Manic Mandy or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Winter

What a long, cold Winter this has been.

Sometime in December the temperature dropped below freezing and it has stayed there ever since. You would think that my stout, hardy Slavic genes would buffer me in some way for this–but the force has never been strong with me here. I have never been good with the cold, though I suspect this Winter would have even those in Mother Russia cursing and spitting.

I have been in a perpetual state of dehydration for the last month (and enjoying all the lovely symptoms that go hand in hand with that, every crackling, flaking, bloated inch of me). My job has literally driven me to drink several times over the last few weeks, and this past weekend the bitter cold discouraged me from even perusing my beloved downtown Troy with all its shops and diversions on a free afternoon. It was -8 Degrees Farenheit as I was heading out to work this morning. We are expecting another 8-12 inches of snow to be dumped on us starting tomorrow.

It would be all too easy for me to slip into a deep seasonal depression right now, and I suspect the only way I’m going to make it through this long, hard Winter is by forcibly immersing my environment with cheesy, inane things that make me inexplicably happy.What are some of the things that make Winter’s miseries more endurable? I’ll make a list. I do love lists. In no particular order:

Things That Make Me Happy

1. More Cowbell

2. Funny Walks

3. Jack

4. Bedtime Stories

5. Puppies

6. Bill Murray (Ghostbuster reruns, anyone?)

7. YouTube (which makes all of the above possible, with the exception of #3. That can only be enjoyed in person)

So in a world where Blurred Lines can be played on a repeating loop, where I can replace my water at meals with wine, where I can walk the halls of an apartment where the laws of peace and sanity are devised by the mind of a madwoman, I decline to accept the current version of reality…

Mine is much better.