Day 134: The Blizzard

There was a huge blizzard across most of the north-east of the USA yesterday. There’s still a foot or two of snow covering everything. It snowed like hell (or just the opposite if hell’s supposed to be hot) all night. I had a good excuse to not got to office today and to slide on my ass on the hill in the park near my house. My excuse for not going to office was that the trains were not operating up to the station closest to my house. The trains run underground until just about half a kilometer from this station after which they run above ground. My super dedicated roommate went to work and walked about half an hour in the snow to get to the next station. I stayed at home and checked the status of the trains and chatted with friends and uploaded pictures on facebook. Around noon they cleared enough snow to extend the train service till the station closest to my house but it made no sense going to office then. I later found out (on twitter) about this community snowball fight at Madison Square Park , which is just a little further than my office and gobbled up my lunch and gathered my camera and a package that I had to drop in the post office for a friend and headed off to brave the snow. I don’t want to make a point in this blog post today, I don’t see a point in making a point. You can infer whatever you want.

Because of all the mess the snow had made, I got there only around 3:20 (the snowball fight was supposed to be at 2:30) and got there in time to see everyone queued up at the shake shack for hot chocolate. In the end, it didn’t matter because the whole city looked real pretty covered in snow and I could roam around and enter whichever cafe I felt like for hot chocolate. I’d attach pictures but I’m too lazy to do it right now because it’s dinner time and I just had a very strong glass of home made long island ice tea.

I enjoy days with blizzards and snow storms and torrential rainfall and floods and other such things more than other days. I’m sure people die and people use the opportunity to break in and steal and people get hurt and people are miserable and countries and corporations lose millions in productivity and repair but I’m happier. I’ll also go out in the flood or the blizzard and risk my health and camera just to watch and take pictures and be a part of it. I don’t know why, but I feel a little sorry for you if you just sit in the comfort of your home waiting for it to pass and everything to return back to normal. It feels a bit like I wait through the normal days waiting for the next natural calamity.

P.S. I’m coming back in 12 days!

Day 114: The cold

edit: I wrote this post about a week ago but I never made it public it because I didn’t like it and it seemed incomplete. I’m posting it now because I have to either make it public or delete it otherwise it’ll just get forgotten about and lose its relevance and be as good as deleted.

Dear Bombay,

It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but since I’m way over my annual average of four posts this year this is nothing to worry about. I decided in advance that I won’t use the word “bored” in the blog post at all. If you’ve been listening to me for long enough you’ll know that I use this word too much and it’s too mild a word for what I feel at the moment. To begin with, I will tell you about the cold. It snowed yesterday and New York City looks very pretty when it snows. Snow is quite awesome. The only problem with snow is that it requires the temperature to be below zero. The cold isn’t anything more than inconvenient and I guess after spending a winter or two here you’d get used to it, but it’s pretty damn inconvenient. When I first step outside with my sweatshirt and jacket and gloves and skull cap on, it doesn’t seem so bad. Then in the next 5-15 seconds, depending on how windy it is, my clothes lose most of the heat they’re holding and I realise it’s cold. Then for the next minute or two my body tries to maintain it’s temperature even on non-vital parts and I realise that it’s fucking cold. About half way through this my eyes will water a little, again if it’s windy enough. After that, my body gives up on heating non vital parts, which are mostly on my face because every other part of me is covered up. After about 5 minutes more I won’t really feel cold anymore but my nose might run a little. After that, I’ll start slurring in my speech just like as if I was drunk because most of my face is numb. After that, it’s all the same as long as I’m on my feet. I can’t imagine what would happen if I sat down for long enough outside. It’s not really considered an option.

So you see, the cold’s an inconvenience. It makes going outside uninviting. And staying indoors for too long, I’ve already told you how that’s not good for me at all. You know how if you don’t do any physical activity for long enough you feel fat and lazy? Well, my mind feels fat and lazy right now. New York gets only around 9 hours of daylight this time of the year and I pretty much spend all of those 9 hours rotting in office. As a consequence, my mind feels fat, lazy and rotten. So much so that it might just burst out of my head.

Update: I’m kinda used to the cold now but the thing about New York is that right from the end of September it gets 5 degrees Celsius colder every two weeks or so, which is just about as long as it takes me to get used to how cold it is. But it’s 0 degrees today and I just went down for a smoke and I felt like I was wearing too much clothing. My mind doesn’t feel as rotten anymore because I spent all day playing around with the major, minor pentatonic and blues scales on the guitar. I’ve had a guitar lying around for 6 years now but I didn’t know any scale other than the minor pentatonic before this week.