Climate change is bad but this weekend was very good.
Enjoying my time until the inevitable heat death gets us all.
Being a lifelong Midwesterner, I am used to cold and long winters. Though I am used to it, that doesn’t mean I particularly like it. I don’t think it’s that crazy to say that long, cold winters make life fairly unbearable at times and better, warmer weather makes me feel better inside. You probably think the same thing!
I don’t remember winter affecting me as much when I was younger than it does now. I was very much a kid who loved doing outside activities in the snow (I am fairly good at ice skating and also, there are no bugs outside in the winter). My brother and I would come home from school and play in the snowy darkness. When we got older, we started making extreme sledding hills on the side of the house that were so icy someone could have died. When I got even older, I loved binge watching whole television seasons that I pirated in a day and working on some cross stitching (I still do this, except the pirating thing because I am a square these days). When the snowpocalypse happened my junior year of high school and we had the day off, my friends and I went sledding. In college, my friends and I would sled down the hill using dining hall trays, we went ice skating, and the party-going didn’t stop when it got too cold—we just trekked across campus the way I believe the Donner Party tried doing before things got too bad for them.
But now? Deep into actual adulthood? We still exist in the winter, but the sense of play that can be associated with the cold season has just completely gone away. When was the last time anyone went sledding, or skated over a piece of ice on the sidewalk without complaining it’s a safety hazard (it is, don’t get me wrong). Holidays are no longer about giving your best friends handsewn doodads made from felt or watching movies—it’s about stress, family, and the stress your family brings you. Winter is about scraping ice off your car, spending too much money on stuff, and becoming a hermit for two months after the holidays did you in.
Do I actually hate winter? I don’t think I do, but I’ve started to hate it more because everyone else around me gets deeply affected by the cold and the dark. I don’t like being too cold (above 28 is pretty good to me I think!), but it doesn’t stop me from getting out of the house when I need to. I’ve been going to a lot of open mics this winter! I also feel like since I’m more likely to spend more days of the week in a home somewhere than I am in the summer I get some more time to work on creative projects I’ve been meaning to do, which feels productive and good in its own right. But I also am a person that will go dancing sober and my friends constantly tell me they think I’m insane, so there’s that.
So recently, when Chicago got a couple of hot flashes (and then a cold snap), and then was over 60 degrees all weekend, I did feel better. All of the writing I was inspired to do on Wednesday when it was cold didn’t happen this weekend because I was too busy hanging out with my friends, going out to several bars, and walking by the lake. The weather was so good I stopped having aspirations or thoughts at all. There were things this week’s newsletter were going to be, and they are not any of those things because instead of reading or writing or using my brain, I was outside and hanging out with the homies.
Global warming is bad. Being outside and seeing the sun is good. But if global warming is going to make Chicago warm all the time (I know there is nuance about weather extremes and we’ll probably still have seasons but just more insane), then would I actually accomplish any of my personal goals, or will sitting on a porch and playing tennis be all I need to be fulfilled in life? It’s hard to say, but maybe so.
This Friday 3/8 the Ghost Rats has another Date Night show, 10:00pm at the Bughouse. We also have a show on 3/15 at the same time and same place. Get tickets for those shows here. Also, I’m joining my improv classmate Jo Belangia and his team Blue Txt Bubbles in It’s Improv Madness, Tuesday 3/12, 7:30pm at the Bughouse!