Yuck, Chicago.

It’s a rainy and disgusting day in Chicago.

Every year I go through this: every year I want to move, and every year I don’t do anything. I complain for four months, until one day I’m euphoric that the rain is warm and the clocks have sprung forward. I am a masochist.

I will get through this winter in the same way that I have gotten through every winter for the past 31 years of my life (with the exception of the few winters that I lived in a warm state and complained that there was no snow on Christmas day). I will rotate between three pairs of sweatpants, each equally inappropriate for an almost-32 year-old, and some tank-top/hoodie combination. I will take a lot of hot baths. I will say I’m going to leave the house, but then not leave the house. It’s too cold. I will probably bake, I will write, I will listen to a lot of melancholy music. I will complain the whole time, but I will try to do it in cute and charming ways, so that nobody hates me.

One day I will think that I want to go outside and build a snowman. I may or may not have a child with me. I will put on a coat, gloves, leggings, leg warmers, jeans and a hat and I will go outside. I will make three snowballs, be instantly bored and too cold, and I will go inside and make a chai/hot chocolate/coffee/tea. I will pretend like I’ve had a wonderful winters day and have earned my hot drink. In reality, it will have been 15 minutes, tops.

I will plan shows. One of my favorite things about being more reclusive is that I can justify being lost in my own head more often. In the summer I feel guilty being inside. I’m driven by the gripping panic that winter is coming, and feel heavy guilt for not taking advantage of every warm, fleeting moment. In the winter, being inside and hunkering down is not only acceptable, but desirable. This is when I turn into a house cat. A show-planning, prose-writing, movie-watching, attention-span-having house cat.

I might secretly like winter. Shh.

Someone sneezed on me on the Belmont Bus this morning. I hate the bus. There are three schools between my house and work, which means a bus full of children who are bigger than me. Wall-to-wall teenagers, interspersed with frustrated office-jockeys who are annoyed by teenagers who are bigger than they are taking up their space. And then there’s me, trying to stay unseen and make my body as small as possible. Trying to not get sneezed on.

Winter sucks, and I am promising you all right now, I will not like it. I’ll deal with it, because I have to, but I will not like it. I will be sad every time I look outside, and then it will be February, and then it will be my birthday and I will care less about how cold it is. Then I will complain about how old I’m getting, but secretly love all of the attention. Then it will get unseasonably warm, then blizzard. This will happen until mid-March, when I will eventually cry out of frustration.

I will get through it. I will force my friends to come over and bring me food, I will snuggle babies and cats (and people) and I will force myself to get a Christmas tree this year. I will plan shows. Until further notice, please assume that I am smashed onto a bus somewhere, trying to not get stomped on, hating winter and waiting for my hair to grow out (it’s getting really long).

Happy almost (basically) winter, everyone. Here we go.