The Season On Everyone's Top Five

This evening, whilst riding my bike, I nearly lost my fingers to the cold. I now realize that I must carry gloves on me all the time if I am to ride the bicycle, and that thumb loops are poor substitutes for mittens. For the past few days, everyone has been talking about skin feeling dry, complaining about the harsh cold, and contemplating humidifiers and space heaters. Just today, I applied had to apply lotion three times to keep my skin intact.

In short, we are entering the winter of our year, and of our lives.

Healthy, strong, young people do not discuss humidifiers, ever. Nor do we talk about the race to the bottom at SuperSnacks. Nor should we act like Roommate Amy (not to be confused with me), whose highlight of the week comes when the new supermarket shopper comes out. Within these short weeks, all my friends and I have turned forty years old.

And so I make a list now, of more pleasant things to look forward to, sometime in the future. Not old-work=a=day-tired-grim future we are surely heading for, but a reckless-time-is-on-my-side-with-youth future. I am thinking warm sand on the beach, thick flannel blankets, a New Yorker with all the mailing cards inside already pulled out, tuna and yellowtail sashimi, spider rolls, salmon roe, avacado halves with soy sauce paste, and grass jelly. I am thinking serving meals at a shelter, and distributing toiletry items. I am thinking having a job so I can have more income to give away. I am thinking up things and I don't know when, if ever, they will come, but these thoughts are going to help me get through the winter. And if they don't, the thought of another Jenkins Family Reunion ought to.

Ah. Jenkins. With members like Cousin Vinny, Promiscuous Aunt Sally, Stoned Hippie Older Sister Summer, and Cousin Jane Who Doesn't Know She's Adopted or Asian (guess who that was), to name a few, we snatched the top prize at senior pub night easy. (They really had to give it to us, we represented one third of the people there. Plus, Sketchy Uncle Armand knows some people.) If you're good, I'll tell you about all this some day, but not right now. Your patience will be rewarded, young cockroach.