I read yesterday about a Chicago janitor who wrote a 16,000 page book. He thought that the weather was God's domain and humanity had no business trying to predict it. He kept an extensive journal of yesterday's predictions matched against what the weather actually was.
Weather may be God's domain, but man is responsible for doing what he can to survive it.
Rain
I have written before about the weather in Wales. In summary, it is almost always raining, but not in any decisive way. It's more than a drizzle but nothing bold enough to be a downpour, which I always considered wishy-washy and annoying.
Rain in Wales was always accompanied by a deeply bitter wind that went though your clothes and skin and straight through to your soul. A section of my soul will always be frostbitten by my time in Wales.
I had a Welsh girlfriend at school, and she was the one who taught me how to be comfortable in the rain.
When it starts to rain and we are without an umbrella, most of us tend to hunch over and lift our shoulders, as if we are sheltering a baby strapped to the front of our chests, although we rarely are.
My Welsh girlfriend pointed out that this reflex was pointless. The rain will hit us at the same rate, and no particularly important body part is being sheltered.
By relaxing my shoulders and standing up straight, I found that, although I wasn't staying any drier, I at least felt better about my situation.
Heat and Humidity
Some people, often people from Southern states, think of Texas as having a dry heat. It does not; it's humid as all fuck. In San Antonio, I usually attribute this to a river running through the city, but the San Antonio River is a lot smaller than San Antonio - it doesn't seem like it could do all that on its own.
Another family member has a theory involving swimming pools.
The heat in Texas is awful. At some point, it becomes impossible to function. You cannot walk from your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned big box store without sobbing in pain and exhaustion until you eventually give up.
Growing up in Texas, I learned two good strategies for dealing with the heat. Second, there is a particular way to stick to the shadows outdoors. Walk on the shady side of the street. Stand in the shadow of a street sign while you wait at the corner. Do anything to keep even a portion of the sun away.
But first, don't go outdoors in the first place. San Antonio has an excellent cooling infrastructure. It is where I developed my weaknesses for central air and ceiling fans. It is also where I developed my instinct for hiding inside whenever it gets pretty out.
Some people prefer heat, some cold. I will take heat over cold any day of the week. I mean, this city is all pavement, and it does get hot, but I cannot tell you the number of times that I've rolled out of bed already sweating, suffered many of the symptoms of heat exhaustion on the one-block walk to the subway, and ended up dehydrated and half dead in Hell's Kitchen and still said, quite truthfully, that it still wasn't as bad as the heat in Texas.
Cold and Snow
Once, in Wales, a friend recorded my reading a short piece about the cold in New York for a project she was doing on accents. I liked it so much, I gave her two readings - my standard, post-television American, and my best Brooklynese. My favorite line was "New Yorkers deal with the cold in two ways - they dress for it, and they talk about it."
Because it never snowed and rarely froze in San Antonio (once every three years when it does freeze, they have to shut down the whole city because everyone drives their trucks off the highway), I gained my first real experience with cold and snow at my high-pedigree college in the frozen North of these United States.
My school had long ago determined that the key to fighting a long winter was large, open spaces with lots of light. When I got to New York, I made a big deal about finding them.
I did okay, but I've still got a serious problem with the heat in my apartment. This is a deal-breaker: by next winter, I'm out of here. Or I'm buying a space heater.
One last thing: I realized when I started thinking about this as my "annual post about the weather" that my blog will be one year old in exactly one week.
I am not sure if it's improved.
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