WTH

The other day I was chatting with a friend at work about the weather, and made the comment "I wouldn't be suprised if we have snow on the ground before Thanksgiving". Yes, it's been a rough year, weather-wise. But I would have certainly been suprised two days ago to see snow on the ground before Halloween.

And yet, tonight I drove in the snow. By the time I got home from work, the leaves were like small party favours filled with Italian Ice. Now, just a half hour later, the ground is covered. I'd post a picture, but I can't bring myself to even document this sad event.

By morning, nearly an inch of snow will cover the leaves on my lawn, and the trees, many still green amidst the orange and yellow, will be hanging low under the burden of white slush.

As I said, it's been a rough year, weather-wise. But dammit, I won't let it get me down. Yes, I still live in New England due to a long tragedy of errors starting with the loss of my job and subsequent (but likely unrelated) crash of the real estate market last Spring, but I have a job that I love and a bunch of great friends here. And I have an even better friend who lives down in warmer climates, who I will be visiting next week and enjoying hedonistic and alcoholic pleasures with down in the Florida Keys.

Who knows what the future brings? The possibilities are quite endless, the future is wide open, I alone control my destiny, and what has been a long, strange, and mostly wonderful trip so far is not likely even close to over.

In other news, my Tivo for some reason switched my TV while I was at work to the local Christian channel today to record something (God knows why it thought I'd be interested), so when I turned on the TV tonight to see what's up, I was greeted with some dude preaching about how lost we are in the world.

I don't feel lost. I feel like I am found. And that's a really nice place to be, despite the weather...

Edit:

We're All Going to Die

For the past 6 months, I've been working at a job where there is virtually nothing for me to do. I think that in all reality, like in the movie Office Space, I've done about 5 minutes of "real work" a day on average since I started here. Everyone else around me got laid off last week, but they kept me around - presumably because I wowed them with my mad skillz during those daily 5 minute periods. I know, amazing isn't it? The guys that were actually trying got let go, and I've been fucking around and they kept me on - and just offered to extend my contract through the end of the year. Mike Judge is a genius. As soon as the ice melts I'm going to go fishing and gut my catch on my desk wearing flip flops - or knock down my cubicle wall to have a better view.

Anyway, I've now inherited a small project that one of the now-unemployed consultants was working on, and was given 2 weeks to finish it. Happy to have some actual work to do, I hunkered down yesterday afternoon and got started, only to finish half of it by the end of the day. At this rate I'll be done by lunch and will have 8 days to sit around doing nothing. Again. So actually being given something to do hasn't affected my average daily "real work" time allotment much at all.

It gets worse when you reflect back over time. I've spent the past 2+ years getting paid to do things that were ultimately never used by my employers who paid me to build them. Through no fault of my own, I might add. The previous employer was a fuckwadded douche-tart moron who isn't running a business as much as a circle-jerk kiss-ass club of like-minded numb-nutted shitbags, and cut me loose right after I finished building a genre-busting enterprise system for him that could have revolutionized the industry - all because I didn't kiss his ass and stood up for myself and the guys that worked for me. My current employer cancelled the project I spent the past 6 months working 5 minutes a day on because of the economy (see previous post: "Don't Trust Whitey"). I'd be all broken up thinking that I've wasted the last two years of my life doing what amounted to a pile of fuck-all, but that work paid my bills and fueled my life, so it wasn't a complete waste. Unless of course I am a complete waste, which I am starting to increasingly think is entirely possible.

Here's the thing. I'm not the type of person who will have kids of my own, but I've always felt sort of a bond with humanity in general - like the future of mankind is something we're all investing in. So it all seemed worthwhile to a point - if I leave a positive impact on the world (through my work, my writing, my music, or whatever) then I am furthering humankind.

