What Is This Weather?

It’s May 26th, Memorial Day in the US, the official opening day at local swimming pools. And the high temperature is going to be 64 degrees F (18 degrees C). It’s 54 right now. I’m freezing.

Right now I’m in the living room sitting at the computer with a blanket on. I’m going to warm my hands on the coffee — thank goodness for the coffee; it might be the only thing keeping me from hyperthermia. The cats are huddled with me for warmth. Their fur is not enough to keep them warm. It’s not enough to keep me warm.

I feel like hibernating. At least until the temps get above 70.

Bitter Cold

It’s bitterly cold out, with a windchill of -25. Our university has a late start this morning, with nobody coming in till noon today. That’s right in time for my classes, which are all in the afternoon today.

I don’t like days like this. I like my routine, and if my routine gets disrupted, I wish they’d disrupt it all the way and give me a day off. I understand where they’re coming from — losing half a day of instruction is not as bad as losing the whole day, and the temperatures are going up (to a -15 windchill). Just because I function well with a change in my routine doesn’t mean I like it.

Right now, I think I have the worst cold I’ve ever had. I was up all night last night, and this morning, writing is not a flow activity.My cat is trying to write for me, and she’s further off than I am. Time to go back to bed.

Freezing in Summer

Right now, I am in the lobby of the DoubleTree in Chesterfield, MO. I’m writing at a computer table. And I am freezing. Mind you, very seldom in my life am I cold, much less freezing. I am jiggling my foot under the table to keep from turning into an icicle.

This is a business hotel, which means they have a Conference Center, which is a fancy way to say a building with conference rooms. They have a decent cafe for breakfast and lunch and really bad coffee for guests, and they have a broken thermostat in the lobby.

I wish I had a swimsuit. The pool would be warm, right? Warmer than this lobby.

I could go upstairs to my room to write at what is euphemistically called a desk, right? That setup where my face is approximately a foot from the wall? I like a little space myself, which is why I’m out in the lobby at the computer table. It’s a nice computer table.

Eventually it will be lunchtime, and I will go into the slightly warmer cafe to have something that will warm me up.

I suppose if worse comes to worst, I can grab the duvet off the bed, wrap it around me, and sit in the lobby. Nobody would notice, right?

Cold is the absence of heat

I don’t know when I learned that cold was the absence of heat, but I suspect it was during a grade school science class. They never gave me an explanation of why in school, so I looked it up.

It turns out that heat comes from kinetic energy; that is, the movement of molecules. The faster they vibrate, the hotter it gets. We as humans become warm because heat sources (themselves quickly vibrating the molecules of air) transfer warmth to us.

If cold is the absence of warmth (pardon the switching up of the synonym; I have a purpose), then how does this translate to people and relationships?

I think the metaphor works well. Someone who is cold seems elementally so; without movement, glacial, without emotion (which could be considered heat).

I think about this because I have a character in the Christmas romance I’m writing, Brent Oberhauser, who believes he’s cold. The truth of the matter is that he’s trying to deny himself feelings, which is not the same thing. He has feelings; he has heat but is suppressing it.

One of the other characters, Santa Jack, points out that this isn’t true. But I don’t put in the cold/heat metaphor. Should I?

Cooling down

Hello cold snap.

It’s 36 degrees out and I’m wearing my Chicago Bubs sweater (see below):

which commemorates my favorite Internet-famous cat, Lil Bub.

I want to stay in all day basking by my fake woodstove and writing. But it’s a school day, and I have to teach.

Oh well.

aaaaand the power just went out.

I think that if I could pick the one time I would not want the power to go out, it would be on that morning when we have a negative 30 wind chill. Here I sit, writing in candlelight while the Internet battery backup allows me to still post. Then we have a wi-fi hotspot with at least a little more juice if we need it

We have a generator in case this lasts longer than an hour or two. That will give us heat and refrigeration at least. We will not freeze, but we may find ourselves a bit chilly.

This was not how I expected to spend this day off. Not at all.

The Wind Chill

The temperature at this moment is -17 F (-22 C) with windchills of -32 F (-35.5 C). At this temperature, any exposed skin will develop frostbite in ten minutes. The US Postal Service suspends deliveries to save its workers from literally freezing to death and schools shut down. Outdoors could kill me today with very little effort, if I were to venture out and stay there.

I’m not sure why I got out of bed this morning. It’s hard even thinking about moving, even in a blessedly warm house, with temperatures outside like that. It’s bitterly cold outside, and my body wants to eat high-carb food, gain twenty pounds of fat, and hibernate for the winter.

I will do nothing of the sort. I have coffee to drink, blankets to swath myself in, books to edit. I have gardens to plan. I defy the chill, even though it frightens me with its potency outside.

Update — day 1 Camp NaNo

The first day of Camp NaNo has been a success. I’ve written 2k words (twice my daily allotment), and that section is helping to cement into place a plot twist. I’m despairing about what to do when the book is done, because the first half of the book is all about isolation, and the current direction is solidarity and uniting against danger. I don’t know if it’s going to come out smooth, but that’s what an edit is for.

It’s snowing out. In spring. On Easter. Two and a half inches so far and it keeps coming down. Rebirth is being buried under a cold, white blanket. Oh well