Winter Wonderland?

For the foremost part of my childhood/adolescence/teenage years in California I reminisced fondly about real winter. I remember the bitter disappointment of my first snowless Christmas, I remember the joy and novelty I felt seeing snow whenever we went to Chicago for New Years', and I remember the excitement I felt when the weather first started to dip in fall of 2007 when I had finally moved back to the East Coast.

Here's the thing. I WAS SO WRONG! I may have been born with cold weather - hell, my birth certificate says Chicago for God's sake, and not for nothing did I spend 6 years in CANADA of all places - but I was certainly, I must now concede, not bred with cold weather. Winter, as I was brutally reminded 3 years ago during my first east coast winter in ELEVEN YEARS, is a very different animal when you a) are 8 and dressed by your mother, and therefore are b) driven everywhere and c) don't care that you look like a bright pink marshmallow.

After a surprisingly cold October yielded to a shockingly mild November faded to an initially freakishly warm December (61 degrees in New York City on December 1st), it is now COLD. I have officially forgotten what it feels like to feel warm. And though seeing your breath is festive, and it snowed a little on Monday which I loved, and yes, cold air really does smell more Christmasy, as it turns out, my rosy recollection was pretty much entirely wrong. I, in fact, hate cold weather.

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways:

- Losing feeling in my extremities within minutes of stepping outdoors. I have reasonably poor circulation in my hands and feet. Winter, as you might imagine, does not fix this.

- That my stupid smart phone is a stupid touch screen and thus from December-March, I face the choice of use my phone or retain mobility in my frozen fingers.

- Static. Static everywhere. Static everywhere all the time.

- Scary-tangled hair.

- The charming sensation of starting to sweat before you actually warm up when you sit your tightly bundled ass on a very heated subway car.

- That poor people, like yours truly, live in old apartments with poorly sealed windows and air conditioning units that let in abouuuut as much cold air as there is outside.

- How dry and itchy my face is all the time. Related, that my skin is so dry it STUNG to put perfume on today.

- Really, let's be honest: My Uggs are warm and comfortable but if someone's designed an uglier shoe besides Crocs, I've yet to see it. Catch is, NOTHING ELSE KEEPS MY FEET WARM.

- Having to breathe through my mouth because it stings my nose too much to breathe through it.

- The knowledge that there's no guarantee this will let up before April.

How'd you like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island indeed. Leon Redbone, I'm about ready to take you up on that now.