I'm a heat girl. When it's 110 degrees outside, I don't care. The only time I ever started to get bothered by heat was a couple of years ago when the temperatures around here were hitting 115 on a regular basis, and even then my reaction was something like, "Hm, this is starting to get bothersome. I think I shall take myself off to the air-conditioned movie theater today." I am not used to being in humid climates, but when I have been in them, they don't bother me too much either.

But this sort of thing doesn't go both ways. I can tolerate heat very well, but that means I have no cold tolerance whatsobloodyever.

Yes, the non-Californians are going to laugh at me for this post. I do not care. I eat your hate like love :)

Since I moved here, I can't help but notice that there's always this Snap temperature change. Suddenly every day changes from nice fall weather, 50's and 60's all day, to when the day starts out at 30 degrees, waits around at 40 most of the day, hits 50 for a few hours around lunch and then the next time I have to go outside it's back at 30 again. Now, I know it's stupid to whine when I could live somewhere with snow- and believe me, I will never live anywhere where there is snow for a reason, nor will I ever go to the East Coast if it isn't summertime. And really, this year we got lucky because The Snap this year waited until the end of Thanksgiving weekend instead of happening right before Halloween the way it usually does. I had one less month of BRRRRRRRRRR going on.

But man, it's a pain. I suppose I'd be less annoyed if I was only outside for five minutes between building and car the way most people are, but when you don't have a car and either are waiting for a bus or walking from here to there most of the time, you can't help but notice it. Even 20 minutes of walking in 30-40 degrees seems to require me to be wearing three layers on top and bottom, plus scarf, plus heavy coat. And then I'll arrive at somewhere like a craft fair and it's so hot that I have to carry around half of my layers. I know they tell you, "Don't wear your heavy winter coat to a craft fair, you'll boil," and it's true, but dangit, what am I supposed to do about the freezing cold weather I'm in to get there?

Everyone always says, "Layers are great! You can put them on and take them off!" Yes, but I also have to carry the dang things around with me all the time once they come off, and even with my big ol' L.L. Bean backpack, that stuff gets heavy. I loathe the constant "too cold! too hot!" that I always have going on in winter. I put on all the layers to go outside, start getting hot 5-10 minutes into my walk, but it's still too cold outside to so much as remove a layer or roll up my sleeves, because then I'm freezing again. I feel schizophrenic.

Also, my apartment is kind of naturally frigid once the Cold Snap occurs. Once the temperature gets around 40 degrees outside, my place becomes not so pleasant to be in. I miss having heat and warmth inside (this doesn't really happen because the heater really works in one room of the house, plus I have a lot of big glass windows) once I get home, because it still feels pretty frosty just walking around even when wearing the aforementioned 3 layers. My ears feel chilly if I have my hair up, sheesh. I am seriously sleeping in sweats, AND my bathrobe, plus cranking up my electric blanket (which does not seem to be as hot as it was last year, but at least it didn't die the way my first blanket did after a year) to 8. It's supposed to be something like 20 degrees tonight...SHIT.

But hey, at least it's not raining too much yet. I had a conversation with a girl in the serger workshop who's from Florida and she said she missed warm rain, and I agreed with her on that. Cold rain is just nasty, especially when you come home soaked to the gills. So hey, at least it's sunny, if chilly.

Why am I bitching about this, you ask?

Well, uh...I'm going up to mountainous climes in a few days, and people have been warning me about say, a possible need for snow tires or chains or something. (Like I have ANY idea what these are.) And, "dude, it's going to be REALLY COLD, even if it isn't snowing." And I am all, "Snowing? What?" I've never been in snow before the month of March, for crying out loud.

What the heck am I supposed to wear if it's that cold? Because despite everyone going on about how great layers are, there's really only so many one can put onto the body before you're waddling around like that kid in A Christmas Story. And if you're STILL cold then, uh, what else can you do?

Seriously, this is how I am dressing every day ALREADY:

* tank top + T-shirt + long-sleeved shirt + sweater/sweatshirt on top + heavy coat + scarf + headwear + gloves on top.
* leggings + sweatpants + regular pants on the bottom.

I don't see how I can possibly dress any warmer than that short of buying a snowsuit...

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