Tuesday, 1/29

This may not work for you. Heck, it may not even work for me. But I think I've come up with a way to mentally, at least, handle this hellaciously cold 10 or 12 or 16 or however many days it'll end up being snap,

Just think of the (pardon the pun) polar opposite,

Now, let me explain. If you study weather or if you're just obsessed with temperatures like some of us, you know that winter is kind of a mirror-universe version of the summer. Even though the temperatures are cold and the precipitation is solid instead of liquid, winter and summer are like the matter and anti-matter versions of each other, or like the evil and good versions of each other.

Which, I guess, would make winter the Spock with the beard.

(And, hopefully, someone is currently rolling on the floor laughing out loud. Either that, or my jokes are just getting WAAAAAAY too specific).

So let's work from that theory, that Summer & Winter are the same seasons, just 180 degrees apart. In that theory, January and July are the yin and yang of the seasons. They both represent the extremes of their respective seasons (which, in real life they do, January being the coldest month of the year in Marquette and July the warmest). If something happens in January there would have to be something happening in July that's a mirror version of it. That would then mean that there is an equivalent version of this hellacious 12 day January cold streak, and it's the thought of that that's keeping me going.

Because, after all, the July equivalent of this cold streak would be a 12-day streak of hot & humid weather in July.

From a meteorological point of view, both streaks are pretty much the same. They're both caused by weather systems that have stalled over the area or that have popped in from a place where they usually don't visit. They both bring extreme and uncomfortable conditions, and they both last longer than (some) people would like. When they finally go, people rejoice in the fact that “normal” weather returns. They're almost exactly like a mirror copy of each other.

Except one's brutally cold, and the other is heavenly warm. And while I can't speak for every single person, I know which one I prefer.

So that's how I'm (hopefully) gonna get through this next week. Whenever I shiver or have to throw on extra layers or, heck, even look out the window, I'm just gonna think—I'm in the Mirror Universe now. But soon, I'll be back in the real one. And when this summer's 12-day equivalent of this cold comes around, I'm gonna bask it in as much as I can.

Hopefully, that will work. Keep your fingers crossed.

(jim@wmqt.com)