One of my favorite things about living in Buffalo is the front row seat we have to incredibly powerful winter storms. Yes, winter is long, grey, and depressing but when the lake-effect machine gets activated and the storm rolls in, standing by a window and watching the outside world get pounded by wind and snow is fascinating. It’s like you are in a spaceship looking out at a new and dangerous planet you’ve just landed on. It’s loud, violent, and alive. If there aren’t already, there should be blizzard chasers the way there are those who chase hurricanes and tornados.
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What do the elves of the North Pole do when Santa leaves to deliver the presents? I imagine it being similar to a pro sports team after their season ends. Some elves may go under the knife, some go party in Cancun or Ibiza, and some go put their feet up and chill on the couch. Some of them probably need therapy after the stress of Christmas. I wonder how long their off-season is. I bet they miss work and are eager to get back to it.
No, who am I kidding. Work sucks and even the elves know that.
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I love to sneeze. The best is when three or four or five (or more!) sneezes get lined up in a row. You don’t know when they’ll start or when they’ll end. It’s nice to have something taken out of your hands like that. One can’t binge sneeze or develop a sneeze addiction, although I’m probably wrong and people probably do make themselves sneeze on purpose. Sneezing is like hearing a great song on the radio: you didn’t pick it and you didn’t start it and you can’t repeat it as many times as you’d like, you just enjoy it. -
For lunch today, I bought five Buffalo chicken fingers (with a cup of blue cheese) from a supermarket. You are supposed to heat the chicken fingers up in a microwave but I ate them cold in my car in the parking lot while listening to Rich Eisen talk about the Miami Dolphins on the radio. You know those fruit pie snacks that look like Hot Pockets and come in the small box? I had one of those too, peach pie flavored. My total at self-checkout was $8.25. A tasty and filling lunch that didn’t make me feel like the store was robbing me. Thank you, Tops Friendly Markets! -
There are worse ways to spend an evening than talking on the phone with a friend for two hours. I consider myself a private person who can get by without much human interaction. In fact, too much human interaction makes me run for the hills. And then there are long, winding conversations filled with laughter with an old friend that makes me remember the glory of people and why people are the greatest thing about life. People are not perfect. Interactions with people can sometimes be the most horrible thing, but nothing hits the soul quite like great conversation with a loved one. And it is the soul that is often forgotten about when we think about our priorities in life. Go to work, buy groceries, do chores, and…oh yeah, remember to make your soul feel alive and jump for joy. This sounds like an advice column now. What do I know? Loved ones are loved ones for a reason. -
I think I might have trusts issues. I don’t know if thermostats are always telling the truth. They say they are keeping the temperature at sixty-nine degrees while it feels like four degrees outside, and I commend them for the effort because that doesn’t sound easy, but why am I wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and socks inside and still shivering? Is it actually sixty-nine degrees in my old drafty apartment right now? I have my doubts. But I’m sure there’s other factors at play that I am missing. I miss a lot. I think I’m pretty observant but some things go over my head. Guess I have to learn to be taller. -
It is 9:47 in the morning on a Saturday in December and the snow is falling hard in Buffalo. There is an emotion inside of me that I’d like to tell you about. Have you ever felt this way?
It is really cold and snowy, and the outside world would take some effort to move to. It is early and it feels too bright and I am hungry. Hunger is a dark emotion, contrasting with the light, so already I feel out of place. I don’t have food except for some uncooked rice and my rice cooker is dirty right now so I would have to clean the rice bowl with water that would start out as super duper cold and then I would make the rice and it would all feel like I am in a shelter living in the end times and that’s what Buffalo winters are like for me.
It feels like I am pressing against a flat, very hard and cold metallic surface and I am looking for warmth and comfort and finding none in my present surroundings. I have just a bit of warmth left inside of me to get by on, but I am huddled around it and I know it is insufficient, the same feeling as trying to curl up on the ground and sleep under a blanket that is just a bit too small. It doesn’t feel like enough but, once persevered through, gives way to “enough”: a great meal and a huge, heavy blanket.
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Hands cracked.
Shins cracked.
Forearms cracked.
Its Friday night and the cars drive by.
Look out at the road, the road is cracked.
Salt and snow getting into every pore, like the sweat in Wichita at Jack White’s ranch.
The way the Earth tilts and the sun shines differently,
Its a mystery.
Lake effect snow which I’m sure will make history.
These are the latest thoughts in my mind,
Treat your family well and treat them kind.
Good night.
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The Paul McCartney song goes “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.” What kind of person “simply” has a wonderful Christmas time? How do you have a Christmas time without remembering the stress and the fights of previous traumatic Christmases? Having said that, Christmas is timeless. Or eternal. It always comes back. Even if you don’t feel Christmas-y, the lights still go up and the shopping goes on. Even if you aren’t having a wonderful Christmas time, someone else very well could be. Up north here in Buffalo, the snow doesn’t stop. And the snow always looks fantastic, even if my relationship with it might have become strained over the years. Snow was a beautiful friend growing up but after I started driving, our relationship became a bit more complicated.
That makes me think of one of my favorite things: When you think the roads are going to be garbage on a drive, and they turn out to be clean and you can drive your car with confidence. I recently got new tires on my car and I think I understand the people who drive way too fast in the snow now. They are unburdened by fears of spinning out. It’s not that they necessarily hate those people who are driving slow, but they aren’t suffering like the drivers who worry about every unplowed slice of road. It’s not always about us, a good thing to remember.
And now, a joke. Maybe it’s more of a statement.
Michigan football is in the news these days. They fired their head coach last night. To me, it seems the program is in a bit of malaise, almost like there is a fog hanging over them. They obviously need a new face to guide them through that fog. How’s this sound…the new head football coach of the Michigan Wolverines…Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Thank you!
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Today, I wanted to write a blog about some of my favorite things, so I did some of my favorite things: I ate pizza and I drank beer. Unfortunately, when I try to do things on purpose in order to write about them, the whole thing usually turns into a dud. The pizza was good; it was less messy than I anticipated but it had cooled a bit before I ate it. The beer was warmer than I wanted. The gas station I bought it from doesn’t keep their coolers that cool. It was a fine meal. Just fine.
Afterwards, I walked five minutes down the road to a 7-11 to buy a tin of Copenhagen Mint long cut. The sidewalks were a sloppy, frozen mess so I walked in the bike lane along South Park Avenue in Blasdell, NY with my back towards traffic. It is a scary feeling walking like that and I thought about getting hit by a car and dying right then and there. I said “If I die walking to the store to buy tobacco, that would be dying doing what I love.” Can’t really complain about that one. I wondered, what would be the worst place to die? What would be the place you least wanted to be found dead by your loved ones? Dying while running out of toilet paper while using the bathroom and walking quickly into the hallway to get more would be pretty bad. Adding embarrassment to the ultimate injury of death.
Dog Bites and Bee Stings 