Guide to Winter.

Winter in Chicago is pretty tough. I mean it’s not a huge big deal, but you do tend to have a hard time getting through it. It just takes a lot out of you. It’s kind of like if you don’t exercise for three months and all of a sudden you run short on breath just from climbing five stairs and you’re like “(huff) What am I, (puff) like, (huff) a hundred (puff)? I feel like (huff) I’m on (puff) another planet (huff), where the gravity is (puff), like (huff), two times as much (puff) gravity (huff) as normal (puff). I’m exhausted (huff) from those five steps (puff) like I was a 400 pound guy right now (huff).” But it’s that feeling for your whole life. You’re like “I can’t believe I have to walk a half block to drop off my Netflix before I get another DVD. Really? I give up. I’ll just watch ‘Capote’ again.”

I usually combine cozy domesticity with a nice, even liquor-based stupor to make me feel good about myself. And I don’t worry about the fact that I can no longer climb stairs. Who cares about that right now? Stairs are only for getting to places other than home. No thanks. And “Capote” is a pretty decent flick. I could probably watch it four times.

It’s good to give up a little. Just a little. It’s also good to fight your way from a negative-degree windchill to go to the grocery store and buy soup for yourself, which is more than enough effort to feel good about staying in. You’ve earned it. It’s kind of like an antisocial version of partying really hard because you just did something great. Except it involves 12 hours of nature shows while you’re still in your PJ’s because you cleaned your coffee table instead of dancing naked to Billy Idol with a Mayan woman at 4am in some anonymous rich dude’s house because you sold your screenplay. But the same idea drives it. Go nuts. You’ve earned it.

This winter I’m really into two things: used records and World War II documentaries. You put on a World War II documentary until you’re too whiskeydrunk to read the subtitles, and then you switch to used records and pot, and then you go to bed at 9pm. Repeat until April. That’s more or less the program I’m on if I can help it. Everything else is kind of an inconvenience, even if I’m really enjoying myself.

That might sound to you like “seasonal depression.” But it’s really more like “just how I’m living right now, get off my back.” I’m fine. I feel fine. Of course I can barely do anything, and the idea of buying razors, batteries, and toothpaste later today feels oddly quixotic and unnecessarily difficult, like I’m wistfully hoping against all odds that those items will improve my life even though I know they will in a very real and immediate way in terms of my face, teeth, and remote control. But I feel fine. I know I’ll rise to the occasion and purchase those things. That’s what I do. I rise to the occasion. And then I will celebrate my toothpaste, battery, and razor-buying triumph by watching both Teen Wolfs and ordering some Jimmy John’s for delivery even though it’s only 5 blocks away. That’s just what I will do. I feel great about it already.

This is why the World War II documentaries come in handy. I was watching a documentary about the eastern front last night and holy shit. Just holy, holy shit. I will not be complaining about anything again ever for the rest of my life, thank you. Not even taking 20 minutes out of my busy documentary-watching schedule to get toothpaste.

The toughest choice I have to face on any given day is what subway line I should take to get to work. Those people in the Ukraine in 1941 had to choose between Hitler and Stalin.

Let’s run down some of the pros and cons of each guy…

Hitler.

Pro: Might kill you through planned starvation rather than a bullet.

Con: Will kill you.

Stalin.

Pro: Will only kill you if you don’t fight to the death.

Con: Will probably kill you anyway.

...And let’s get to the pros and cons of the trains I could take to work…

Blue Line.

Pro: Will get me to work.

Con: Might be late.

Brown Line.

Pro: Will get me to work.

Con: Might be late.

I should also mention that if I’m late to work more than 20 minutes as a result of either the Blue Line or the Brown Line, the penalty will be less severe than a year in the Gulag, by a factor of one year and no Gulag, minus one sheepish apology to Linda. I also have more than a 5% chance of surviving being late to work. It’s probably more like a 15% chance.

I’m glad I watched this documentary last night, because I was having a shitty week. I was just stressed out about a bunch of stuff. Guess what? All that stuff I was stressed out about would be a tremendous luxury to anybody living in the Ukraine in 1942. They would love to have to get all the publications together before the expo. They would love it. They would wear their knuckles to the bone sharpening their spoon against a rock in order to use it to stab somebody for the privilege of getting all the publications together before the expo. They would do this with a complete lack of emotion, later to be shrugged off in a documentary interview while the subtitles read, “What was I to do, it was a war. It was a war.” And this is even if they knew in advance that Luke would ask them at the last possible minute if they can do this pamphlet in a darker blue, like he did to me. Which was a real pain. It’s not like he didn’t have a proof in his hand two weeks ago. So inconsiderate.

