13 November 2001
Last year: "If it takes one chicken one day to lay one egg, how long would it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of dill pickle?"
I'm not cold, I'm just a little shy.
The first thing you have to understand is that this is not an especially cold area. We get snow perhaps three or four times a year. I've been known to wear short-sleeved shirts on Christmas morning, and argue with my mother whether the romance of a fire in the fireplace outweighs making the room more than eighty degrees.
Of course, you also have to understand that despite this being "The South" it is not balmy year-round. It does get cold.
When I was a kid, the cold didn't bother me. I went without a jacket right up into December, even when I was standing on the bus stop for ten minutes every morning. It simply didn't get to me.
In college, I only required a light jacket. I remember looking at a bank's display one morning on the way in to VA Tech (where it was considerably colder, being inland and at a higher altitude) and realizing that it was 40 out, and me comfortable in only a jacket and driving gloves.
This morning, I couldn't get warm even in the shower, despite having the hot water cranked up until I was nearly scalding myself. The bits of me that the hot water was falling on were fine, but everything else was freezing.
Of course, I don't think it was entirely me. When I got out of the shower, the bathroom mirror was still entirely un-steamed.
But I got up one day this weekend and noticed that my big toe was purple. And even more disturbing, my feet didn't feel the slightest bit cold.
My mother has notoriously poor circulation. Her fingernails have been blue for years, the flesh around them pale and yellow. She always insists that it feels normal, that she's not cold - but it makes the rest of us wince.
Part of that, no doubt, is that she smokes. But I'm ready to believe that some of it is genetic, and now I'm watching my fingernails almost obsessively.
Part of my cold, I'm sure, is psychosomatic. I don't like waking up before the sun rises. All I really want to do is crawl back into my cozy warm bed and go back to sleep for another few hours. So I'm shivering - an excuse to crawl back under the covers.
For the past several weeks, I've been cold at work, from the time I walk in until around lunchtime. This, despite the apparent comfort of my co-workers.
And it seems worse than it was last year, especially given the time of year. Is it colder this year than last year? Am I falling apart in my old age? Or is that, too, an illusion?
Ah, to heck with it. I'm going to go make some nice hot tea.
Word of the Day:
cryptic - 1: secret, occult; 2a: having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning, mysterious; b: marked by an often perplexing brevity; 3: serving to conceal
Song of the Day:
Pretty Fly For A Rabbi (Weird Al Yankovic)
Currently Reading:
- Infinity+