i hate winter

I hate winter. The only reason I tolerate it is because I can do marathon eating at Thanksgiving and I get to Martha Stewart it up during Christmas season. Other than that, I hate it. I hate the cold and ice and dark. I hate that I have to wear a coat and gloves and my hair becomes static-y. I don't know if I've always been like this or as I get older my body rejects extreme temperatures. I can't wait until California. When cold is fifty degrees.

I hibernate in the winter. I hibernate and cook. Maybe I am part bear? I stay in and bake and clean and take multiple naps on the weekend just waiting for the sun to come out. Just waiting for the weather to feel hopeful rather than dismal. It's a good time to get things done, I guess. I just got back from vacation in New Orleans, where the weather was absolutely perfect and I couldn't imagine getting anything done but being outside, enjoying life. At least with depressing winter, I have to try harder to find entertainment. I can cross things off my 'to do' list. Clean out closet. Check. Read old magazines and recycle. Check. Bake three dozen cookies. Check.

After awhile, it's enough to drive a person crazy. Even for a person like me, who at times, actually prefers being alone. I feel serious in winter. I feel like the cold is a slap in the face telling me that now is the time to get all the shit done that I put off all summer. And to be honest, it's not far from the truth. There's no room for responsibility when I'm laying by the pool, when there's more light in the day making it impossible for me to want to go home. It's the opposite in winter, I always want to be home.

So maybe it's a good time to make a list and cross things off. I've already made a list of things I need to buy for Thanksgiving, i.e. things I want to eat. I need a list of things I want to accomplish, places I want to see, people I want to meet. And then, when the sun comes out again, when the winter coat is stored away, I can work on crossing them off. Of course, all the things I want to do are things that can't be done in winter. Things are twice as desirable when you can't have them.

It's about a month and a half away from 2010. And, boy is my list gonna be long by then. I guess I should embrace winter and it's insistence on keeping me indoors, because 2010 is gonna be year of follow though, busy and exciting and might just make me yearn for one winter day when life wasn't moving quite so fast...