This Winter is Driving Me Batshit

Now that I'm back on the "mainland" USA I have to deal with "mainland USA" problem.  One of those being winter.  Not a lot of that in Hawaii.  We had "rainy and 78 degrees" and we had "not rainy and 85 degrees."  Those were our seasons.  Now that I'm back in the middle of the country, we have several seasons.

Sometimes within days of each other.





The routine lately has been something like 0 degrees on Monday, getting up into the 20s or 30s by Friday, then 50 or 60 on the weekend.  And repeat for a month.  Since I take the bus to and from work and the bus schedule (one bus per hour = fun) makes me have to get up and leave before the sun is up and wait around for a good long while before I get home, the cold weather has been just peachy keen.  Also that nearly mile-long walk from the bus stop to my workplace, and vice versa.  That's awesome too.

What's even better is when it snows or ices.  I bought snow boots thinking I would use them all of three times, and here I've wound up wearing them every day.  Not just for the slippery ice and snow, but for those days when it's 10 degrees or lower.  If you're thinking that I probably didn't have a whole lot of cold weather clothing after living in Hawaii, you'd be correct, so I find myself doing some odd layers on those days where I have to stand and wait for buses and make that trek to and from work when the wind chills are -20.

And I still don't have my car.  I was told that the only barrier between me and my car was my lack of a license, and that was what, October when I got that?  Nope, still no car.  I can't afford to buy one, so I was hoping that my parents would just give me the one that I already bought and paid for.  Instead I get a lot of excuses for why I can't have it.  Meanwhile my mom's car just sits there not functioning and no one seems very intent on fixing it so she can use it again and give me mine back.  I keep telling my mom that the fact that she is still using my car is a huge hardship on me, steals an hour of sleep from me every day, steals another entire hour of my evening, makes it hard for me to go grocery shopping or do anything except go to work and go home (last bus home is at 7:02), and apparently this is no big deal and I just need to suck it up or something.

I think that's been the biggest frustration.  In weather like this, being outside just blows, whether it's waiting for a bus or walking home from the supermarket.  I thought about getting an electric bicycle, but that only helps me if the weather is over 40 degrees.  Which it is never going to be ever again.  The next week and a half are forecasting snow, snow, more snow and coldness.  I think 35 is the high point of the 10-day forecast.  So I need something a bit more, uh, enclosed.  Preferably with a heater.

Apparently the last two winters were relatively mild.  It's bad enough that I was in Hawaii the last three winters.  Bad enough that before that I was in Tokyo, where the temperature doesn't really dip below freezing.  But now we're having the Winter of All Winters, such as I have never really experienced in my life ever, and I am the most unprepared for it that I could ever be.

Yes, I want those hours back, but more than that I just want to know that if I need to go grocery shopping I don't have to stand in 5 degree weather with groceries in hand, waiting for a bus to show up.  I'm tired of slipping and sliding on brick sidewalks and showing up to work unable to feel my face or legs.  Tired of coming in with tears and snot streaming from the cold, and my nose bleeding like crazy every day because it's so damn dry.  And the blisters on my nostrils from having to blow my nose so much due to the cold.  Tired of that too.  

And tired of the static.  Really really tired of that.  I'm getting sparked by door handles, filing cabinets, light switches and water.  FUCKING WATER IS ELECTRIC SHOCKING ME.

Once winter is over, I'm sure it'll start to be rainy rainy rainy every day.  And then tornado-y.