And then while you’re thinking about how difficult your life isn’t, and how grateful you are not to be marching 500 miles through the snow with rags on your feet, you get to listen to the dulcet tones of Billy Joel’s “52nd Street” that you bought at a yard sale for 75 cents. So now not only are you not starving to death, you’re also celebrating because you managed against all odds to procure yourself a frozen Stauffer’s personal pizza from the corner gas station right down the street from your house. Don’t feel guilty about those Germans and Russians. You have struggles of your own to go through. Go to town. You’ve got a tab at Zanzibar, my friend.

Winter can actually be great if you look at it the right way. You really get some time to yourself, which is always good. Even if it’s too much time and you have to watch World War II movies to pull yourself momentarily out of your own butt, it’s still pretty good. At least you’re not actively making anybody else miserable, right? Unless you are. And then it’s their fault for not steering clear of you. You’ve got a lot on your mind.

You also at least feel like you’re getting a lot done. Even if you’re not. You can just do a regular amount of living, and it’ll seem really productive because it takes more effort to do everything.

It’s also good for friendships because nobody else is doing anything either, and instead of having a long and weirdly competitive conversation about “what are you up to these days?” you can just admit to doing nothing and then talk about Russian history for like half an hour, which you will do even if it’s boring because you got out of your house enough to get to this bar and you’ll be damned if you’re leaving again without whiskeyfying your face into the can’t-freeze-it zone. Maybe I’m a closet chronic depressive, but I find half hour goofaroonie-filled talks about Russian History with a casual acquaintance to be ten times more enjoyable than the old “what are you doing” line where they talk for a long while about all the great things they’re doing before asking you what you’re up to and you tell them “I’ve been watching World War II documentaries and listening to a lot of Billy Joel records. Old, dusty Billy Joel records. (long pause) So that’s what I’m up to. (swig of whiskey).” For the sake of conversation, it’s better when both people are doing a ton of awesome shit or both people are doing nothing. You’ve got to be on the same page.

Luckily, Chicago winter has the same effect on almost everybody. Nobody can get out of bed, and everybody’s retreating into whatever bizarre fascination they’ve got going. If pursued, they will admit to you that they’ve been wearing the same pair of long johns under their clothes for 10 straight days. This is the Chicago winter equivalent of a cross dresser secretly wearing women’s underwear, but instead of panties it’s sweatpants. Long johns are essentially sweatpants that can keep a secret. People will agree with you about this if you venture outside of your apartment long enough to talk to them. They are in a zombie-like daze that makes them comfortable with telling their personal hygiene details to a complete stranger. It turns every night out into one of those post-breakup sadfests where you hang out at the VFW hall and get an earful of everybody’s totally insane-sounding life story. Those can be great.

Take comfort in that, Chicagoans and winterers everywhere. It’s bad for everybody right now. Even all the people who live in Los Angeles and are strangely desperate to tell you about how much they enjoy it so you’ll feel the need to move there, as if they’re trying to lessen their own eternal torture by bringing more souls to the devil. They’re probably going through the same thing right now. L.A. is a lot like winter all the time, just because it takes forever to get anywhere and you can never find parking so nothing’s worth doing. It’s just warm, too. So what? There’s worse things than being cold. When it’s finally Spring, you’ll be able to have one of those days where you float effortlessly from one place to another, running into old friends the whole way, and they’ll be stuck trying to back out of the In N’ Out Burger parking lot.

And you’re not dying as the result of some kind of a war atrocity, either. And you have easy access to liquor. And “It’s Only Rock And Roll To Me.” And even though you just ran out of a roll of toilet paper, and that seems for a second like an end-of-the-world level crisis, you have another roll under the sink. It’s astonishing how something like owning a roll of toilet paper can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat like that, taking you through a full range of emotions in the blink of an eye for something so trivial. And later I’ll have toothpaste, batteries, and razors and I’ll feel the same way. It’s great. What a ride. Winter. I love it.