So, I shower poorly. I'm not exaggerating: I spend probably 45 minutes - 1 hour in the shower every morning. I also turn the lights off when I shower...And sometimes I sit down. In the shower. If I need to get to work at 8:00 and my commute is 15 minutes, I'll wake up at 6:00 just so I have time for this process. If you were to share a house with me, you'd probably think that someone accidentally left the shower on overnight because none of the lights are on and it's been running for like thirty minutes - Nah, just me. Sitting, thinking, drinking coffee! First, I can't help it - Literally the act of stepping into a shower relaxes me so much that I completely forget any hurry I was in and will end up zoning out for probably 15 minutes. Second, this is terrible for my skin! Third, it's turned into a daily meditative time for me, which is really the one upside to this whole practice! I feel like I'm constantly being told to practice mindfulness, but my weird ablutions pretty much guarantee that I've got at least 30 good minutes of unguided, uninterrupted thought before I get started on any given day. I should probably just move to a Scandinavian country and invest in a sauna. At least then it'd be socially acceptable! (P.S. I obviously don't pay utilities, and I'm pretty sure my last landlord hated me for my water bill)
Speaking as a fan of hydrotherapy, you should probably figure out a way to get your meditative time without using that much water. There will come a time where you have to pay for it. Your bathtub probably holds 80 gallons. With you in it, it's probably 40 gallons. Your shower flows 2.5 gallons per minute; half an hour's worth of showering is like taking two baths, or 285 liters of water. An hour's worth of showering eclipses this entire graphic: I say this as someone who takes up to three showers a day this time of year: for sure 1 after biking 16 miles to work in 100 degree heat, for sure another after biking 16 miles home in 80 degree heat, and if I have to do any bike maintenance before going to work, 1 before I leave. And I say this as a massive proponent of Russian spas who has an appointment in a sensory deprivation tank in three hours. But I also say this as a fellow traveler in a world that is running out of water. I read The Hunt for Red October when I was in 6th grade or so. It exposed me to the concept of "Navy showers" - where you get wet, turn off the water, soap up, turn on the water and get out. I did that for years. And while I can definitely appreciate sitting there with the water blasting you in the back of the neck (and while I can say with no hesitation that without cold water blasting my head every day I'd have long since died of heat stroke), it's a sensation you can find elsewhere.
That onsen article was a nice read. Honestly, if I could do that every day I'd be in heaven. You have some good points - I'm not likely to get much better about long showers, but I'm thinking it might be time to set an alarm or limit myself somehow. There are other things I can do in the morning to get that same meditative experience (like zebra2's coffee routine) I'm wondering if it's easier to not feel guilty about long showers because I'm living over the Ogallala Aquifer , and virtually all of the water-use in my state is for agriculture. You're in LA, right? I can see why you might be more cognizant of water usage! The ogie aquifer isn't going to be around forever at its current rates of depletion. I should be doing my part to make it last. Thanks for the reminder, klein :)
I wonder someone makes a shower head with a very low flow mist setting - just enough of a mist to keep the shower steamy. Quick googling doesn't turn up what I was thinking of though. And the whole room might need to be mopped if mist was running that long...
I've literally never seen a steam shower before, they seem like a godsend ...I think I might just buy one of these and embrace the ablution black-market
Shower panels are kinda weird. They started with the Kohler Bodyspa, which was an expensive and custom install because it's effectively a jacuzzi tub deconstructed and splayed out in a shower enclosure so that it sprays on you rather than recirculating the water. Most people didn't want to bother with that but they'd seen something like it in a magazine so the Chinese jumped the fuck on it. To get a real effect you need more water pressure than your shower or tub has. This is what the loud grinding pumps of excess maintenance are about. If you just want a shower head that kinda sprays in all sorts of directions depending on which knobs you twist, they're cheaper if you deal with them direct. Either way, it's worth a visit to a plumbing store so that you can see that the $500-$900 ones are kinda cheaper than you'd expect something that expensive to be, but that the $20,000 versions are insanely overpriced by any reasonable metric.
"The study found that if farmers and other users could cut the amount of groundwater pumping by 20 percent immediately — that is, the cuts that farmers in the northwest have proposed — that could extend the life of the aquifer significantly. Farming wouldn't have to peak until the 2070s, and it would fall more gently thereafter." You live in the middle of what was called the Great American Desert prior to marketers at the railroads encouraging colonization and farming in order to exterminate the Comanche by denying them rangeland. The Ogallala is basically the Aral Sea except it's underground; it's being drained just as quickly. Things are going to change radically and in your lifetime.
Not at all, man. Americans suck about thinking about water. I want you to find a routine that won't have to change when all of a sudden, decades too late, public opinion forces us all to swab off with reusable baby wipes. Again, I'm with you on the showers. Just pointing out that from an environmental standpoint you're probably less than a decade away from being considered a coal roller by the more strident corners of the world. Showers are big money. Most every marquee manufacturer has some form of high-flow shower that relies heavily on a recycle tank. There are solutions to this and if you pick onw rather than being forced into one you'll have a better experience. I will also point out that this is like the third time in a month I've had to reassure you that you're not being picked on.
Yeah, I'm planning on cutting back on showers. Gonna try and find something to replace that habit; I value the meditative time in the morning, but I gotta find a more responsible way to get into that mindset. Re: Me feeling like I'm getting picked on...I think our baseline form of communication is different, and that's why I'm left feeling that way. When I'm trying to prove a point, I write stuff like your last comment because I'm not a super aggressive person and that's about all I can muster - simple statements of fact to drive my point home. I dunno man. This is an issue with me, sorry for constantly dragging you into it. I'm probably gonna get a tattoo on my mouse-hand that says "kleinbl00 isn't being mean, you're just being sensitive".
I'm probably gonna get a tattoo on my mouse-hand that says "kleinbl00 isn't being mean, you're just being sensitive".
What do they mean by visible tattoos? From what I understand, you have to be naked so any tattoo is pretty much visible then. They only "not visible" tattoo I can think of are if you have one inside your mouth? I'm just being picky, I think it's just a clumsy way of saying no tattoos.Note: if you have visible tattoos, you should not use an onsen. This is a pretty strict etiquette, so don’t try it on or you are likely to create offence.
I've known any number of people with tattoos inside their lips (both kinds of lips), ass-cracks, behind the ear, you name it. Tattoos have a criminal history in Japan and considering the place is basically a showcase for tradition, onsen can be the site of culture-clash.
I used to take really long showers as well. I started taking showers before I go to bed and they got much shorter. I think part of the reason I cut them short was roommates. I sympathize with your pleasure but it's not something I indulge in anymore. If it makes you happy, don't feel guilty about it. We all need pleasure to make the pain of life bearable.