The Long White Nightmare

Yeah, look at the tears. Just a runnin' down my face like some twisted Petty song. You may get your bloody noses (and, let's face it, most of them won't have a goddamned thing to do with the humidity), but I have to start wearing goddamned pants.

Pants. Did you hear me?

It creeps in slow, that understanding. It doesn't grip you at all, more just like an everlasting hum in the base of your brain. The cold numbs the rest. We pretend it doesn't exist. It does. We pretend to enjoy it. We don't. We make up all manner of colloquialisms to explain and give depth to its nature. It has no nature. A wiser man than myself once said "The dead know only one thing. It is better to be alive". Well, the cold know only one thing....

But we joke about it. We make it our own. "Hands off, Boston! This cold is much worse than yours! Na na na!" Like the first step for the Quitters, we admit we are powerless against it, but yet we internalize some bullshit machismo about our fear of it. At the end of the day, all it really means is lower resale value on cars, and less time for deals.

See, the thing is that looking at the Long White Nightmare as anything other than a huge pain in the sack is illogical. It reeks of ignorance. If you want to have a discussion about living in different areas of the world, that's fine. We can discuss the goods and the bads of each and every zipcode all across this hell-damned land. But what is it about this area that refuses to allow people to admit that this is just horseshit? Everyone wants to throw things like "It makes me appreciate the seasons more". I am going to go home tonight and root through my toolshed, and try like Jesus Christ to locate a tool by which to measure my "appreciation". I will bet you one million pesos that I do not find it. "I've got great memories of playing in snow when I was a kid on christmas" You weren't driving a shit-box with no heat then, were you? Parents gave you love and support, not like the cruel modern world, which would just as soon enlist your ass on a one-way rocket to Democracyland or charge you through the face to heat your fucking bungalow than tell you it's all going to be alright. Welcome to Dick Cheney's America.

And it's great to live here, and it's great to live other places, and things make sense and sometimes you go back in to a Hardee's to scream at the 16 year old behind the register because that Dr. Pepper was diet. But let's just be realistic about this thing... there is no escape. We can hide (don't worry, it's natural), we can do our best to combat the feeling of helplessness, but eventually, we all have to walk every one of the 12 steps.

And it's going to be ok. Let's just start by fucking admitting it.

If you need help, remember this simple equation:

Chief + Pants = Not Good