I know it seems lately that my entire life is completely filled with dealing with my strongly opinionated melodramatic daughter, but alas this is not true. I have an entire 40 minutes I spend on the train everyday where I can contemplate things like politics, the environment or the personal grooming practices of my fellow riders.

Usually I spend this time immersed in any number of poorly written chick-lit books as to stop the real world from seeping in to my candy-land colored existence. Oh – how I hate you reality. But every once in a while, despite my constant vigilance, real world events seep into my paradigm.

Take for example the “polar vortex”. First, WTF? I know that most people really don’t care about science. I know that money to support scientific research can be hard to find.  Because of this I think scientist everywhere try to invent fancy names for things. Fancy names to make people care. Fancy names that back when I was a kid were simply referred to as “winter”.

Now – I don’t have an exceptionally good memory of my childhood – many events and day to day occurrences are blacked out and hopefully never surface unless through hypnosis or deep psycho analysis (neither of which I would ever subject myself to). But I do remember some things, I remember getting ready for school in the morning and hoping against hope that the thermostat outside would reach a double digits (because it’s so much warmer at 12 degrees than at 8?).

I remember walking to the bus stop when it was so cold that it hurt to inhale air into my lungs. I remember finally getting on the bus and my hands would be bright red and would burn the entire 35 minute ride from the cold outside. Now admittedly, I was too cool or just too dumb to properly attire myself during this time in my life. I wore an unlined leather bomber jacket most days, a jacket that my Mom inconceivably bought for me at some fine outdoor clothier like ‘fashion bug’. I wore this with no gloves or hats or scarves. I was cool damnit.

And yet, I survived, I survived despite my stupidity, I survived despite the fact that we lived in one of the coldest areas in the contiguous United States. I survived even though school never closed because of the cold. The colder it got the more impervious we acted. It’s honestly amazing the tips of my fingers aren’t black…

But now that I am older and oh so much wiser I have invested in a warm sub zero winter parka and all the accessorizing trimmings that go along with it. Earlier this week when I was all bundled up and the mercury never got above 20 I still saw students walking around campus in short shorts with nothing heavier than a hoodie. It warms my heart.