Mind you, when I was a kid, I hated that stuff. I hated wearing dresses. With a passion. Didn’t understand it at all. I mean, it’s forty bonechilling degrees below zero and I have to wear a dress to school? (Oh, ok. Twenty degrees below. After that, school was cancelled. Boy, we prayed for winter at the Catholic private school. Insert winky emoticon, eh. Hashtag snowdayandthensome.)
I remember putting on the armor. First, underwear. Next, girdle. Next, stockings. Next, brassiere. Next, slip. Next, skirt. Next, blouse. Next, sweater. Next, scarf. Next, winter coat. Next, gloves. Oh damn. Forgot the winter boots. Can’t bend over now. Have to undress and start again. No wonder I was constantly late for the schoolbus.
If I haven’t said it before, I also hate snow. Oh, not totally. I like sitting and looking out at it falling knowing I have a full fridge, freezer, heat and source of energy should hydro nip out for a coffee. I just don’t want to go out in it. Drive in it, walk in it, shovel it. Forget it.
Now is the winter of our discontent. No glory here. Some sleep. Some solitaire. Some midnight snacks. I try to limit them, I really do. The fridge just keeps bugging me. It reminds me there’s stuff to eat in it. Although there are times I open its door and stand, lethargic, eyeing its contents, bereft of hope.
Ah, if my life were a Shakespeare play, perhaps we could all have a better time of it, yeah? A bit of romance, skullduggery, and a lot of language you can’t quite understand. Sounds about right.
Thus I would. Remarking on the remarkable, how life in its whimsey will toss me like a leaf on the foaming ocean, to an unmarked shore, where, anew, I trod afresh in fresh sand untouched by any before. Or so it seems. But lo, the sandfleas rise like the tide and wash away all joy in this day. Methinks I’ll go sit on a trunk in the long swaying grass. And hope there are no bears feasting on huckleberries nearby. For then I will be swimming back to whence I came, tired, wet, and disappointed.
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