2003-11-13

Winter is here, and it has its frowny face on. It�s a fun grab-bag of precipitation out there right now � will it be freezing rain next? Hail? Snow? It�s like elemental roulette! Whatever happens to be pelting from the heavens at any given moment is given added face-slicing punch by what appears to be a mild arctic hurricane. Getting off the bus, I nearly blew over: I don�t mean that as amusing hyperbole, either; I mean that fucking literally. (Incidentally, even the media are becoming infected by the insidious misuse of the word �literally�: a newspaper article I read today claimed that Jean Chr�tien has �literally poisoned Canada-US relations.� Really? Gosh. So on his last diplomatic slumber party at the White House, he had his aides gleefully cooking up drain cleaner cocktails behind the scenes? Would that contemporary politics were so medieval!)

My idiot landlord doesn�t seem to have received the barometric memo: as usual, she is thriftily maintaining Neptune-like temperatures in the building. I�m typing intermittently between bouts of evil-genius-style hand-wringing, not due to malicious delight at my literary vitriol, but in a futile pitch for renewed circulation. And now, if you�ll excuse me, I�m going to go do my impression of Sylvia Plath and stick my head in the oven.