The Good Heat

My office has a Daikin heating and cooling unit that is electric. It does fine work in any season. But this winter has me longing for maximum coziness. A fireplace or wood-burning stove would be really great. In the absence of those, I drove the keitora to Super Value this cold and rainy morning and bought a non-electric kerosene stove. It is the kind that kept me warm my first winter in Japan, when I lived in a freezing apartment near the boat races in Fuchu, and later when I lived in a freezing apartment above a karaoke bar next to Fuji Station (which imparted a lifelong love of enka music).

The greatest of the many virtues of the kerosene stove is the thick, enveloping, permeating, comforting heat that it emits. I do not know the science (of course I do have Derek Theories™️), but it is a vastly different and superior heat than comes from the electric varieties.

It also requires no electricity. Usually that doesn’t matter, but power outages and disasters happen sometimes and it is good to have one heat source that is usable as long as there is kerosene.

The smell of kerosene gets a bad rap in some circles, but it has entered the realm of nostalgia for me, so like the paper factory smell of Fuji City, I savor it when it is present. As far as the air one breathes, the kerosene stove cannot be great, but with good enough ventilation it doesn’t worry me much.

I am very fond of the fact that this stove has been on the market and in millions of homes for at least four decades without a major change to its outward appearance. The faux wood finish is already a major plus, after I thought about it for twenty seconds. The removable kerosene tank has been improved, though, to prevent little drips from getting out when the tank is filled and replaced into the stove unit. And I imagine other safety features have been added too.

Now check out that kettle. Oh yeah.

I told my wife I would be buying a kerosene stove for the office, and would place a kettle atop it for the humidifiying effect and other ancillary pleasures that include faint creaking and gurgling sounds. She declared me 終わった meaning “over,” which is to say that my transformation into an old man is complete and final. We both laughed, but if she wants to claim that, I will have to also heat sake on it and spend my cozy time nearby in a haze. I may sip cups of hot water from it too. We will see.

BREAKING: I did sip a cup of hot water that afternoon and it was good.

Now that the stove is in and burning and a bit of stream is emitting from the kettle and Bremer/McCoy tunes are playing, I feel very cozy. As if in the kind of hut for which the office is named, hydda.