Winter Mornings

I have a love-hate relationship with winter mornings. And by "love-hate," I mean "hate." I hate the winter. The winter hates me.

Some of you naysayers will say, "But it's not even winter yet! It won't be winter until the winter solstice or whatever." But I will naysay your naysaying and say that once the snow comes, it's winter. And the snow has come. Briefly. And the cold came with it, and the cold hasn't left.

If you asked me how cold it was in my apartment, I would say that it's cold. And if you said, "But how cold?" I would say it's as cold as a deep-dish pizza. And then when you protested that doesn't make any sense, I would tell you that NaNoWriMo has exhausted my supply of good similes and distract you with a description of how I spend these cold winter mornings.

First, I sleep in for as long as I can possibly justify. Then, when I can no longer justify sleeping, I get out from under the covers. I wrap myself in a massive blanket that the Seamstress made me last Christmas, and I turn on the little space heater my landlord lent me, and I pray and read my scriptures and write in my journal.

By the time I'm done with that, my room is decently warm. However, the rest of the apartment is not. It's a rather large basement apartment, which is one of the reasons that it's as cold as a thing that isn't warm. So, in order to keep warm while I proceed to get ready for the day, I wrap the massive blanket around me and let it trail behind me like a majestic cape. It trails over the tile floor in the bathroom as I plug the straightener in. It trails over the kitchen floor as I "prepare" my breakfast of cereal or frozen waffles or once even leftover sushi that Pepper thoughtfully brought home for me. It trails over the hallway carpet as I walk around aimlessly trying to remember what I need to do that day before I can leave the house.

And then I get dressed in the warmest shirt I can find, and I leave the house bundled up. I drive to work or wherever it is that I'm driving that day. I do whatever it is I'm doing that day, and then by the time I leave it's warmed up considerably outside and my warmest shirt has become stifling and sweaty.

But, of course, if I wear a shirt that's not quite as warm, the weather invariably stays cold all day and I freeze to death. And then I wake up the next day and do it all again.