere and enjoy it. :)
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On that same (first open-water) dive I got caught in a rip current, lost one of my fins, was separated from my dive partner / husband, and ended up in the path of the oncoming ferry.
After that dive, nothing fazes me.
But next time I do cold-water diving, I'm going to take a dry suit.
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It's calm because ice doesn't move that much.
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Well, I say 'kicks', but it's more whimpers.
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The styrofoam panel I've fit into one window so far seems to be working pretty well, though.