MARCH 5, 2002

Today is the day to shamelessly indulge in a sugary coffee drink from a convenience store.

One of the good things about having my own site is that I will very rarely reject pieces that I submit to myself. In honor of the negative Fahrenheit temperatures of yesterday (to all of you to whom I said winters in Chicago 'weren't that bad:' I was wrong) I give you a little ode to the weather in the fair city. I wrote it earlier this winter when I thought that 15+ was cold, but I thought it was time to dust it off again in light of yesterday's 'bracing' temps.

Dispatch from Chicago
March 4, 2002

There is a lame joke that goes something like: "The founders of New York city said to themselves, 'Gee, this town is dangerous and dirty, but not nearly cold enough, so let's move west.' And that's how Chicago was founded."

This winter has been unexpectedly good to us Midwesterners, but instead of embracing it whole-heartedly, it's made us suspicious. Give us 60 degree temperatures, and we wonder how soon it will be -60. Give us rain in December and we know that it will snow through June.

Yesterday was different. When you first stepped outside, it didn't feel any colder than, say, 30, but then the wind slapped you across the face and you realized exactly how cold it was. Mean cold.
Bitch cold.
Bad cold.
The kind of cold the freezes the snot in your nose when you're outside and then causes it to flow down the minute you step indoors. Everybody develops a distinguished hunch as shoulders rise to ear level to minimize wind distribution.

This is winter in Chicago, a season that citydwellers both abhor and yet secretly, jealously treasure. It gives both the city and its broad-shouldered inhabitants credit, so while we curse it, we're also secretly proud of it. It makes the city famous, and Chicagoans carry the ability to tolerate the cold the same way an athlete carries scars of fights and tumbles. Get through this and you can get through anything. Find a Chicagoan wintering elsewhere and he or she will certainly scoff at its shivering natives that this is nothing compared to the way it's done back home.

We thought we got winter last month when a foot of snow fell, but almost exactly 24 hours after it did, the rain followed, thus plunging us back into the unease of "Is this really winter?" Yesterday, however, we could relax in our discomfort.

The wind hurts, the snow clumps aredirty, the sky is grey and yellow signs on the sidewalk tell us, uselessly, to watch for falling ice from the skyscrapers.

It's not comfortable, but it's comforting. As long as we get some weather like this, we know there'll be spring.