My Desperate Attempt to Channel Warm Weather

Posted by: Alex

I should begin this post by saying that for those of you reading this in any state other than Minnesota, you will find what I am writing to be inane. You may be thinking, “channel warm weather, you say? Why, I live in New York and we’ve had warm weather for weeks now!” First of all, stop talking like you are a character on New York’s version of Downton Abbey. Second of all, screw you! I live in Minnesota and it has been one f-ed up winter. And I am saying that as a person who loves the seasons and is meant to live in Minnesota. I am one of those people that goes along with the collective complaining because I don’t want to be left out of the fun (sidenote: this reminds me of Barney Stinson’s motivational office poster on How I Met Your Mother that says: ‘Conformity: it’s the one who is different that gets left out in the cold’), but inside I think the snow is really pretty and it doesn’t annoy me at all. And I like cold rainy days because then I can sit inside and not feel like I should be doing anything else. Forced laziness is my jam.

Look at me, the fancy pants who watches documentaries.

Posted by: Alex

I don’t have much patience for a lot of things: shopping; animal videos; other people’s travel photos (unless they are of a person drunk, doing dumb stuff. Otherwise, I don’t need to see 17 photos of that tree you thought was life changing); student loan customer service representatives; paying attention in meetings; descriptive words in fictional writing (“The wind is the smell of my great grandmother’s favorite perfume before the war and it feels as cold as a popsicle I ate after I almost got hit by a car when I was 8.” So…it’s windy). Just to name a few. Something that shocks and disappoints people about me (read: my husband) is that I have very little patience for movies. This was not always my lot in life. Once upon a time, I would watch any movie at any time. I once watched Sneakers two times in a row, just for fun. This situation would LITERALLY never happen today (actually maybe it would. Sneakers is such a good movie). Once I hit my late 20’s, something in me changed. My attention span became shorter and shorter and I started getting resentful of the hours spent watching a movie I didn’t like, which was 99% of them. On top of my anger, I actually stopped being able to pay attention. I would drift off and start thinking about what I need to do or what I want to eat for dinner (which, to be fair, I think about all day, anyway), and I would miss major plotlines. I often will get to the end of a movie and have no idea what the conflict was or the name of any character. I’m on season 3 of Parenthood and I still call Lauren Graham’s character “Lorelai Gilmore” because I don’t know her name. None of these are things I’m proud of, but it’s who I am and I accept it.