But lately, hearing about all the fucked up things we've done to the planet we live on, I have to wonder if it all matters anymore anyway. Increasing pollution causing melting polar caps contributing to rising sea levels means that possibly even before I die (assuming I live an average length life) some cities like New York, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Boston may be partially or completely submerged. Iran put a satellite in orbit yesterday, menaing that they now have the ability to deliver their nuclear weapons thousands of miles away. Pakistan and India, both also nuclear countries, are poking each other with sticks trying to get the other to drop their gloves first, Palestine is threatening to invade Jerusalem which would possibly start World War III, dogs and cats are living together - it's mass hysteria.

So why bother, I say. What if we aren't working towards something better, but we're just supposed to live the time we have on Earth how we want to - doing the things that make us happy, being with the people that make us feel good, and enjoying being here, instead of constantly worrying about what legacy we're leaving for the rest of humanity - made up of millions of people that don't give a shit about me, or you, or your mom.

Fuck your mother, fuck your father, fuck your brother, fuck your sister; fuck them all, I'm going to keep working my 5 minutes a day and try to save up enough energy to enjoy the time I have when I'm not locked in a stuffy box filling out timesheets and TPS reports. I'm going to do the things that I want to do and worry only about how my choices affect the few people that I love.

Humanity can piss off.

I need to find something else to listen to on the way to and from work besides NPR. It will be spring in a few months, and then I'll be listening to the roar of the wind past my helmet during my commute, so I've got that going for me. Now I'm off to search Google Maps for a nice tropical community to someday relocate to that's not too close to the water...

Eat a dick, Old Man Winter

I have two friends, we'll call them Brian and Mark. They live together in Florida (not as a couple, although those would be really stereotypical gay couple names, wouldn't they?), but come from New England. So, they are no strangers to the harsh winter weather we have up here, but I suspect that they've conveniently forgotten just how shitty it feels to live through it.

As I write this, my weather widget says that it's 61 in Florida - 29 here. I would imagine that down there they are bundled up and shivering and complaining about not being able to wear flip flops outside at night anymore, but they aren't suffering from the weather change so much as a lack of perspective. Here it was 29 all day today, even when the sun shone. Combine that with the wind and it felt like it was 374 degrees below zero. That's wind chill, bitches, and I'm not going to explain it to you because it has to be experienced to be understood.

So to remind those of you parked comfortably below the Mason-Dixon line what it's like up here this time of year, I've compiled a list of exactly what is so shitty about winter.

1) It's cold. I know that saying this while complaining about winter may sound redundant, but it's worth mentioning. Again. It's not chilly, nor is it breezy, and there isn't a "hint of freshness in the air". It's fucking freezing cold. It's not even Thanksgiving yet and my boogers froze in my nose during the 3 block walk from my car to the office this morning. That's not natural. Boogers should be soft and squishy and a little bit warm. The inside of my nose should not be an ideal place to mix a cocktail. I'm talking the kind of cold that settles into your bones and doesn't go away all day, no matter how much coffee you drink.

2) There's no sun. Well there is sun, but there might as well not be. First of all, it goes away at 4. This does me no good, since I have to be at work until well after 5. Driving home in the cold and dark sucks, thank you Federal Government and your stinky Daylight Saving plan. When there is sun, it's weak and soft and you can't feel what little warmth it generates on your skin because you're all bundled up away from the harsh cold air. All summer I was rosy and red from riding my motorcycle everywhere and spending every possible moment outdoors, but it's not even December yet and I'm already a sickly pale white color. In fact, I think my skin is starting to turn translucent. I'm beginning to look like a mushroom growing under a toilet seat in northern Siberia. If it keeps up at this rate, by January I'm going resemble one of those glowing fish with the weird lightbulb antennae that live in deep canyons all those miles underwater. Only without the cool lightbulb antennae.

