TFC- too fucking cold

I am freaking cold, it’s not just me right? It’s cold! I know I should be tough, being that I grew up in Calgary, but I don’t think it really works that way, although I know how to layer, and wear cute boots. When I was in junior high, it was cool not to wear socks no matter how cold it got, and it got COLD. Stupid, but we did it anyway, no socks, and top-siders or penny loafers. Who did we think we were?
It was around the same time that Moon Unit Zappa came out with Valley Girl, and I learned the word Galleria. I had spent most of my life in one, but we just called it Chinook. I think that I got confused and thought I was from California and didn’t need socks.
I recall going to a school dance in a white mini skirt and turquoise ski pants, objectively not a good look, but I wasn’t allowed out without them (the ski pants, not the mini skirt). Things were bad, in fact I used to wait for the school bus in minus 40 degrees, no kidding. I think they call that child abuse now. We were tough, Lee Hirsh with his lisp, Peter Kitchen with his foggy glasses and his sister Sarah who always had dirt and snot on her face.
We would wait outside, on the wide open, sweeping, suburban plains of Lakeview, with scarves covering all but our eyes, and ice crystals hanging off the wool where the humidity escaped from our mouths. We wore mitts rather than gloves ‘cuz they were warmer, and you had the body heat from your other fingers for insulation- similar to the idea that if someone is suffering from hypothermia you are supposed to get in a sleeping bag naked with them, trust me, it’s true, I learned it on my three day trip to nature camp.
There were days that school was canceled because the pipes had frozen, those were good days, very good days, and we prayed for those.
Me and my Hebrew school posse would wait for the bus, leaving our houses at the last second so that we would have to wait as little as possible. Missing the bus sucked, because it meant I would have to ask my mother, or worse, my teacher Mrs. Unger who lived nearby, for a ride.
My Mother had to get to work, and my school was nowhere near where she worked, and frankly she was pretty uptight and angry for most of those years, so the margin for error was very slim. Mrs. Unger had a nasty demeanor and would growl “Garbage” anytime someone got a wrong answer in the math-ladder. I still attribute my panic around the times table, to her hard ass antiquated teaching style, although I must admit she was kind in the lesson of plagiarism, gently illuminating the definition after I penned the same story that she had shared with us that day.
Anyhow, my point is, that it was cold, Mrs. Unger was, for all practical purposes, a bitch, my Mother was under a lot of stress and wasn’t up for morning surprises like having to take me to school, and that waiting minutes longer than I had to for the school bus could mean the difference between life and death.
I know you are feeling really badly for me now and you should be, but remember that I did survive, and it only made me stronger.
It’s about 33 degrees today (1 celsius)in New York. I worked late, got up late and went out to drop of some dry cleaning and see if someone had turned in my ipod at the gym (I subsequently found it in my jacket pocket). My hair was looking especially good. I had straightened it the day before and just the right amount of moisture had crept back in to give it some bounce and not be total Jair (an expression I read once, referring to Jewish girls with straightened hair- LOVE IT).
I marched across 9th avenue tossing my fabulously coiffed hair and felt the frigid air hitting my cheeks and ears, my junior high school, sticker collecting, California dreaming, school bus waiting, galleria going self, confronted my adult, coffee carrying, parka wearing, taxi taking, scarf yielding, Manhattan self, and I reached in my pocket, pulled out my cap and made a choice. I took a moment and mourned the years of hard fought Farrah waves that died under many a toque, my cold top-sidered ankles, my mornings waiting with my crew for the yellow bus, the recesses forced to play outside, and I thought about how grateful I am to be here, and how maybe, just maybe, it's not actually that cold after all.