Three Things Wrong With Today

1. I have a cold, and my entire body is weak as a noodle, and that noodle is also a terribly hurty and whiny noodle who needs to be tucked in and given tea and told she is very, very special, because her face looks really old when she's aching and sick, which is depressing, and she's pretty sure the world doesn't like her very much, and this is no time for bucking up, not when there's so much sad-making to be done.


2. Also, this introvert spent three days straight being an extrovert — seeing old friends, speaking at a conference, hanging out with toddlers who like to jump up and down loudly on giant bubble wrap — and, WOW, I am some hothouse flower of an introvert or something, because I am right at this moment working on my floorplans for my own remote, underground bunker. Anyone with communication skills more complex than my cats' set of meows and occasional pawing is not allowed.


3. I couldn't figure out what smelled like cat urine on this bus, but it seemed to be right near me, so I sniffed my way around the couple of seats I've commandeered — I moved from my purse to my coat to a diet Coke bottle, all which came up smelling pretty average for themselves — and then I decided to pull the paper cheese biscuit bag out of my garbage and check it out, even though that would be ridiculous, right? Because I had just bought that biscuit not 20 minutes before, and I would have noticed it, right? Well, apparently not, because the cheese biscuit bag wreaked of cat urine. Now all I can think about is how that cheese biscuit I ate was really a cheese and cat urine biscuit, and it's inside me right now. INSIDE ME.
   
   Would I like a little feline urine with my biscuit? Don't mind if I do. If it's not glowing in the dark, I'm not having it! Down with ammonia-poor diets!

I Will Never Get Used to Saskatchewan Januaries

It's been damn cold around these parts the last few days. When I woke up this morning, it was -44°F with the windchill with warnings about human flesh freezing in less than ten minutes, AND I JUST COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.

I have been trapped in this apartment by extreme cold for three days, which is bad enough, but then both dryers in the laundry room broke, and we ended up with ice cold, wet towels, and I had completely had it. I'd so had it that I pulled at my shirt and screamed at one of the cats to stop meowing GODDAMMIT holy shit where were the matches so I could burn this whole world down.

And then I took a deep breath or thirty, and I layered up to get ready for a walk to a local coffee shop where there would be other human beings and maybe something akin to heat.



I wore leggings, a tank top, a wool sweater, corduroy pants, homemade wool socks, leather boots lined with fur, a wool coat, a scarf, a toque, and the giant extra set of crazy that every Saskatchewanian is outfitted with so that we can leave our respective homes even under the most ridiculous conditions.

By the time I got to the coffee shop, my lips were numb and my nose and earlobes hurt from the first stages of frostbite, but I was out in public where there was probably heat and wifi, so I was happy.

Except that there was no heat and wifi. The coffee shop was freezing and their wifi was down. GODDAMMIT.

After days of never being warm and having crispy towels and waning productivity, I kind of lost my relative shit and called up the Palinode to tell him that I was not ever going to go back to our cold apartment and that we were going to go to a hotel to hunker down in someone else's expensive warmth, but then I realized that I wasn't one of those high-maintenance people who spent tons of money on a hotel six blocks from home because she felt pissy, so I marched over to the mall where the Palinode caught up with me, and we picked up a portable radiator.



Fuck winter in the ear with a wire brush. We're going to be warm.