Ode to warmth

As I write this, there is more freezing fog outside. Still more. The bloody, dadgum, bleepity-bleep freezing fog that’s been around here for the last week. The temperature is 21 semi-Siberian degrees. Daggered icicles dangle ominously off the roofline, preparing to drop, pointfirst, on the ole solar sex panel the next time I carelessly stand under them. There is a thick, almost fungal frost covering the brightly painted cactus ornament in the garden, and it’s cold enough that I imagine the ornamental Mexican, who is taking an ornamental siesta against the ornamental cactus, to wake up, walk up to my door and ask to be let inside.

We spent the first three weeks of this new year in one of two weather conditions: (1) wrangling with historic snowstorms that mangled daily routines, or (2) tolerating this unprecedented pulse of powerful, pisser-inducing pogonip. And yet, as I wander about making my various stops, I can’t help but notice how few people are wearing a garment that seems as essential in coping with this gray, dreary frigidity as a decent ice scraper, that garment being the turtleneck undershirt.

I don’t know. Maybe I just have a thin-skinned neck with poor circulation or somethin,’ but I haven’t been able to even think of dressing sans turtleneck since mid-December, and I am always a bit incredulous when I go to the supermarket and notice that 99 percent of the shoppers are happily traipsing about with exposed throats and necks. How do they do it, I wonder. And then, a woman will cruise by wearing a belly shirt. A belly shirt?! I theorize that she must have a fever and needs to dissipate some of that excess heat into the atmosphere.

I’m not talking about some baggy-ass turtleneck that sorta hangs all over your collarbone, either. What good are those pitiful things? The t-neck I’m talking about is the kind you have to really battle to get over your head because it fits so tight around your throat that it puts a little pressure on the windpipe. A totally macho turtleneck, where you have to shave real close before you put it on or else the unshaved stubble will catch in the fabric, resulting in a blizzard of hideously unfashionable fuzzballs. An old-school t-neck that fits so snugly it creates a very thin but effective microclimate in the gullet region, one that will never allow the larynx to lock up or the spinal fluid in the neck zone to thicken and sludge up.

I ponder. Obviously, it’s a fashion thing. I must face the facts: once again, I find myself diametrically opposed to mainstream tastes. But, hey, at least my Adam’s apple is all hot and loose and bobblin’ about.