Coldness. How do people live with it?

For the past week, I’ve had my first taste of winter in 12 years, and while there are perks such as enchanting Christmas morning snow, the recent arctic swoon has destroyed all good will I had for the white fluffy stuff. I now know why geese fly south. I know why northerners retire in droves to the Keys. Living in perpetual frigid air is MISERABLE.

There’s a reason for my misery. Out of the past 23 years, I spent only 2.5 of those years in a house where having a heater was required.

For the past 11 years, I was creating away on the tropical paradise known as Penang. In August, I moved to the burning hot desert knows as Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And then I come home to celebrate Christmas and I’m greeted with this stuff!

I spend most hours of every day covered in blankets, wearing gloves in the house, and realizing that a knit cap is as essential as water for survival. My body’s core has a permanent breezy idling like a car in the winter without a heater. It lives, but just barely.

I’m starting to think fondly of the 105 degree heat which greeted me in Jeddah in August. I know that sounds insane, but it’s true. Because everywhere I go here is cold!

I went to John’s pizzeria in NYC yesterday, and we sat on the other side of the massive place away from the door, near the 800 degree oven, and still, the frigid air swept in and I had to sit the entire time with my winter coat on.

It didn’t help that we moved into a friend’s house where the heat wasn’t working right, and our last night there seeing the temperature dip to 54 degrees in the house.

And then waiting at the train station yesterday.

And stopping at an outlet mall, having to walk across the place to find the Nike store.

And then even at the theatre, watching Anastasia, cold air swept in and distracted me for the entire first half of the show.

What is wrong with this place? It’s freezing out and everywhere I go, even indoors, it’s cold! So cold! I can’t emphasize how cold it is!

But not for long, because I long for the desert, and I’ll soon get it.

Goodbye, America. See you in the summer months!