9.26.03. 4.10pm.
the iceman ain't comething.
i'm in san francisco, and yes, we have no autumn here. for a few days it has been chilly in the morning, and overcast, such that i wear my jacket, and then in the afternoon i feel silly because most people are wearing short sleeves, and right they are to do so.
today is rosh hashunah. (happy new year - my family is having rosh hashunah dinner together tonight for, i believe, the first time since my dad's bar mitzvah). which means in eight days it will be yom kippur. i remember yom kippur freshman year in providence. yes, it very well could have been later in the year, but not much much later. i remember paul driving me and lila and lauren back to our dorm from the breakfast at his and sheila's house, and i remember it being dark and cold. i was wearing a scarf (i had been forced to purchase a scarf, for the first time in my life) and a wool cap. it will never be that cold here. i will never wear a scarf in san francisco, and in fact now that i think about it, i'm not sure where my scarf even is, and i will have to look into that.
hannah said the other day that it's funny how people act like there's weather here. "what's it like out?" "wow, isn't it warm today?" "oh, i hope this fog burns off." not that it's hot and sunny all the time; if you want hot and sunny all the time, move to walnut creek, and then see if you're happy. bu really, in san francisco there are only two descriptions of the sky (sunny or overcast) and two descriptions of the temperature (warm/78 degrees or chilly/64 degrees). sometimes they mix and match with the sky and the temperature, to keep you on your toes. sometimes you actually have to venture out of doors to decide if you should wear long sleeves or not. occasionally it even rains.
back east, the leaves have assuredly turned. it won't have started raining in providence yet, but it'll be cold soon.
when i told people i was going to school in rhode island, they told me how hard the winters would be, with my weakling california weather experience. but really, that was like discussing the san francisco weather. it was just something to say, it didn't really mean anything. yeah, the winters were really cold, and the snow and ice could be a pain in the neck, but it wasn't like the east-coasters were some sort of other eskimo race, who pushed through three-foot snow drifts like clouds of steam and glided gracefully down ice-covered streets on home-made ice-skates carved from whale-bone. no, everyone had just as much trouble as me.
i miss the changes in seasons already. but what's funny is, i also am going to miss those funny weather adaptations. the barrells of sand sitting on sidewalks in the winter. salt on cars. weather advisories on the radio. whole classes of machines designed to deal with leave piles. different clothes. i am wearing the same thing today i will wear in january and in july.
i've been listening to fountains of wayne's "valley winter song." it's not a song about a great winter is, or how lousy. it's just a song about it being winter.
maybe i will go back and visit in february.