I have been wearing the same outfit for about eight days.  So don’t hug me.

When I have to go teach yoga or do Realtor Biz, I change into appropriate clothing, but, the moment those activities are over, I race home and put my blizzard outfit back on. It is beginning to get ripe.

There aren’t any laundry machines in the building I moved into.

I have not lived laundry-machine-less since, like, the 1990’s and I refuse to devote large chunks of time to schlepping laundry somewhere. So I keep putting my go-to blizzard wear outfit on day after day after day no matter what it may smell like.

I know some folks around town have noticed.  Pretty soon, I’m going to have to announce to everyone I encounter: “I DO have other clothes, but none suitable for dog walking in blizzards.  Also, I have no laundry machines.  Please help me.”

There are many shitty horrible things in the world.  There are also many beautiful radiant things.  In the grand scheme of things, being without laundry is a luxury problem.  But, apparently, I have become a luxury person. I WANT CLEAN CLOTHES. Without having to work really hard to get them.

My blizzard outfit involves the long johns my mom gave me last Christmas,  a bulky sweater, the Boys’ Department camouflage cargo pants I got for $9.99 at Kohls and have worn 567 times, big wooly socks, goofy hat, my fluffy fake fur coat from the local Salvation Army. 

The pricey item of the outfit is a giant magenta DKNY scarf I bought one day in uptown Manhattan when I was heading somewhere where I needed to look presentable and was thus underdressed and about to freeze to death.  I looked up from my freezing misery and there was a shop window with a distinctly toasty looking mannequin wearing said scarf. I went in and bought the scarf, wrapped half of it around my head, the rest around my neck.  I was warm and presentable too.  It was expensive, but it’s now served me four winters.

All my upstate friends here keep saying “I’m trying to pretend I’m really into upstate winters.”

Laura the Hot Farmer is crafting way to de-freeze the pigs watering troughs.

Robin the Kayak Vixen is fine tuning her kayaking skills in a pool INDOORS.

But only one of my friends, Peter, actually is into it, and that’s because he’s one of those Dudes Who Thrives In Cold. He skis and hikes and even rides his bike (a special winter cyclo cross bike with fat tires and a fender) like EVERY DAY.  Peter is not a man of leisure, he has an Actual Job, but apparently gets up at 3am in order to begin the many outdoorsy activities that make him love winter.

The rest of us, seemingly, just lock ourselves indoors and/or grit our teeth, find blizzard outfits, and go out into the world.

The snow-covered world can be very beautiful.  That cottony silence that Hubert Selby Jr. calls the “song of the silent snow.”

The post-blizzard moon rising out the window of my laundry-less, bamboo-floored abode.

But, mostly, it’s just cold, and my clothes smell and my dog’s delicate feet are sore and cracked from the unavoidable salt on the sidewalks.

Move, you say?

No way.  I love it here.

I might love it more in Central America, providing no one killed me.  But that will be an adventure for my future.

For now, I shall be cold and ripe and endeavor to pretend I like it.

So go ahead, hug me.