To all non-minnesotans bitching about the cold, I say this: suck on it.
Until you have to wear long underwear beneath your pants when going outside because pants alone aren’t enough to prevent frostbite on your thighs, don’t talk to me about cold.
I once again have the “butch because I live someplace cold” thing going on. Yay! =)
I was slightly cold yesterday wearing only a t-shirt, and wished I had someone to cuddle with on the couch. I think I deserve some sympathy here….
: )
Just ’cause we have sense enough to live somewhere where it isn’t normal for you to freeze solid walking from house to car… 😉
Bah, the cold just drives away the dumb and lazy people so only the smart and industrious remain.
Are you calling yourself industrious? 😉
In terms of my own frivolous misguided goals, yes.
And from what I hear, supporting oneself with full-time employment is less common among my age bracket in, say, southern California.
I once again have the “butch because I live someplace cold” thing going on.
You know, I’ve tried to take that stance before, but for some reason *I* can never quite pull it off.
I don’t know, I often describe you as butch.
…
Oh no, wait, I often describe you as liking butches.
My bad. 🙂
I’m honored and touched to know that you’re talking so much about me!
Wait, you mean you weren’t butch before going to MN? *blink blink*
I never really think of myself as butch or femme, really. More exhaperated with gender roles. =)
You’re actually a really good blend of both.
heh. that was pittsburgh this morning. 😛
It could be worse. At least you no longer live in CA where the locals complain about how “freezing” it is when the temperature drops below 65 degrees…
Sheesh.
Garrison Keillor refers to this as “boasting rights”. One of the best things about moving to Minnesota is that nobody I know anywhere else in the lower 48 can ever complain to me about how cold it is. Sometimes they try, but then they stop themselves and say, “Oh, I guess you know about the cold.” “The cold?” I say, “You mean when the crystalline snow crunches and squeaks beneath your boots, and the clear cold sky extends infinitely into the distance, and the screan doors cry out with a metallic yelp when you open them and your car engine complains like a whiny child and your tires freeze solid in their slightly-asymmetric parked shape (thunk thunk thunk)? When clouds of vapor form around your wet hair when you leave the house in the morning, forming actually hoarfrost on each individual strand? You mean cold?”
And they never bring it up again.
I feared the cold before I moved here, but my first winter contained one of those stream-of-record-breaking-days we have every few years and I lived through it. “The laws of nature change below -20F” I explained to a Boston friend. “No,” he replied (MIT-geek that he was), “the laws of nature are constant. That’s why they are called laws. You just had the opportunity to observe some of them in action.” Yes!
It’s as says above: The winter here is a weeding out process. We who remain are butch indeed. And we all own long underwear and we all own warm hats and we all know more about vapor lock than any human being should have to. “But aren’t you cold?” say my wimpy friends from warmer climes when I stay outside without a coat while they scurry to their warm living rooms and bundle themselves in massive down fortresses. “Yes,” I say, “I’m cold, and that’s uncomfortable. But it’s a discomfort I’m used to.”
Butch, butch, butch. Even me. That’s how powerful it is.
hindu-kush mountains in January.
get some.
-DS
Hats off to you, buddy. Forgive me if I don’t rush to follow your example.
It was 2°F when I went into work this morning. That’s cold enough to make your snot freeze.
I hate cold. It’s below 40F, I’m peeved. The further down it goes, the worse it is.
I’m already running from the house to the car and back. I can’t wait to climb into bed tonight and pile on the blankets. Cooooold!
No, I wouldn’t survive up there. Ever. I did it for a week, it SUCKED. You’re a better man than me, Charlie Brown.
It was colder than that last time I was in NYC! So hah! (I mean, the time before last – last time was in August.)
But it’s true, when I was in Boston on the same trip, and they had 50-year record lows and closed all the schools because of a 5 minute frostbite warning, my boyfrined said that was no fair, because in Madison they wouldn’t close school unless it got to a 30 second frostbite warning. Somehow the way the gulf stream swoops down below the great lakes makes everything so much colder around there.
I could say I lived in one of the few populated places that is colder than Minnesota, but I only lived in Edmonton for the first five years of my life, so I don’t really know cold. California has made me soft.
i remember during last year’s blackout, mayor bloomberg said to ‘think of friday as a snow day’.
a friend said ‘so, what, everyone has to go to work, and everyone has to go to school?’
(new york doesn’t really have snow days, even when it snows 🙂