time and temp

All this week in Chicago it's going to be hovering about in the mid-forties, early fifties.

All this week in San Francisco is sunny, bright, hovering in the mid-seventies.

I forgot today that it's actually November.

Then, when I remembered, I realized that I am not walking around with the heavy-hearted dread that accompanies the crisp fall days in Chicago. I'm not steeling myself for negative windchills, frozen ground, feet soaked in dirty, icy water from three-day-old snow drifts. No mornings scraping frost from the windows of the car, or, worse - standing on a frigid train platform, huddling in the futility of a down coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. No cursing at the frozen air and asking myself why the FUCK do I live here?

Instead, a month or two of foggy, wet, 50-degree days surrounded by plants that never stop flowering.

No long months of early spring sure that winter will never, ever end.

The freedom from worry is exhilarating. I hardly know how to accept it.

After ten years of frigid winter hell, I'm free.

Fuck. Yeah.