I’ve been up since midnight, flushing toilets and opening faucets every hour to make sure the pipes aren’t blocked or shattered by ice. The rest of the time three faucets are left dripping–which is handy for the flushing thing as I need to pee frequently–power of suggestion and all that.
I had made up my mind that I would spend January re-reading A Song Of Ice And Fire (The series more commonly known to television viewers as “Game Of Thrones”.) I thought it would be a good idea to give me something to distract my mind from the usual doldrums of the raw year. I did not plan on reading about Jon Snow on the Wall (hundreds of feet high, made entirely of ice) while it was actually colder here than it is in the book. I mean, the Wall is weeping in the “heat” at this point in the story. If the wall were in my backyard that sucker would be solid, laughing at the mere mortals who need heat to survive.
I do not like winter; I moved 500 miles away from kith and kin to escape it. I feel like a weather Jonah, with the bad joss following me ever southward.
I wish I had something more interesting to say about it all. I don’t really, because what is there to say but “It’s terribly, awfully, excruciatingly cold and I do not like it at all” ? I will say that a few minutes ago I had grisly thoughts brought on by Westeros’ 50 year winters. (Seriously…winters last 50 years in that fantasy world. I do not see myself coping well in their realm.) I was wondering what they do when they are out of trees and coal and whatever else they burn for heat. Then I started wondering how well human bones would burn, if they would stink, if breathing the fumes would carry disease. I’m now obsessed with this concept: Human bones as fuel, a sort of cannibalism of heat. How very morbid, yet how very authorly. Even as I write this I’m working it into my own novel’s world. They do not have 50 year winters, but they are faced with some other shortages brought on by conflicts between races. Remember when I chiefly wrote romance? Well, you probably don’t since I haven’t published any of it. But trust me. There was a long time when all I wrote was daisy-petal stories of unrequited, yearning love. Now I write cosmologies of fantastical worlds. With romance. There must always be a romance to keep me interested. Not a gacky series-of-misunderstandings romance, but grown-up ones. I do so enjoy writing, and right now I’m escaping to the warmth of living in a tropical world. It’s make-believe, of course. But it is definitely not 10 degrees below zero and since they’re underwater I have no reason to leave the faucets running. I shall come up for air eventually.
Better a tropical world in make-believe than no living in a tropical world at all. Berlin has actually been mild – so far. I shouldn’t have said that…