Tuesday, January 4, 2011

No, Not Winnie The Pooh

By this point in my life, I've gotten used to people thinking I'm kinda weird. They think I'm weird for lots of reasons, like:

1. I don't like hot drinks.

2. I don't enjoy clubbing or going to pubs, and never have.

3. I don't watch any soaps.

And I understand most of them, because they're all ways into life, you know? Two of those things are stuff people build their lives around. "What did you do at the weekend" nearly always means "how much drinking did you at a pub or a club?", and it's a very familiar refrain. I know, because I've had to try and awkwardly get around it a million times with things like "oh...er...I went...to somewhere. It was orsum." Instead of the truth, which would be "I ate a million midget gems and watched a thousand episodes of Parks and Recreation".

You can't tell the truth when that's it. But worse than this, is a discovery I made many moons ago. You can't tell the truth about hot drinks, either. You can't say you don't like tea or coffee, because then people stop as though you flicked an alarm labelled ABNORMAL, and next thing you know you're getting chased by torch wielding villagers.

But to come to the very essence of my long winded point: the same thing happens when I mention that I prefer winter, to summer.

Like non-tea drinking, it's the very epitome of social pariah-dom. Suddenly I'm a hunchbacked weirdo who people fear to gaze upon, lest I should shift into an even less pleasing shape. I take on many forms, apparently. Avert your eyes, children. She hates summer!

And it's true. I do. I hate everything about summer. And I don't do it to be cool and different, I swear to God! I'm not cool and different. I wear cardigans and watch Will and Grace. That's not cool and different. And my reasons for hating summer are equally as dismal like:

1. Urgh, what's that big ball of heat in the sky, trying to rape my entire body all at the same time? Urgh, I'm dying. I'm melting. Help me.

2. Oh, what's that you say? The publishing industry unofficially kind of shuts up shop in the summer? Oh well isn't that marvellous! I LOVE summer.

3. I fucking don't.

4. There's nothing on the telly. Nothing. Yeah, that's right- I live in Britain so we don't get True Blood here until January. Thanks a lot, television. I thought you were on my side.

5. There is no Christmas in summer, and Christmas rules. Yeah- that's how uncool I am. I think Christmas rules.

I think winter rules. I love the way everything looks, so cool and still and gleaming. I love the way snow looks on things, as though it wanted to draw a veil over everything ugly and mechanical and make it soft and lovely. Stark and new. I want everything to be stark and new, like the world after some terrible event that wipes nearly everyone off the planet.

Except for me. And maybe Christian Bale, naturally.

That's what winter really is- a fresh new start. Spring pretends to be, but it's lying. By the time Spring gets going things have already started, they're already in motion, you can't go back. And it just torments me with the threat of summer around the corner, anyway.

But winter never threatens me with anything. Except the occasional accident on slippy ground and even that I manage to avoid most of the time, because I'm rarely wandering around in the winter wonderland. I'm just looking at it, and being kept safe in the middle of it, like a little bear inside a frosty cocoon.

I love winter. It makes me a little bear!

5 comments:

  1. Best final sentence of an essay on the seasons ever.

    And I feel for you: I happen to like warm weather and hot beverages, but many of my little "I don'ts" seem to constantly raise people's eyebrows. (So if you see anyone wandering around with upraised eyebrows, it's probably someone who has recently interacted with me.)

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  2. I find I like winter for the first month, and then the romance wears off. After living in the tropics for several years I remember how excited I was the first time I saw snow again.

    Garce

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  3. I read this with a grin on my face, wondering how on earth you were going to connect Whinnie the Pooh to winter, but you pulled it off with great style.

    I completely agree with you about, winter. It's the coolest season.

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  4. Charlotte,

    I don't know how old you are but I get the feeling I've got a couple of decades on you at least...so let me tell you straight out, being weird is where it's at. When you're a teenager, or in your twenties, being like everyone else is the rage, but believe me, when you get older, you're infinitely grateful to be different.

    Anyway, I know lots of people who love winter and hate summer. My husband is one of them. He endures living in the tropics for other reasons, but is constantly talking about how much he misses snow.

    Hugs,
    Lisabet (who doesn't go clubbing either)

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  5. Jeremy- LOL LOL. Both at people and their reactions to you and you liking my bear comment. You're the best!

    Garceus- when my cousins came over from the Deep South they were so excited to see snow! But yeah, they soon got fed up of it. I can see why, though!

    Mike- I always wind my way back to some vague nonsense point! And did you just pun? That was kind of a pun, wasn't it? Hooray!

    Lisabet- I'm definitely getting to that stage where I'm glad to be different. Maybe even thrilled to be. Being the same looks so...exhausting. Especially when it's that cool kind of the same, you know, all "oh and I went to Place last night. It was mind blowing. I danced to the beat of my existential crisis etc etc". I mean, the dancing alone would wear me out. And hooray for your husband!

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