Complex Numbers

Cold Hands, Cold Heart

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.

My question for you has two parts: What is the worst weather you’ve experienced? And what is your ideal weather?

Allow me to begin by saying that my ideal weather is absolutely not what is described up there.

But... worst weather. I'm not actually sure. I've been in a hurricane, but far enough inland that it wasn't too bad. I've driven through thunderstorms so fierce that I couldn't see past the hood of my car. Once, I crossed New Mexico in a blizzard so outrageously hellish that mere mortals - including state police - had skidded off the interstate and into drifts.

At least they couldn't issue me speeding tickets.

But really, I don't mind extreme weather - hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever, bring it on - as long as it's not fucking cold. Seriously, that shit up there is straight out of my worst goddamn nightmares. Well, almost worst. Penultimate worst, but bad enough. You know there are places on Mars warmer than that, right? You know that, right???

I despise cold weather. You know I got accepted to MIT, many years ago? You know why I didn't go? Have you ever been to Boston in the winter? Screw that.

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.

Oh, I've heard the argument from frigid people. "You can always put on more clothes, but you can only take off so much." This is nonsense. You don't take off clothes after the heat reaches a certain level; you switch to more appropriate ones, like a loose-fitting black sheet. No wonder you people can't take the heat; you think bare skin is the answer. It is not.

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.

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. 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.