it’s really cold in chicago.

and everywhere else, apparently.

i have found myself, over the years, spending an unhealthy amount of time being mad at winter.

like i don’t know it’s coming.

like it snuck up on me and i want to give it 4 knuckles to the face just for being a real SOB who never gave me forewarning that it was hovering on the horizon. even though it always is. like motherlovin’ clockwork.

i took a walk today to find coffee. among other things. about 20 minutes down the street, i couldn’t feel my kneecaps.

on the corner of division and something else there is a bank with one of those electronic signs that flashes back and forth between time and temperature.

it said negative 10 degrees.

celsius, i assume, although if you’d told me otherwise, i probably would have bought into it.

why does anyone refer to anything in celsius? can we stop doing that please? when was the last time you read negative 10 degrees celsius and immediately knew how cold it really was?

[nerd squads need not respond. because you will make me feel stupid.]

not that it really mattered, at all, because cold is just cold at that point, but had i found it completely necessary to figure out what had now obnoxiously peaked my curiosity level (and what the bank failed to help me out with in its watch-me-pull-the-wool-over-your-eyes-and-not-tell-you-what-i-know-you’re-dying-to-know kind of way) i would have needed do this:

[°F] = [°C] × ⁹⁄₅ + 32

yeah, okay, whatever.

regardless . . .

i think I’m gonna change my tune for a while, try it on for size, and see how it feels.

you see, there is a solution for everything.

like wearing 6 pairs of socks at a time.

and while your shoes won’t likely fit whatsoever, at least you will be able to feel the end points of your lower extremities.

which is a pretty great thing.

as a girl who spent 22 years living south of the mason-dixon line, snow was always somewhat of a novelty. something we wanted to bottle up and keep by our bedside year ‘round.

a northbound move and 2 ice-induced car accidents later (neither of which were my fault, in case you care or want to judge me for being a bad driver. which i am not.), i sorta started to see things in a different light. snow was the enemy after the initial bliss moments of untouched front yards, when it then settled in as nothing more than a royal.pain.in.my.ass.

not to mention dirty.

[say no to yellow.]

yesterday i ventured out to the walgreens around the corner to make a run for some electrolytes – in what appeared to be a blizzard even though by all real accounts it probably wasn’t. i have no background in meteorology. i haven’t a clue how much of the white stuff has to fall and how quickly it has to do so to constitute being a blizzard.

upon returning to the defrost setting of an indoor temperature which hovered right around cozy, my friend and host asked me “now how miserable was that?” . . . to which i replied, “it was actually really nice. it’s quiet and peaceful in the snow.” (to which he then replied “well, yeah, because no one is going outside!!” . . . which was true.)

but please note the change of tune. because that is the point of the diddy.

my dad (also known as father joe. even though his name is not joe. or anything remotely resembling joe. it’s tommy.) has this saying that he pulls out from time to time. and by time to time, i mean all the time:

“if you can’t stand the pain, get out of the rain.”

now i don’t really know what that means. and it’s entirely possible that he just likes it because it rhymes.

but i guess what it means to me is this:

until i purchase that second home in the south pacific for retreat purposes between the months of november and march, i should just get over it.

love the cold. embrace the cold. be friends with the cold.

and buy more socks.