Man oh, man. Aside from the wicked cold that infiltrates every known crevice, the house, the streets, the elevators… the snow and me are buds.

Yeah, buds.

I love the hats. Lets make a paragraph on hats. There was a great one the other night that was a black average everyday howdydo hat worn by every fisherman known to the sea. Only this had at a strip of blond scruff fuzz—the kind you’d find in a 70’s shag carpet extravaganza held at your local carpet store—sown to the top of it. It look like the black hat broke open and blond hair that had been dyed far far too much had burst out of the crack like some manic disco lava boiling over. That’s a hat.

I got complements on my hat today, the hat I carted from Ecuador, where I bought it for a whopping buck-fifty on a day that was surprisingly drizzzzzzly, just before I went to the jungle and met lush and spiders and rope vines that I actually swung on, which reminded me amazingly of all the many rope swings//buoy swings I whipped back and forth on–-including the one that not only tore a piece of flesh from my hand, but also managed to drop me (after best friend pushed me ruthlessly) about 20 feet to the earth where I knocked myself out on a stone and woke with my sister and friend hovering solicitously above me. Yeah, hat to jungle to swing to back again to hats. That hat has some serious memoryoverlap imbedded into it, and golly be if I don’t believe this might be what is so wonderful about it, above and beyond the fact that it is wool and not quite warm enough for the weather here.

Other hats: the Russian ya slatkaya ee seelnaya tozhe hat. Fur ruffled into a mane. Um, the scarf hats, aren’t those handy little beasts, allowing one to cut a piece out of the winter layering. Or the “I’m not goin’ wear a hat, because that’s not sexy enough” hats—-bare hair. Or the winter hunter in Chicago, the don’t you wish you had ear flaps too hats.

I love snow. Let me count the ways.

1) Burying myself upside down by the road. Waving feet as the cars pass. An underestimated pastime. Note: even with all the snow compacted by your head and surprisingly warm and suffocating, you can hear the cars slowing down. The folks wondering if you are really suffering and then realizing that of course you’re not. It’s obvious you are messing with their heads.

2) Here’s one that calls into question my status as an Older Sister. Kodiak, AK is gifted with dratloads of mini-lakes, ponds as it were. There were two within walking distance of my house. And before a month of freezing cold had passed, I the elder sister had developed a system.

First, throw small rocks all over the pond. If they don’t fall through, maybe it’s solid. Second, throw large rocks. Dig them out of the snow. Heft them as far as you can and develop a competition with your butch “ain’t gonna be weak ever” little sister. Third, dig a stick out of the snow, throw it and then let your 50lb dog run out on the lake. Occasionally he breaks through, but if he does, it’s just a paw because he’s a dog and nimble and can pull himself out. Fourth, send your sister, whose roughly 70-80lbs and still young enough to not notice you are testing the fragility of ice with her weight. Third, send yourself, 110lbs and much more likely to break through, but it never happened.

I was very clever at testing all the ice, and then banning sections. Don’t worry, although I was dreadfully evil and a wicked sister,

(not unlike most older sisters. I feel the need to defend myself here. I used to fight anyone my sister sassed and who wanted to kick her ass. As a matter of fact, these were the only fights I ever—with the exception of the three kids who decided to egg my house—got into a fight with. She had the biggest mouth of any kid ever around and depended mightily my strength to roust her from ill-garnered situations. Which meant she’d flip someone off and they’d push me over. Or it meant she’d get all her money stolen, and I’d punch the kid in reprisal. All that good big sister stuff. In return, she walked on ice. True, I taught her to be a master thief and that means I was a bad sister, but also true, I protected her ass massively and took her on trips to the zoo when we were latchkey kids. Oh, by the way, the theivery involves:

a) learn which thieving sites are evil in a sense, such as 7-11 versus a locally owned store

b) check out the candy (or goods to be stolen) in said evil store

c) have a good sense of who is paying attention to you, on video or otherwise

d) pick up the goods

e) pick up extra goods

f) some of goods go to pocket

g) some of goods stay in hand

h) be quick

i) go buy a few jolly ranchers

j) toss the change into the change jar for poor penniless suckers

k) appreciate the goods before you go home

l) never tell this to your mother 15 years after the fact on the assumption that she will understand that time has passed and she did such a fine job that she won’t be heartbroken to hear of said corruption.

Anyhow, that is the way of sisters, completely corrupting and mean and brutal and horrible, but also… something else.)

I had my standards. No playing on not-solid ice. No sir, sister, stay away from wetweak-ice.

3) Fights fights snowball fights. Icy slushballs: off limits. Facewashing: only if you’re pissed, and even then, you’re evil. Forts: necessary. Mom had a boyfriend who decided one year who even decided to teach me how to build an igloo. I never figured out the roof. Such construction was beyond me.

4) Tunnels. The most fun is worrying about cave-ins.

5) Everything out of order. My favorite.

6) Sledding. Once my sister and I got very very drunk and snuck out onto a ski slope and she was the “brakes” and I was the “steerer,” which meant no brakes and some pretty fucking manic steering under the face of 60 mph winds. We got kicked off the slopes after two fabulous moonlit face-erasing burns down the slope.

7) Hot chocolate.

8) Calvin and Hobbes.

9) Hot tubs, or saunas and naked freewheeling bodies groping your way through the tumbling tumblers to find the heat. Feet freezing, nipples hardening, thighs burning, hand numbing, hair stiffening, lip chapping, stomach heaving, oh yea baby. Hot. Not cold, hot.

10) Tracks. Figuring them out. Messing with them. Tonight the clouds look like snow with the tracks of rain rippling its surface.

11) Snowshoeing. Always way more effort than you ever signed on for, but the conversation tends to be good since you are moving at mock minus two.

12) Animals in snow. We like to bury our animals in the snow, which involves digging a hole, putting the cat in, piling lots of snow on top, standing back, and then: boiiiiiing… jack n the box. Good thing our cats love us, or they’d think us awfully mean. And the dogs, how they rub their bellies or try to pull you off sled (because you’re going too fast, obviously), or wrestle with you because what’s going on?, or snap and snipe at the snow like they’re facing a personal affront.

So, that’s that. Tonight I watched “DEBs” and it made me laugh. I like any plot where the evil archnemesis is a hot lesbian kungfu fighter who doesn’t turn straight in the end when she realizes how she has wronged the patriarchy. Funny bad-spoof. Mini-dyke-Demi-Moore: moderately sexy. Ssssssss.

But outside, snow. And hellow, let’s make it through the presentation I haven’t prepared for and keep getting this sense that I’m going to BS my way through. Hmmmm….

I went instead to a little post-critique getogether where I chatted it up with a girl from Greece and another girl from Romania, all the while thinking how lucky I am to be in at an intersection of international art-making. Oh yea, I think there’s something to be gained there. I am going to make an effort to take at least one class outside my department next semester, even if I haven’t found it yet, because wow, what a chance, how it makes me sooooo excited to realize where I’m at, what an opportunity this is – to meet such a diversity and keep it here inside my bones.

This girl here, right here (yeah let’s be happy we know each other) was meant to connect to allovertheworld. Hot snowy stuff. Snow, meetings, snowball, powsers.