Coldness in Cambridge for Katie
I'm in trouble-deep trouble. I have a problem that is completely affecting how I live my life, it's getting in the way of my classes, my ability to do my work, to function at all. . .
I can't get out of the shower.
I love the shower under any circumstances; it's where I can both relax and reenergize, I can do some great thinking and also clear my mind. However, time marches on, and as autumn progresses toward winter, the leaves fall from the trees in lovely shades of yellow and red while restricted blood flow siphons blood off at my wrists and turns my hands coordinating shades of purple and pink. If an involuntary color scheme was the only result from the dropping degrees, I'd be perfectly willing to work with it (I mean, purple is the color of royalty and as I am the future Queen of England, it'll soon be a fact of life). Unfortunately, purple and pink accompanies spastic shivering, restricted movement and brain freeze. For the next 6-8 months I am in limbo-frozen limbo. I realize it many seem that I am exaggerating. "Please, Katie, we all get cold, no one likes it (except for freaks who like it so much they move to TEXAS! ahem, ahem). It really can't be that bad, don't be a baby." Oh, it's that bad. I ask that you please turn off our overly developed sense of sexuality and read the following statement exactly as is: It's so bad that I can't even touch myself. That's right. My hands are so ridiculously cold that it shocks even me when I'm trying to dress myself, take a shower, or just desperately try to warm up by shoving my hands in my armpits. Cold, I am so cold that I am unable to do anything because my body just says "Hey, I busy being cold here, I can't really help you with that whole walking, talking, breathing thing." This is my life for what is going to feel like eternity: a frozen limbo.
My one respite is the shower. The blessed, steamy oasis in my land of shivers. If I liked my daily sabbaticals before the mercury began to dip, it's become an addiction since. The shower is now the only place where I can be gloriously enveloped in heat-hot,hot, HOT heat (yes, it's that good I need to result in redundancy). For those ten (15, okay maybe 30) minutes I am no longer cold but warm-HOT all over. Give me a moment, sensory recall....ahhh steamy goodness...Ok, I'm back. So here's the million dollar question, the help I need to get: what do I do when this takes over my life? I love it so much, I can't get out of the shower. Do you know how many times I have had to run to class in the last week because my carefully timed morning ritual is cracking under the pressure of my extended shower visits? I know it's becoming a problem because it's no longer restricted to the morning, but can strike at any time-any time! I'm working on that uber exciting spanish translation of Encanto de una hora and bam! my hands are freezing up, my feet are losing feeling and my brain is pondering the meaning of nacer over and over and over and...nada! Nothing! Niet! I am too cold to continue! I just have to pop in the shower, just a quick little dethawing, just one more time! I have enough going on in my life that all those precious moments when I could/should be working on more productive elements cannot be turning into mirror condensation.
What, then, should I do? I have to regain control, I have to stop the insanity but how can I when I won't be seeing the upside of sixty for a long, long time? After twenty-two years I can tell you that my blood flow will not be increasing any time soon, regardless of how much exercising, medication or layering I attempt. Thusfar wine has proven to be the only remedy worth anything but I feel that trading a shower addiction for a permanent state of inebriation is probably not the best idea. Do to my present circumstance of being in school in Cambridge, moving to a warmer climate within the next two years is also not going to work out so well for me. And my three month va-kay to Russia in the winter months is most likely NOT going to improve my situation too much. What, then, do I do? The answer eludes me and so I must continue as is, with my time and precious epidural moisture sacrificed to the warm water gods.
I can't get out of the shower.
I love the shower under any circumstances; it's where I can both relax and reenergize, I can do some great thinking and also clear my mind. However, time marches on, and as autumn progresses toward winter, the leaves fall from the trees in lovely shades of yellow and red while restricted blood flow siphons blood off at my wrists and turns my hands coordinating shades of purple and pink. If an involuntary color scheme was the only result from the dropping degrees, I'd be perfectly willing to work with it (I mean, purple is the color of royalty and as I am the future Queen of England, it'll soon be a fact of life). Unfortunately, purple and pink accompanies spastic shivering, restricted movement and brain freeze. For the next 6-8 months I am in limbo-frozen limbo. I realize it many seem that I am exaggerating. "Please, Katie, we all get cold, no one likes it (except for freaks who like it so much they move to TEXAS! ahem, ahem). It really can't be that bad, don't be a baby." Oh, it's that bad. I ask that you please turn off our overly developed sense of sexuality and read the following statement exactly as is: It's so bad that I can't even touch myself. That's right. My hands are so ridiculously cold that it shocks even me when I'm trying to dress myself, take a shower, or just desperately try to warm up by shoving my hands in my armpits. Cold, I am so cold that I am unable to do anything because my body just says "Hey, I busy being cold here, I can't really help you with that whole walking, talking, breathing thing." This is my life for what is going to feel like eternity: a frozen limbo.
My one respite is the shower. The blessed, steamy oasis in my land of shivers. If I liked my daily sabbaticals before the mercury began to dip, it's become an addiction since. The shower is now the only place where I can be gloriously enveloped in heat-hot,hot, HOT heat (yes, it's that good I need to result in redundancy). For those ten (15, okay maybe 30) minutes I am no longer cold but warm-HOT all over. Give me a moment, sensory recall....ahhh steamy goodness...Ok, I'm back. So here's the million dollar question, the help I need to get: what do I do when this takes over my life? I love it so much, I can't get out of the shower. Do you know how many times I have had to run to class in the last week because my carefully timed morning ritual is cracking under the pressure of my extended shower visits? I know it's becoming a problem because it's no longer restricted to the morning, but can strike at any time-any time! I'm working on that uber exciting spanish translation of Encanto de una hora and bam! my hands are freezing up, my feet are losing feeling and my brain is pondering the meaning of nacer over and over and over and...nada! Nothing! Niet! I am too cold to continue! I just have to pop in the shower, just a quick little dethawing, just one more time! I have enough going on in my life that all those precious moments when I could/should be working on more productive elements cannot be turning into mirror condensation.
What, then, should I do? I have to regain control, I have to stop the insanity but how can I when I won't be seeing the upside of sixty for a long, long time? After twenty-two years I can tell you that my blood flow will not be increasing any time soon, regardless of how much exercising, medication or layering I attempt. Thusfar wine has proven to be the only remedy worth anything but I feel that trading a shower addiction for a permanent state of inebriation is probably not the best idea. Do to my present circumstance of being in school in Cambridge, moving to a warmer climate within the next two years is also not going to work out so well for me. And my three month va-kay to Russia in the winter months is most likely NOT going to improve my situation too much. What, then, do I do? The answer eludes me and so I must continue as is, with my time and precious epidural moisture sacrificed to the warm water gods.