Complex Numbers

Revisited: "Cold Hands, Cold Heart"

Dialing back to the ass end of January, 2019, which where I live represents the coldest days of the entire year (on average), the Random Number Gods served up this then-seasonally-appropriate entry: "Cold Hands, Cold Heart" 

It was apparently part of an early attempt for me at the 30DBC, falling just a few months after I ended my blogging hiatus. The prompt is in the entry, but I'll repeat it here:

Allow me to share this quote regarding my local weather this week: ”Dangerous wind chills of -45 degrees F (-43 C) to -65 degrees F (-54 C) are expected for most of the period from Tuesday night through Thursday morning. This is a life-threatening situation...” etcetera, etcetera... stay inside... frostbite... etcetera.

One fun math exercise is to work out where the F and C scales cross. It's very simple algebra to do so, but to calm the heart palpitations you just started experiencing upon reading that, the answer is -40. That is, -40F is the same level of nope as -40C.

That weather report (I have no record of which user wrote that prompt) is colder than that.

So, I say again, nope. As I put it in that 2019 entry:

You know there are places on Mars warmer than that, right? You know that, right???

While the average global temperature on Mars is probably around -63C, at the equator, at high Martian noon, it can get up to about 20C (roughly 70F)—very Earthlike temperatures, really, if you discount how short-lived it would be. Almost as short-lived as an unprotected person there. But at least you'd die from decompression and insufficient oxygen, not frostbite.

My attitudes about temperature haven't changed in the last five years:

Look, I spent my childhood next to an estuary of the Chesapeake, just about at sea level. Pretty close to DC, and you might be aware how crappy the weather can be there. Before I even ventured out of Virginia, I experienced extreme weather: bitter cold, muggy humid heat. And I'm here to tell you that - bugs notwithstanding - give me the heat any day of the week.

I dread the coming cooler temperatures.

On the other hand, no amount of clothing - no number of layers, no well-made coats or woolen gloves or thermal socks, nothing - will stop my hands and feet from freezing the moment the effective temperature drops below about 52F. And once those freeze, I'm shit-swimming miserable. So you can keep your freakish Michigan lake effect hellish winters (yes, there is a Hell, and it is in Michigan). You can keep your brisk Alaska arctic circle bullshit. You can keep Chicago.

When I was in college, I got through some of the toughest winter cold by using the proto-internet to look up the current temperature in Nome, Alaska, just south of the Arctic Circle. It always made me feel better to see -20C there when it was 0C here, or whatever. This worked until, one day, some freakish twist of weather made it warmer there than here.

If it weren't for the awesome breweries, wineries, cideries, distilleries, and bars around here, I'd move out in a heartbeat just so as not to deal with another Virginia winter. I've been freezing my ass off most every day since December, and we've only had a few nights of subfreezing lows, this year (last year was relentlessly cold). And I still have February to endure. I don't know how I'll be able to do that.

Obviously, I managed.

This past winter was far warmer than usual around here (no, this is not an excuse to start an argument or bitch about the environment; it's just an observation). Hell, it didn't even snow, but for a few flurries, which still managed to wipe the store shelves clean of bread and milk and cause drivers to slow down to 15MPH. Parts of last winter were almost pleasant; I recall a few 60F+ days. "Pleasant" for me starts at around 72F, and doesn't end until maybe 100F, depending on the humidity. Hell, I keep my summer A/C at 78, and that's more than sufficient for me.

Now, look, I'm not ragging on people who like colder temperatures. Everyone has their comfortable zone; otherwise, we humans wouldn't be living at all sorts of latitudes and elevations. But I like it hot. I keep thinking how nice it would be to live on a tropical island, until I remember that hurricanes are a thing.

I might just throw my hands up into the frigid air and hop a flight to Maui again.

Because that's where my ideal weather lives.

Boy, the end of that entry didn't age very well.