I was never gladder to be living in hot, stinky India than last week. That was when the internet became overrun by stills from the climate change disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, in which a monster funnel of arctic air brings US temperatures down so much that a giant frozen tsunami engulfs New York, and a paleoclimatologist has to trek on improvised snow shoes into a head wind to rescue his kid. When the sun finally comes back out, the surviving US population are refugees in Mexico. In the comity of nations the long-arrogant North suddenly depends on the large-heartedness of the South, and finally we’re all going to start taking nature seriously and biking rather than driving to work.
Then I discovered that the pictures were not stills from Hollywood, but the results of a real monster funnel of arctic air that pushed US temperatures so far down that a giant tsunami of real icicle photos engulfed the internet. It was so cold that people were tossing boiling water into the air to watch it turn into snow before it hit the ground, which is a great trick unless you’re one of the fifty people who accidentally tossed the water into the wind and got third degree burns.
One reporter said it was colder than Mars, which sounds like the kind of cold that will flay your skin in strips from your cheekbones. It’s the kind of cold that will kill you in five minutes unless you’re wearing a jacket made of polar bear skin padded with whale blubber, with an inner layer of electric blanket. It’s the kind of cold that makes my teeth hurt just to think about it; the kind of cold that makes you think, There but for the grace of god go I.
Which brings me to the meat of the matter: I’m so relieved to not be in cryogenic suspension that I’ve decided to cut myself some slack in the matter of New Year resolutions. I’d made several—robust, character-building stuff that might well have helped shape the course of history. But, looking at all the pictures of Niagara Falls frozen into a surreal sculpture, I decided that with mother nature already so cranky, there’s no point taking a chance on disappointing her further. Presenting, therefore, my own innovation: New Year resignations.
I hereby resign myself to overeating with abandon until at least mid-February. We may not have a polar vortex, but it’s pretty brisk in New Delhi, and why buy a coat when I can grow my own protective layer? I resign myself to not doing any more exercise than I bloody well feel like, because it isn’t making the blindest bit of difference anyway, especially with all the overeating. I resign myself to never doing today what I can put off until the day after tomorrow, because, well, okay, that’s just a lifelong habit. I resign myself to continuing to complain bitterly about the silly nothings in my life, even though I have nothing to complain about and have seen Lizzie Velasquez speak on YouTube. (If you haven’t, you should, just google her.) I resign myself to drinking enthusiastically when the mood takes me, just because the mood takes me. That’s mostly how it pans out, and I find it suits me very well. I resign myself to reading only if and when I’m in the mood. I resign myself to wriggling out of most family events, especially the ones where you’re expected to bring presents.
And that’s quite enough decision-making for one day. I’m off to look up details of the jet stream current, which scientists describe as ‘drunk’, and pictures of frozen lighthouses. Happy 2014!
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