Sunday, November 14, 2004
Decline and Fall
Today was, I think, the first fall day of the year cold and gray enough to send Chicago into a stupor. My roommate spent most of the day sleeping through football games in our living room, and I accidentally woke more than one friend with a typically unnecessary phone call. Even the streets seemed slightly more laconic than usual, as I was able to jaywalk across North Avenue without my usual comic dodging, weaving, and screaming. For my part, I made a valiant effort to read a little, do some pre-cleaning so I'm not utterly embarrassed when the cleaning lady comes tomorrow, and launder the stiffness out of my gym clothes, but I ended up napping at my desk in a genuinely uncomfortable position of the type generally reserved for Rodin sculptures and victims of the Pompeii eruption. Narcolepsy, it appears, is alive and well.
I can't help, at this point, but reflect a little on the long Winter to come and how I will possibly keep myself from committing murder-suicide during it. In the past I have heard people (crazy people, I assume, although they were controlling their invisible-person-seeing and random-obscenity-spewing tendencies nicely) extol the "virtues" of the dreaded season, which apparently include drinking boiling beverages and wearing kicky hats. I am not buying it. For me, Winter means that every wait for the train becomes a scenario right out of To Build A Fire, that weekend days become extravaganzas of house-bound boredom, and that bars make an undeserved killing on coat checks. And I don't buy that crap about no two snowflakes being exactly alike for a second. Maybe I should just go to bed and leave instructions to wake me when May hits.
Today was, I think, the first fall day of the year cold and gray enough to send Chicago into a stupor. My roommate spent most of the day sleeping through football games in our living room, and I accidentally woke more than one friend with a typically unnecessary phone call. Even the streets seemed slightly more laconic than usual, as I was able to jaywalk across North Avenue without my usual comic dodging, weaving, and screaming. For my part, I made a valiant effort to read a little, do some pre-cleaning so I'm not utterly embarrassed when the cleaning lady comes tomorrow, and launder the stiffness out of my gym clothes, but I ended up napping at my desk in a genuinely uncomfortable position of the type generally reserved for Rodin sculptures and victims of the Pompeii eruption. Narcolepsy, it appears, is alive and well.
I can't help, at this point, but reflect a little on the long Winter to come and how I will possibly keep myself from committing murder-suicide during it. In the past I have heard people (crazy people, I assume, although they were controlling their invisible-person-seeing and random-obscenity-spewing tendencies nicely) extol the "virtues" of the dreaded season, which apparently include drinking boiling beverages and wearing kicky hats. I am not buying it. For me, Winter means that every wait for the train becomes a scenario right out of To Build A Fire, that weekend days become extravaganzas of house-bound boredom, and that bars make an undeserved killing on coat checks. And I don't buy that crap about no two snowflakes being exactly alike for a second. Maybe I should just go to bed and leave instructions to wake me when May hits.
