…and this is what she looks like.  Every time a bus door opens she yells at the driver to “close the @#$%^& door!”  Whenever wind whipped snow brings tears to my eyes she brings forth a howl of rage that I am always surprised no one else hears.  She looks daggers at anyone who dares to ask me to actually think because WHO CAN THINK WHEN IT’S THIS @#$$%^& COLD!!!

Folks, let me introduce you to my Winter Rage.  Winter Rage, meet folks.

Every winter I begin the season enjoying the fresh, crisp nip in the air.  I glory in the beauty of falling snow.  I shiver with anticipation of the holidays to come, of the city festooned with lights and frosted with snow.  It is a scrumptious time of year in which I revel.  I am teased, mocked even, for my love affair with early winter.  For, inevitably, the love turns sour.

They say that loathing is the opposite side of love.  I don’t know who they are, but they’re right!  Come mid-January, we experience the first thaw and are reminded of a world without winter, where skin is not chapped and noses are not running.  And then, like a bully, winter returns, more harsh then ever for our guards were let down.  I began to pumice away my deep winter toughness and now the renewed vigor with which winter bitch-slaps my face stings even more than the first December cold snap.

And so, here I am.  In a skirt.  In the cold.  With my Winter Rage shrieking in my head and violence in my heart.  And a whole month for February to go. <weeps>