If The World Ends Due to Global Warming, This Will Be My Last Post

So we've seen some crazy weather in the past few days. Last week on Wednesday we had warm weather which gave us a false sense of Spring. And then we got Nasty Ice Storm Part II that tested Jet Blue once again in their prowess at riot control. Given all this crazy weather, of course it's all anyone can talk about. Well, currently, I can only focus on two things--the weather, and this former friend of mine who I've finally just written off as a passive-aggressive lost cause. Good riddance.

But mostly I am thinking about the weather. Now I have to admit that I am not one to check weather forecasts or even have a thermometer outside my window. In college, I would tell what the weather was by just looking out the window and seeing what everyone else was wearing. But I can't really do that from my apartment here in New York because not as many walk up Amsterdam Avenue, and I'm a little too high up to see to clearly. So instead, I call down to my doorman and ask him if it's cold outside, which for some reason, amused my friend to no end.

Not being able to go outside because doing that would give you hypothermia is really "unfortunate" in the same way that that your significant other runs out on you is "unfortunate." I think not going outside is the cause of my China time sleep schedule and my irregular bedtimes. It's like I've lost all sense of time by staying indoors all day, and my poor body time clock has no idea when to be up and when to be asleep.

In any event, it's still pretty cold today after last week's ice storm. And all the weather talk obsession has continued with me and everyone I talk to. At every turn today, I've been talking to people about the weather. We're probably all hoping that we have some sort of insight into Mother Nature that weather forecasters don't. You know, like the inevitable old guy you might meet who will tell you, "I grew up on a farm my whole life, and those weather guys don't know shit. I woke up this morning and the birds were still flying South and the dogs were still howling at the moon. We're gonna have a huge snowstorm." Or, the guy at Duane Reade who told me "Those weather forecasters are always wrong. I wish I could have a job where I'm wrong all the time" like he actually resents the weather guy. Or my coworker who just moved to New York and who is asking me "When does it get warm here in NY?" Or my client who is tell me how he spent all weekend shoveling the snow from the driveway. All day it's been the same thing over and over.

Which makes me wonder (Carrie Bradshaw voice): why do we always talk about the weather? Why, when a conversation is struck up between strangers, does the topic invariably come around to the weather? Everyone always says talking about the weather is so cliched, like "At least we didn't resort to talking about the weather." The weather is constantly changing, obviously and gives us a something to talk about when all else fails. So...(focus on your computer screen) when will the weather...stop being so much like the weather?

Most comments about the weather are innocuous, like "Can you believe this rain?" or "It's so gorgeous out today." Or like when you ask someone "How was your vacation?" and they reply back, almost as if scripted "It was great. The weather was perfect." There's just no denying that when there is nothing else to say, the forecast is the topic of choice. No matter how you word it from "Hot enough for you?" to "I love hot weather, but even this is a little too much" we all like to participate in the societal weather dialogue.

And this shouldn't surprise anyone. Sure, it would be nice to have a more meaningful conversation with your fellow man, which may surprise some people to hear me say that since I have such hermit and anti-social tendencies. But I understand that the weather is the one thing that everyone has in common. Through different jobs, different boyfriends and girlfriends, different apartments, through different emotions, different brands of bottled water; different credit cards, different vacations, different ways to answer the question "What's up?" - through all that we are all subject to the weather. So if anyone occasionally grasp for that, for a moment to bond in our sameness, it's A-OK, and sometimes welcome, when you really do have nothing to talk about.

So I don't know where I'm really going with this post, and it took me a lot longer than I expected to write all this. Maybe I'm just in a contemplative mood. Or maybe I'm yearning for others to share ideas about our sameness. Or maybe I'm just disappointed about my former friend. Or perhaps, despite my tacit approval expressed in what I wrote above, I'm slightly disappointed that I'm not a more interesting person to go against the grain with others. Well, tomorrow is another day, and actually now that I think about it, exploring our sameness sometimes takes a lot longer than you might expect.

Especially if you're hanging out with these guys.