I'm pretty anti-social lately. I haven't seen my friends in weeks. I don't plan to see them for weeks. Even though they live 10 minutes away on a bus.
Why?
Well, it's not the fact that I'm teaching a university course and planning my lectures is taking up all my time. It's not the fact that I'm planning a wedding and putting in TONS of screen time plotting strategizing this "party." It's not because I'm also trying to find a job because I get married so I'm spending lots of time searching (literally) dozens of job banks and submitting CVs, resumes, and teaching dossiers. It's not because before I get a job I need to finish my PhD thesis, so I spend over 10 hours analyzing data this week that still didn't make any sense. It's not because I'm surrounded by death and currently acting like a self-pitying emo kid. Ok, maybe all that stuff is sorta contributing to it.
But the real reason is becacuse it's winter. And not the nice kind of winter, with fluffy, powdery snow, or the sticky snowman snow. This winter has been light on the snow, but heavy on the freezing rain.
It feels like we get a "Freezing Rain Warning" every 3 days. And it's a good thing that my sister bought me those metal spikes for me boots 3 years ago. I've been using them heavily since receiving them - I swear they are in my top 5 of my favorite recent consumer products to have entered my life (others include my kobo, fitbit, and roomba).
While I've worn those ice spikes on my boots for a few winters, I don't usually NEED them all the time. Most of the time I have been using them not on ice, but on slick, packed snow, or on slush, or even in powdery snow.
Not this year. I swear the sidewalks on the way to my bus stop have been as crazy slick as a curling rink. Not a hockey rink, at least that's flat, predictable ice. Sidewalk ice is uneven and slops and has been ruts. Even if you place your food down solid, the ground isn't level, so you can still slip. Luckily, the ice spikes fix that and everything is fine.
But having my world be a ball of ice is no fun. And it makes me want to just curl up and want Netflix and stay home. So that's what I've been doing.
Today we had a huge ice/snow hell storm. I never stay home on Fridays, but here I am. I didn't go to campus today, that it just an irritation I don't need, especially since elementary and secondary schools were being cancelled. Then around 1pm, I lost power in my building. Lobby parties are actually pretty interesting, and I liked the brief moment of community that existed with me and my neighbours. We eventually got our power back which was happy-happy, but the storm had gotten so bad that going to my fiance's place for regular Friday night dinner was a pretty reckless idea.
So I just read an entire book on my kobo and wrote this post for you to read. Because it's winter.