Weather

It’s been brutal here the last couple of days, just brutal. 3 days ago it was almost 60 degrees, and everyone flitted down the sidewalk in a state of cardigan-wearing sunglasses-adorned pheromonal-surging ecstasy. Then – the next day:

BLIZZARD HELL.

And not just your basic snowfall. But the kind of storm where you walk outside, and you are hit in the face by horizontally flying ice-sparks. The ice-sparks are flying horizontally, not vertically, because the wind is enormous and freezing. The wind nearly blew me into the highway. I struggled up the hill to my house, head down against the wind, thinking: “Jaysus, what the hell…” The next day, there were drifts of snow, of course, but also ice-encrusted sidewalks. Treacherous. Apparently, the main problem with the roads the next day were long ice patches. Cars were flipping over on the interstates, stuff like that. I finally made it home, with the burning snow driving itself into my face, and the wind was so hard that all the windows of my apartment rattled, and shook, and the storm sounded like a ravening beast trying to get in.

Literally, the day before? Sunglasses, leather jacket, sneakers. Sunshine streaming down the avenues, people skipping along, giddy with spring.

This has been a schizophrenic season, indeed.

I almost prefer the ice-storm to the sunshine, but I’m crazy like that. Today again, we have another bitter cold day. The sky is clear and blue, but the AIR is frozen with a bone-deep kind of chill. The city sparkles on days like this. Everything seems almost too clear. The clarity hurts the eyes.