Wind Chill

Apparently its been like this for a while, but I just noticed last week, generally on the subway but also during my visit to harlem that a lot of guys who have timberland boots leave the store tags on the boots while they wear them. Same with lots of hats. Why is that? Is it to prove to those that care that the boots are actually Timberlands .. like a sign of wealth or status. I guess it is probably something like that and maybe this says more about my naivete than about society, but shoe tags? If the shoes are so good shouldn't you be able to recognize the quality or at least a logo? Are we so worried that people will not think better of us because we are wearing hot shoes that we need to dangle the markers ... do you think that people put fake tags on their shoes to look wealthier? I mean you can't really fake a car or a nice leather jacket, but you could make false timberland tags ...

Besides than the shoe tags and some other random stuff like the variety of stuff on pizza (pasta pizza ... its like having a bread sandwich, the incongruity of supporting clubbing and drinking with a 4 am closing time but not selling hard alcohol or wine in supermarkets ... okay, I am actually just bitter about that, it does make some sense), the settling/nesting phase of my time in New York has definitely begun. Friends check, dating check, furnished apartment with bed check, working well check, gym membership ... okay so I haven't really gotten there yet.

Last year around December, when I was still living in blissfully temperate San Diego, I distinctly remember having a coversation with Yael that went something like this,

PJ "What are you up to today?"

Yael "Well, its pretty nice out today, in the low 50's, so I am going to go running in the park."

PJ "Ohmigod that is frigid! I would not be caught dead running in weather like that."

Obviously a little hyperbole, as I would and had run in weather that cold, but I don't like and in San Diego never really had to do so.

So here I am, Wednesday afternoon, agitating to leave work early so that I can go running outside because its 35 and not out, which now passes as my tempurature its nice to run at. Admittedly I prefer running in shorts and T-shirt rather than jogging pants an expensive ice climbing jacket and a wool hat, but I am adapting. Honestly 35 is not so bad, if not for the omnidirectional wind in the Bronx it would almost be pleasant.

Somehow, in the Bronx, even when you run in a circle, the wind is always a headwind. Its kind of remarkable and I am sure if they put up wind towers here they could cut the citys power bill by half. If it is 35 in Manhattan it is 30 here (because we are so far outside the city that we are practically in the artic), and the wind brings it down to 15. Or 10. Which is cold enough to pass my new, its cold outside test, which was recently established as my second skin has now grown and I can walk around outside without shaking so much I am unintelligible. Now, I know it is cold when I walk outside and my right eye begins to tear up. Then it is cold. If the left eye tears up too, something that has only happened once this year, you might as well go back inside. That day, it was -2 with wind chill.

But all in all it has not been bad here, not even a lot of snow (kind of disappointing and pathetic, as I had to scratch my name into the peasley first snowfall instead of making snow angels) except for a few cold days ... and with everything else going so well, one can harldy complain about a little wind ...