Casual Friday: Some don't like it hot

On Wednesday, Housing Services sent out its annual “seasonal notice.” No message so cruel has ever arrived under such innocent cover. Officially, the email reminds us that Columbia’s heating systems, now activated, may conspire with the fluctuating autumn temperatures to leave us uncomfortably warm. Unofficially, it says that we are entering that dreaded part of the year when the outside temperatures suggest sweaters, but indoor climates frequently turn the sweatered into the sweaty. We are left uncomfortable, gross, fainting from the heat, and, in an ironic twist, feeling anything but hot.

This experience is, sadly, a familiar one. The blustery days demand that we put on sweaters, boots, and adorable caps. It is cold outside, and so we layer. But layering is both form and function. We plan our outfits around these layers. And at the center of the layers—well, you know what we mean—is the sweater. It keeps us warm, yes, but it also keeps us fashion-forward. Sweaters are to autumn what scarves are to winter and lovely short-sleeved shirts are to summer. We can face the fall into fall because we are styling in our sweaters, which we are able to wear comfortably because the weather is chilly.

But the heat is on indoors, forcing us to peel back the layers, leaving a stinking onion of an outfit underneath. The alternative—to suffer for our style—is to become sweaty and uncomfortable in the name of fashion. We thus embark on the demented dance of adding and subtracting articles of clothing, again and again, until the mere act of taking off and putting on our blasted sweaters has us overheated (where’s the freaking head hole?).

We want to be as cool as the temperature, and yet our fuzzy boots in the 80-degree Hamilton classrooms—a conspiracy of sorts between nature and Housing’s nurture—prevent that dream from ever being realized. In short, here is our seasonal notice to the fluctuating temperatures: We want autumn to feel like autumn so that we can wear our sweaters comfortably. We want to know which season this is, in and out of doors.