How I See It, Volume 1, number 2, February 1999 How I See It These very very cold days make me question my sanity. What am I doing living here? Having just returned from Outside, where friends gasp and are incredulous while I quote the present temperatures, I have a practiced list of the wonders and advantages of living in the cold that I recite with bravado: keeps the population down, I say, and stretches one’s imagination finding ways to survive. And how do you survive? they ask. I dance, I tell them. I turn on the music very loud and dance by myself. And I read books that make me laugh, joke with friends on the phone and at work, and curl up with a good mystery. But as the days go by and my thermometer hasn’t budged from -48 degrees, I feel my bravado begin to gel, my dance become a swan song and my laughter held still. My grip on sanity, being tenuous at best, starts slipping. Soon my conversations are reduced to constant complaining to the dogs about the cold and how miserable I feel. Then these conversations turn into whining, then wailing, and soon we are all howling in harmony, our voices high. I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous I am, and my sanity returns. In gratitude, I spike their diet dog food with parmesan cheese.
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