Let's get something straight right now.
I got up at 7:00 yesterday morning - it was 38 degrees and there was snow on the ground. First snow of "the season". Yesterday's date was October 28. A storm is predicted for today overnight into tomorrow - 6 to 10 inches of snow. It is snowing right now. Today is October 29, in case you lost track.
I would like to refer back to comments made in this very blog about the unbearable length of winter. This is directed to those who still cling to the belief that winter starts on December 21 and ends on March 21. Bullshit. Obviously this winter began on October 28. If you persist on believing that it will end on March 21, that is still 145 days of winter. And you know, you know deep down in your frozen bones, that winter will not be even close to ending on March 21.
I'm telling you right now I am not going to be able to deal with the winter of 2011/2012. I thought maybe I could impose some of the discipline and focus I have developed this year to help me to deal with this crap mentally. I was wrong. I was furious to see snow on the ground yesterday, and I guarantee you that each shovel full of goddamn snow that I heave tomorrow will be punctuated with the foulest of vulgarities.
Many years ago I performed an experiment. It was somewhere around 2003-2004-2005 - I was still an accountant. I decided that since I am imprisoned in this hell, I would try to embrace winter. I decided that dealing with it was a state of mind and that my hatred and suffering could be overcome with a shift in attitude. I was woefully wrong. I would go outside on my breaks and inhale the icy air, tell myself it was invigorating and healthy. I would drive around on my lunch hour with the window opened a crack in an attempt to forge a peaceful relationship with the killing winter wind. What a complete waste of time. I froze my ass off.
I am prone to dramatic statements. You might hear me say that humans were not meant to be cold. I can admit that is not true 100% of the time. I talk to customers in the Booze Emporium who are excited about winter. Snowboarders, skiers, snowmobilers, snowshoe-ers. I will allow them their cold weather pursuits, misguided as they may seem to me. The honest truth is that some people can handle the cold, some cannot. I absolutely cannot. I would rather be forced to watch reality TV 24/7, than to be cold. In fact if you want to kill me quickly, tie me to a chair outside my picture window in January facing the TV in the living room tuned to reality shows. I will be dead in a matter of minutes.
This winter is going to make me very, very angry. I will have to kill someone; it may be my only release. We are supposed to be celebrating Craig's and Emily's birthdays tomorrow. A big family gathering. The dinner may be postponed because of the sheer horror of this weather event. Getting my family together is harder than trying to negotiate worldwide peace. We have to start six months in advance just to try to arrive at a mutually agreeable date. And I only have two kids. What in hell was it like for the Partridge Family?
But that's what winter does. It postpones, it cancels, it slides your car off the road, it kills your electricity and makes you freeze in your own house, it increases your cost of living through artificially inflated oil bills, it forces you to dump buckets of water into your toilet, it steals time out of your day through shovelling and hairy commutes that take twice as long as normal.
I will not go gentle into this good winter. I will rant and rave and fight back with every fiber of my being. I gotta find the ultimate blues joint where I can raise a glass of whiskey among fellow music enthusiasts and flip a defiant middle finger at the snow storm raging outside the ice encrusted windows. And then hop into my truck with the heater that barely functions and freeze my ass back home on dangerous roads in complete abandon.
There may be no celebration here tomorrow. If that is the case, there will be an inferno of focused anger directed towards evil winter that will set my yard on fire. And we will celebrate Craig's birthday and Emily's birthday on July 21, 2013, which will probably be the next time we can agree on a date.
I will never be free until I can afford to get the hell out of this prison for a couple of months every year. Arizona sun love.
I am accepting donations as we speak.
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