Hey kids!
Imagine this entire post in an upbeat, kindergarten teacher tone of voice! with lots of upward inflection! i can't succumb to the exclamation point demon for the whole post, so help a girl out!
god, that's exhausting
speaking of exhausting
Winter has, finally, unequivocally, come. But it has come without brutality. It's 16 degrees and sunny - brisk but beautiful. We had our first real snowstorm last night, and now the streets are clean and white and pure. It won't last. It will get grey and colder and cruel (update - Sunday - 5 degrees and gray - yes I changed the spelling). I like planning, and winter requires some hardcore planning, especially if you fear cold and the absence of sun-on-skin as I do.
1) Put on some makeup, pile up your hair, and at least try to do somethin with what you got there.
I know you feel like a slug, and you've gained (insert weight here) pounds since the first day the thermometer dropped below freezing, but suck it up. I have learned, from watching What Not to Wear (the British version, years ago, I was maybe a wee bit addicted; this may be why I gave up television) that looking good makes you feel good! Many of you (can you call a fraction of 7 readers "many"?) may not need this superficial boost. Maybe your outward appearance has no influence on your inward exuberance, and fuck you very much Mr/Ms Spirituallyadvanced C. Perfect. But we all know I have issues, in this case body image issues, so I can speak from personal experience. Seriously, folks, if I go more than a week solid in bulky jeans and a bulky sweater I start to feel like a middle-aged midwestern woman (wait...). If you're a woman (or a man) who shaves your legs, pick up that razor at least twice a month, even if you're the only one who'll know. Hide a sexy dress under those layers. Put some color on those painful, chapped lips. Find an excuse to dress up, even if it's just for a play at the militantly grungy Bedlam, a drink a the BLB or a kitchen-based birthday party.
And while we're on socializing...
2) Get the fuck out of the house. Yes, there is the option of holing up in your apartment until the snow begins to melt in (pleasegod) March. You can get a lot of reading done. You can get to know your own body odor intimately. You can try new comfort food recipes. You can sleep 14 hours a day. You can have great decadent nights of drinking and moviewatching, guilt erased with the excuse of "winter". You can indulge in your depression and write reams of dark, deep poetry. But when you emerge in the spring you will be fat, alcoholic, socially inept from disuse, you'll realize what an abysmal writer you really are (if you can even decipher the penmanship), you will have cancelled out the useful, fascinating information you gathered out of books with the brain cells you killed watching television and drinking, and your muscles will have atrophied. It's a long road back to humanity.
3) On drinking...
Yes, keep some alcohol in the house, but not enough to get you plastered. What quantity this amounts to depends, of course, on your resistance level. Perhaps you stop at a fifth of scotch. If you're anything like me, 2 shots worth of vodka or 1/2 bottle of wine is enough. Why deprive yourself this elixir? Yes, you want to have enough to warm you up or ease yourself to sleep, but force yourself to leave the house to get drunk. Preferably with friends. The inevitable depression that comes with the depressant will be mitigated by the presence of caring fellow sufferers. Even if you go to a bar alone and drink yourself into obliviousness, it's better than passing out in your house in a pool of your own sick. Everyone's hibernating! You've been antisocial and have made no plans that will be conspicuously broken! No one will find you for months! They won't even know you're dead because the cold will keep you from stinking up the building! The cat will eat your face! Bundle up, open that door, and get out.
4) While you're out ... exercise!
If you're one of those freaks who enjoys winter sports, more power to you. Skate, ski, snowshoe, curl (shiver), whatever. I may give in one of these years, but, see, there's this problem: I hate being cold. Walking on 40 degrees days? Awesome. Biking in 10 degree weather? Fucking torture. If you're like me and you can afford a gym membership, take an aerobics class (not my bag) or jump on one of those elliptical machines (also not my bag, but it's semi-private, and I get to pick the music). I've done this every morning for the last few weeks, and so far neither I nor anyone I work with has died - success! Also, that little spurt of depression last weekend? - no exercise. If you can't afford a club, do jumping jacks, scrub the kitchen floor, beat the shit out of a pillow, whatever it takes to get that heartrate up.
5) Project! (emphasis on the first syllable)
Paint a room, knit a scarf, learn an instrument, put together a 5000 piece puzzle, clean your bathroom with a Q-tip. Make sure it's something in which you can see progress. Time stops in winter, and humidity seems as far away as the Sahara. It will end. Mark time with stitches, color, new chords. The feeling of accomplishment will also lighten your mood for at least ten minutes.
6) go to Nicaragua
what a great idea. I think I'll try that. Oh, wait. I already am. In 12 days. Not that I'm counting.
7) If you're someone who hates the holiday season, bow out.
Family pressuring you? Tough shit. We're adults now. We can do whatever we want. Think it's impossible to avoid? It's not. I have found that if you don't shop and don't watch television, the corporate Christmas glut is virtually invisible. Think you have to buy gifts? You don't. The economy is tanking! Everything we buy is made by starving 8 year old children in China, sitting in vats of cancerous chemicals eating melamine! Don't care? Pretend that you do. Turn the guilt on the guilt-giver. It holds the additional benefit of allowing you to feel superior to others. That alone can keep you warm for a night or two.
8) Have sex!
This is not a viable option for all of us, but it's exercise (if it's any good), it creates endorphins (if it's any good), and it's social (ditto). Or make a trip to the Smitten Kitten. If you go on foot and a salesperson helps you find something special, it will also fulfill all three goals.
9) Read
As with postfringeitis, there are several ways to go with this activity. Pick up a good newspaper or topical magazine if you want the worries of the world to smack you out of your own self-absorption. Same with a good, dark book. I've recently found Cormack McCarthy to be quite apt in this genre. Learn something about the history of your own country or the politics of another. You can also go the escapist route with fluff (not my bag), or just some plain old good lit (I've got Jumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz on my current shortlist).
Music works in much the same way - dark stuff to dwell in the grayness, upbeat to get you out of it. Perhaps you like blasting classic Prince and dancing around the living room. Whatever flips your biscuit, dude. I wouldn't know anything about that.
10) Eat your fruits and veggies
Yes, they've probably eaten 10 times their weight in the gas used to transport them to your local grocery, but sometimes you have to look out for number one. Really, how much can you do for the good of the world and the environment if your consumption of sugar, bread, and meat keeps you sluggishly collapsed at home playing bunnyfight on facebook?
11) Do not, I repeat, do not sit in bed at night going through pictures and videos of lost friends, lost family or, particularly, dead, perfect dogs at night. I'm not saying I have any personal experience with the latter, of course. But, scientifically speaking, your body can't afford to lose any more moisture. Just. Don't. You want to torture yourself? Save it for the Spring.
12) Take pride in your strength and resilience. Surviving the walk to the bus stop is an accomplishment. It takes all the warmth and endurance your body can muster to live in this inhospitable clime. (Oh, and moral fibers - preferably wool.) Even if you crawl into bed and sleep for 12 hours in a depression-induced minicoma once home, you have endured, goddamnit! You have stood in 8 below windchill for minutes on end! Satan doesn't scare you. You welcome him in for a cup of tea. Oh, and you brought a little hellfire? Why, don't mind if I do.
Keep hope alive. The spirit of global warming is strong. This too shall pass. Good luck and good on ya, mates.
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