Winter Wonderland

Even after 33 years on this planet, most of which I've spent in a country famous for its Winter Wonderland status (Hell, I was born at the Arctic Circle!) I'm still not used to snow. As, clearly, isn't the public transportation either.

Since my return from up North I've been cooped up indoors. Mostly sleeping. Not having left the flat for days on end. I've lost track of time, dates and weekdays. I accidentally missed a friends daughter's graduation and the Shabbat service at the synagogue. I have the pizza delivery people to feed me and Jeremy Kyle to keep me company. 

(For the non-British readers - and I've seen the stats, you're out there!- that's like... Jerry Springer. Only without the big black single mothers with bizzarrely spelled names like Laeteezieah or Tefalonee with 16 illegitimate kids from 24 different baby daddies. Jeremy has  toothless white trash scrawny losers with too much hair gel taking lie detector tests to prove their ex-girlfriend-who-got-pregnant-by-her-own-cousin-while-working-in-a-circus that he did in fact not have sex with the dog of the neighbour's grandmother although the video someone's mother accidentally found on her mobile so shows.)

I have scales where my skin used to be. My eyes are so dry they spontaneously weep (could I pass this off as some kind of a divine miracle and start charging poor religious fools for a visit to a real life Madonna? I'm currently having as little sex as the Virgin Mary and that would solve my money problems...).

I'm not cut out for this weather. A couple of days ago I made the responsible, sensible, grown-up decision to leave the Christmas party early so I'd still be able to catch the tram. And sure enough, I did. After a 45-minute wait. Which is ridiculous, considering it would have taken me 15 minutes to walk home. But in the blizzard it seemed like the responsible, sensible, grown-up thing to do. And the city centre was awash with masses of fellow Christmas party- revellers I didn't particularly feel like shoving my way through.

I'm telling you, there aren't many things quite as unattractive as the office monkeys, chained to their desktops for 364 days a year, only to be given free booze and let loose for one night of a year. When you've seen the desperate middle aged, spandex-clad divorceés dancing on the table on their only night off, trying to pull everything that moves (I'm fairly certain I was at the receiving end on a couple of occasions)... you really only just want to get home. As fast as you can.