Personal Climate Change

The weather has been unseasonably warm in the New York City metropolitan region this year.  We had one big storm back in October, one small storm, and several "flurries," as they like to call it, that didn't require shoveling or much of anything in response.  Pretty, but no impact.  It's actually so warm that, although I've been wearing my ski jacket, I haven't needed to zip it up at any point before sundown in weeks.  Some days I've had to carry it over my arm, rather than wear it at all, particularly on public transit.

I have mixed feelings about this condition--I like snow and winter and being cozy and cooking soup and stews and chilis, all of which have been feeling inappropriate somehow.  But nobody likes to freeze, and the wind around here can be bitter.  Bitter I don't miss.

So I find myself toasting (with my DDP, of course) global warming or climate change or whatever I'm supposed to call it, and Al Gore, and the polar bears who will be looking for a nice two bedroom in the neighborhood with good air conditioning if things continue on this path.  And satisfying my need for snow by looking at the storm pictures on weather.com.

But I'm not here to write about weather really.  I'm hear to write about the metaphor.  Weather is omnipresent and out of my control, as is my life.  I can't escape it.  I can't fix it.  I can't change it.  I might as well find something about it that I like.  Embrace the weather.  Embrace my life.  But I haven't been able to lately.

I have become something of a personal meteorologist (if we might continue the metaphor) however.  I've observed my personal weather and tried to dress appropriately for it, so to speak.  Like my daily routine of looking at weather.com so that I put on the right jacket or coat and make sure my gloves are in my pockets or aren't, I'm trying to check in with my "self" and see what I should be wearing today.

I try to make sure that I have stuff in my giant purse from hell that will sustain me through the day--my iPod (charged and updated with podcasts that I like), a novel (right now I'm reading The Hunger Games a week or so behind my youngest, Peter Parker and at the behest of Clark Kent), a can of DDP or two, a little cash if I can, an MTA card.  That kind of stuff.

I try to make sure that I have things to do, places to go, people to see, or some specific goals of job-hunting or socializing, designed to improve "the weather."  This past week I've been helping Sandman with his latest high school musical production for which he does amazing work at a quarter the appropriate pay taking up twice the amount of time I feel I can spare him.  I offered to lend a hand on a purely voluntary basis with lighting and stepped into an interesting hurricane (weather again) of good stuff in the eye of the hurricane--a great director, really nice kids, and some good gear--and really crappy stuff--a lot of burned out lamps, mysteriously "dead" instruments and circuits, and an overall lack of formal knowledge on the part of anyone involved in how things are supposed to be done so a lot of things done . . . let's say "interestingly."

But the fifteen or so hours I've put in there have yielded the most interesting and pleasurable of weather effects: I've felt rested and energized the entire time I've been working there and in a better mood otherwise; I've laughed at jokes and played with the pets; I've even applied for some more jobs, a task for which I had temporarily run out of steam the week before.

And maybe I've even lost some of my bitterness.  Bitter I don't miss.

So the warmth in the atmosphere has penetrated my bones for the moment.  Thought you should know.