Nil by Mouth

Winter Thoughts

So where were we? Thanksgiving’s passed. It’s December already. Instead of old Stevie Nicks and Neil Diamond there was bland Christmas music playing at The Academy Diner the other night. It’s quite literally freezing balls outside, at least that’s what people with balls have told me. (And now since i first started this last night, it’s snowing.) And it’s time for my winter funk. Yep, there’s nothing to do but bite your lip and run from one heated and dehydrated indoor climate to another. This year, i can count myself lucky on the one hand that i can spend the majority of my day not having to brave the weather by going anywhere crazy like a job. On the other hand, i can feel useless and unloved and mope around while sighing every half hour. Naturally i’ve chosen the latter. I’ve even been given a soundtrack for moping in the form of Radiohead. I never really listened to much Radiohead, despite all their press. Except that my best friend in high school made a watercolor in my, i think, senior year yearbook which had all the lyrics to the song Loser written over in red sharpie. I think it was supposed to be deep. It was cute.

So yes snow. I can’t lie, even though i feel like being thoroughly negative right now, it’s pretty. I’ve never been in this apartment during a snowstorm. So looking out the windows and seeing the white swirls, and the tree branched lined in white, and these particular streets covered with snow is new and exciting. (Not exciting is that i had today pegged for laundry.) There are two little boys outside who’ve been instructed by someone to shovel the sidewalk in front of their house. They keep running down the length of the sidewalk with the shovel and then collapsing in a giggling screaming heap. As much as i’m resisting, it’s warming my heart. I sometimes call my street Sesame Street because there are all these impossibly cute little kids that run around being impossibly cute all the time. There’s even an impossibly cute little dog that copies everything the kids do. Little kid runs down the street and collapses in giggling screaming heap, little kid’s little brother runs after him and collapses in gigging screaming heap, little dog runs after the two and jumps on the giggling screaming heap barking loudly. Several grumpy neighbors, myself included, look out windows and open doors to see what the racket’s all about. Several grumpy neighbors smile and find themselves in a better mood.

Tonight i’m going to make a nice pot of vin chaud for a few lucky folks, which unfortunately requires a trek outside to the liquor store and supermarket. But if anything can lift winter spirits it’s got to be hot booze. I’m supposed to meet another jobless friend to go sledding in the park this afternoon, but i will probably just watch. He’s already called me a no-fun-wuss for balking at the idea of rolling around and getting soaking wet in the 28 deg weather. It’s mostly that i don’t have the right gloves for this sort of thing, but maybe i can improvise somehow because i really might like to make a snowman.

• Dec 5