Dear Weather, What the fuck is going on.
If you live in the Chicagoland area, or really anywhere in the eastern/central Midwest, you have probably noticed something very peculiar this December, something that doesn’t quite gel with how you’ve experienced the Decembers of yesteryear: You’ve looked outside your window, and seen grass. Un-blanketed, un-white grass. Again: it is late December. There should be snow. Where the fuck is the snow.
To make sure it wasn’t just me having another panic attack, I consulted the books, and sure enough, on December 11th, Chicago broke its record for longest amount of time without any measureable snowfall. As of the writing of this article/bombast, there has still been none/not a lot. And don’t give me that “there’s been a drought all year” bullshit. There’s been rain all across the Midwest the past month – the temperature just isn’t chilly enough. Here are the temperatures in Chicago from December 12th-16th: 45, 49, 50, 51, 51. In other words, wet season.
In Michigan, where I am sequestered this holiday, it’s not much better. Sure, there’s been wintery mixes here and there, but for the most part, it’s just grey and sad and depressing. It looks like Seattle minus the flannels, legal weed, and palpable depression in the air. Although now that I think about it we’ve always had palpable depression. Never mind the last thing.
Some people seem to think this warmer turn is positive. “Oh, thank god there’s no snow, the roads are so safe now!” they say. “It’s nice I don’t have to shovel my driveway or salt the sidewalk” some chime. “I’ve never been able to walk out of my house butt-ass naked to get my paper in December before without garnering strange looks; now, everyone’s doing it! Also, I feel really insecure now” many have quipped.
They are terribly mistaken. A snowless December is a December without cheer, without hope, without a sense of comfort. I can remember when I used to make snowmen, and snow angels, and build snow forts and go sledding and pee in the snow and then eat it because it looked like banana Laffy Taffy last year as a child. Those are the things that make December great, in addition to the more soothing moments it brings: being able to look out the window and see small, white specks of snow flutter into view, and then out again, like small, fluttery specks that look like snow and are also white. This year? All I’ve had – all we’ve had – to look at is rain. Terrible, not fluttery, not speckle-y rain. And if it doesn’t get any colder, there may be no snow for the rest of the season. Maybe it’s a sign from the Mayans that the end is truly nigh. After all, they didn’t have snow either. I think. It doesn’t snow in South America right?
I’ll admit I’ve begun a slow descent into insanity due to my silent ponderings. About a week ago, I awoke in a daze to find the words “WONS TITEL” festooned on my bedroom walls with vanilla icing, with no recollection of having done so. I’ve also taken up the hobby of buying reams upon reams of blank white paper, cutting up the sheets into very tiny pieces, and then skipping about my neighborhood, tossing the scraps here and there like some grotesque, delusional lovechild of Jack Frost and Johnny Appleseed. And yesterday I ate an entire Elmer’s Glue Stick. How is that related to my winter withdrawal? It’s not. I just felt bad about it and wanted to tell someone, because I think it might be toxic but I’m not sure and I’m really just looking for some guidance on what to do next.
Through all of my trust issues with Poison Control, however, I’m trying to stay optimistic. Even if we don’t have a white Christmas this year, it wouldn’t be the first time. And, historically, January tends to be a colder month than December, meaning that little extra 4 or 5 degree difference could push us over that magical 32 degree Fahrenheit boundary. So, there’s a lot of time. And at the end of the day, it’s all really just water, anyways. I mean, shit, we’re made of water, and we’re not really special. So who cares if some frozen water falls from the sky, right?
Keep doing what you’re doing, Weather. Because the snow will come eventually. For sure. Right? It will, right? Please tell me it will. I’m losing sleep.