3) Winter fashion sucks. The snow bunny fur hat look is super cool on hot babes, but apart from that it's a process just to get dressed to go out and get the mail. Failure to properly insulate body parts and protect exposed skin results in frostbite and 3-day chills. In the summer I'd pop outside for the mail or a quick jaunt down to the store, but in the winter there's no popping anywhere. No jaunting either, for that matter, whatever that means. In the winter you have to layer up until you feel like the Staypuft Marshmallow Man or risk losing body parts to frostbite. And of course holding a coffee or digging into your pockets for keys with gloves on doesn't work so you have to do the whole "pull your glove off with your teeth and get fuzz all in your mouth" routine. It's goddamn annoying. All of it.

4) Lack of excerise + holiday food and drink = Fatness. It's really hard to work out in the winter, more than half of my workout options disappeared as soon as the thermometer dropped below "too fucking cold to be outside". This means having to go to the gym every day - after dark, rather than hiking or biking or swimming or any of the other wonderful active activities that take up my summer days. And quite frankly, going to the gym when I'm all bundled up and shivering in my car waiting for the heat to kick in is the last thing on my mind, the first thing being getting home and snuggling under a warm blanket with a snow bunny and a shot of something with high alcohol content. And on the days when I do get up enough gumption to go work out, I always regret it as soon as I step back out into the cold and all of the sweat on my back freezes instantly leaving a sheet of thin ice to make the car ride home even more miserable than it would have been otherwise.

5) Snow needs to be shoveled. I'm not going to spend a lot of time bitching about this one because for the first time in 10 years I have a garage to keep my car in, but still, waking up to a winter wonderland means having to shovel something before going to work. I used to have a big fuck-off truck with four wheel drive, which was cool because I could just barrel up the driveway regardless of how much snow fell the night before, but now I drive a shitty little Grand Am which would and will probably get completely buried under 4 inches of slush.

6) Paying for heating oil funds the terrorists. Nuff said. America, FUCK YEAH!

7) Except for snowmobiling, which is more of a drinking game than a sport, winter sports are stupid. The entire point of skiing and snowboarding is to avoid falling into the snow. Being an adult I'm already doing that, so I see no reason to pay $65 per day to do it inbetween rides on a moving chair. Cross country skiing is even dumber, because the thing I hate most about skiing is having to ski-walk to the lift, which as far as I can tell is exactly what cross-country skiing is - only you don't get to sit down after. Ice skating is like rollerblading except it's cold and the liklihood of being cut by a dull metal blade somewhere below the waist is higher, which is a consideration that I regard as "mighty important" when determining whether something is worth doing. The only thing that makes ice skating the least bit intruiging is the possibility that when you add sticks you might have an impromptu game of ice hockey, which is a fun sport but doesn't compare to street hockey for the same reasons that ice skating doesn't hold up to rollerblading. Ice fishing isn't a sport, it's just stupid.

8) People in New England can't drive in the rain, let alone the snow. You'd think they would have figured it out by now, but everytime anything liquid-based comes out of the sky everyone around here immediately crashes into the nearest telephone pole. It's retarded.

There are so many more reasons but I'm starting to depress myself typing these up so I'm going to stop now. Maybe I'll compile a Part II list someday, assuming I don't slit my wrists from Seasonal Affective Disorder (or S.A.D. - psychiatrists are so clever) first.

The bottom line is that we are not Vikings, even those of us descended directly from those pale white northern-European tribes who thought Beowolf was a good story (it wasn't, and shitty CGI graphics and Angelina Jolie's CG naked ass don't make it any more entertaining). Technological advancements mean that our bodies don't have to adapt to cold weather any more. Instead, we wrap them in insulation and wicking materials and blast hot air at them and keep them sheltered and warm. But we're still not technologically advanced enough to heat an entire city or state, so we still have to brave the arctic chill for 4 or 5 months every year.

I'm already looking forward to Groundhog Day; if that little fucker sees his shadow I'm going to beat the snot out of him. And then I'm going to start figuring out how fast I can orchestrate a move to Florida, so I can bask in the sun wear and work on forgetting just how shitty winter in New England actually can be.