That's Kelly Conaboy in "Embrace Your Friend, the Freezing Cold Temperature"(at The Cut). That gave me the nice just-what-I-was-thinking feeling.
And she also linked to "Bad Winter Is Good" by Jo Livingstone (at Jezebel), who examines the "good winter"/"bad winter" distinction (with "good winter" being the part with the holidays, and "bad winter" what comes after the manufactured, imposed cheer). As the essay title shows, she flips the narrative:
During so-called “bad winter” you can spend as much time in total solitude as you like, and it is still the “correct” behavior for the season. What this means in practice is that the months of January through March are the only time of year you can be both misanthropic and live free from guilt. With the year’s greatest obligations to others behind you, the cold indoor months are a time to separate from society, to turn inwards, and to act selfishly.Livingstone leans more toward indoor solitude, so it needed the extension of Conaboy's celebration of the feeling of outdoor cold, though Conaboy doesn't go far enough. I'd like to see some enthusiastic revelry in the feeling of cold. As I was saying the other day: "Finally, some relief from the heat."
How often does the world say—now, it is time to be away from other people? Never. We never hear that said out loud. The only thing that big-name annual events do (birthdays, “summer”) is demand your presence, your time, your company, your giving. It’s only in the unnamed slivers of the year that you can snatch the time you really need to understand who you are, away from the crowd....
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Yes. Celebrate the new Global Cooling trend. One trick seems to be living far away from oceans that moderate the temperature. The Siberian Express cometh.
I grew up in Wisconsin and lived in Seattle for 28 years. That means around 50 years of living in the northlands.
I just moved to Arizona.
HELLOOOOOOOO. Swimming laps in an outdoor pool in January? Ferget snow and cold. I am never going back up there.
Right on.
I went out for a walk this morning, it was 16 degrees. I live in MA, along the north shore of Boston. Dressed myself appropriate for the conditions and thoroughly enjoyed the cold. I joke with my now retired buddy who skipped away to Florida two years ago to escape winter that I love this 'brisk' weather, but I truly do.
Today the ground is covered in snow, the sun was rising as I walked along. It is quiet in a way that it isn't in summer - I think the snow cover does that.
I don't hate the heat, but it is much more difficult for me to get physically comfortable in very hot weather than it is in very cold weather.
I loved Winter when I was growing up- snow days and all that. I grew up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and we would get 5-10 snow days every Winter, and in the Winter of 1977-78, we went out on Christmas break around December 18th and didn't go back to school until the middle of February- that was a glorious Winter! Of course, we paid for it by being in school until the second week of June that year.
Winter lost all its interest to me when I lived in Connecticut from 1995-2011. Good riddance!
"Soon it will be very hot, and then, sometime after that, we will be dead." Is the author deluded? I thought standard Christian theology has it the other way round.
What this means in practice is that the months of January through March are the only time of year you can be both misanthropic and live free from guilt.
Bullshit. I've been misanthropic 24/7/365.25 for more than fifty years, and I've been guilt-free (regarding my misanthropy) the entire time.
As a native Floridian, I have no idea what she is talking about.
I used to feel that way. Now I live in Florida where, today, it's 72 degrees, sunny, with a steady breeze off the ocean. Blue, blue skies. Can't talk myself into embracing cold anymore.
My issue is the heat which will return in May, peak in August, and not let up until late October. Might need to look for a place up north come summer. Or maybe I can trade places with some unassuming Wisconsinite. Or is that, Wisconsinian?
cold weather == blah
hot weather == blah
62 degrees, cloudy with a light rain, and a gentle wind: NOW YOU'RE TALKING!!
people need to remember; what makes Good Weather is Good Fishing!!!
Winter is tops; summer, the pits.
The cold and snow are invigorating and lovely, and have the added benefit of cutting way down on the number of people outdoors because they have nothing better to do.
I enjoy cold. I also enjoy getting away from the cold for work. And I really enjoy the end of cold. Walking all bundled up in the cold is a nice thing to do in the winter, when the snow is falling and it's very very quiet outside. Old snow on the ground, that's melted and refrozen and is all crusty? Not so nice.
Still, I prefer summer -- except for the bugs. Those little ants that get in everything? Mosquitoes? It's really nice not to deal with that right now.
I guess I'm a morass of mixed feelings.
Reminds me that I should be migrating south.
Who cares about the weather? We’ll all be dead in, like, 12 years.
It's actually too cold, too hot, just right. The Climate Goldilocks syndrome.
"except for the bugs."
Yeah, in addition to having difficulty getting comfortable in very hot weather I hate - HATE - bugs like no-see-ums, mosquitos, spiders, horseflies, green-heads, etc, etc.
Good call.
If some of this sounds familiar, it's because I've ranted about it before. In the Sunbelt "Edge City" where I live, the Legion of Local Boosters like to assure us that we always enjoy "mild" winters. This may be so, compared to Buffalo, Chicago, and Nome;* but it obscures the fact that we have a strong wind chill, and the atmosphere is humid the year round, so that our winters--"mild" on paper--are depressingly dank with an all-permeating chill in the air. I often wonder if the Booster Legion--including the local Chamber of Commerce-- pressures the weather-forecasting people on tv to make the weather here sound better than it is. In summer (when it is often brutally, oppressively hot) temperatures are always "above average;" in winter (which begins here soon after Halloween), temperatures are always "below average." Makes me wish I'd lived here during that mythical Golden Age of Average, when weather was more bearable.
*forgot to add the footnote that in a recent Polar Vortex or whatever they were calling it that winter, the reported temperature in Fairbanks AK was actually a tad warmer than it was here.
You can have it..
The Middle TN winters are about right for me. Not below freezing during the daytime very many days. Winter doesn't really start until early January and then starts fading about the middle of February. Just enough winter that you look forward to spring.
For Meade and the other gardeners, the hellebores have been blooming robustly since before Christmas and the early daffodils are up and showing a little color in the buds.
Ignorance is Bliss @11:52 AM: Me too.
I like it when it's quite cold but not windy. The ponds freeze, never looking the same way each twice, it is much quieter than in warmer weather, and you have that nice low angle light at more reasonable times of day. The trick is to dress appropriately.
I've carried my large format gear in 19 F and below and enjoyed the peace and quiet, and the subtle changes in the landscape. And no worries about being disturbed by others.
My wife (who hails from Indiana) uses the age of 16 as the dividing line between “good winter” and “bad winter.”
Before 16, winter was all snow days (no school) and sledding and hot chocolate.
After 16, winter meant scraping the windshield and driving through the snow to work.
The only thing I prefer about winter is that the clothing conceals you firearm better. In the summer my Speedo leaves my Glock just hanging out there for everyone to gawk at.
It's hilarious watching these Elsas and Olafs cope with their Seasonal Affective Disorder. Let's check in with the Weather Channel (they have a show called Weather Underground doncha know). Ooooh, polar bears in Waukegan! Neat!
bagoh20 post speedo please. for my er, girlfriend, yes, for her.
Impossible to work in the garden. Holed up in the house for two months, left alone, to my books and a fire. May be my favorite time of year.
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