When E and I booked our fancy vacation the hell out of winter, I thought we should go as soon as possible. No, E said sagely, as he has lived in winter climes for the entirety of his life, we should go as late in February as possible. Because that’s when we’re going to be sick of winter. That’s when we’re going to need a break. But I want to go nooooooow, I whined. Believe me, he said. You’ll be grateful at the end of February. You’ll be glad we waited.

I would like to be grateful and glad we waited but I can’t right now because it is a week and a half before we’re in temperatures above freezing, and in the meantime, snow keeps falling from the sky in blizzard-like sheets, and I can’t get warm and I keep slip-sliding over the ice, starting to fall, jerking up, starting to fall, jerking back, starting to fall, jerking sideways, so that I look like a marionette with a clumsy drunken monkey at the strings. I kind of wish I would just fall already and break something and never have to leave the house again. I kind of regret writing that sentence, because my next post is now obligated to start, “Remember when I said I wanted to fall and break something? Funny story…”

This morning, three cars were stuck in the snow that came down last night. The snow is now almost to the top of my boots. The top of my boots is almost directly below my knees. I have stubby legs, but that is still, you must admit, a lot of goddamn snow. It is less snow than some people have, I am sure, but it is more than enough snow for me, is what I am saying. It is snow that used to make me go “snoooooow!” but now makes me go “graaaaaah!” which is a sound that neatly combines rage at the elements with despair for my continued survival.

My hands are blocks of ice and my fingers barely bend. The tip of my nose is gone. I am snow and freezing wind all the way through to my core and back outside again. Blankets do not warm me, hot showers do not thaw me, life is very difficult and I miss you, the sun. Where have you gone? Why have you forsaken us? You are yellow and warm. I remember yellow warmness. I remember having toes. Those were good times.

There are some things I like. Pretty pictures. Hiking around the mountains with the dogs who love bounding through the snow and catching snowballs. Not being in the snow, because you are inside with a guy who’s got a core temperature like a furnace and does not mind being used as a blanket. I’m fond of hot cocoa. Tiny marshmallows are a miracle of the future, but it’s not enough any more.

Winter, I am done with you. Won’t you please get finished with us? Won’t you please wander off somewhere else where they are very tired of high temperatures and sunny days and picnics in the park and swimming and ice pops and bare toes? I’m sure they’ll be happy to see the backside of all that bare skin. So to speak. Go where you’ll be appreciated. That is my advice to you. That is my advice to everyone, in fact! Go where you are appreciated and loved! Thank you, winter, for making me see an important life lesson. Now get the fuck out.

It’s always the little things that get me. I am dutifully impressed and fascinated by monkeys controlling robots with their minds and the creepy-cool Large Hadron Collider, but it’s the daily evidence in our lives that while we may not be living in a future with personal jetpacks–yet–it’s still a goddamn amazing place filled with wonders and miracles no one could have imagined a century ago, a half a century ago, ten years ago.  THE FUTURE!

Usually I go about my business here in the future as blithely and unconcernedly as anyone else does, taking it all for granted because that is what you do, if you are of my generation and later. But like everyone else does, usually of my generation, this weird set of kids (and we are so often still just kids) that somehow straddles the divide between the quaintness of the 80s and the brilliant flashing diamond of the millennial years, sometimes you have to stop and marvel at the marvels, and go wow. You know, that is just cool. I appreciate that I live here in the future, with access to hot and cold running water, adequate sanitation and access to sophisticated medical care. And also the internet.

Yesterday, it was two things, practically back to back, that made me stop and shake my head, and feel a little old and also grateful for penicillin and antilock brakes. I had to get my book manuscript into the hands of a reader, I don’t have a printer, they live all the way across the country. I uploaded the document to FedExKinkos , and this very morning, even as I type, they are printing it four blocks from her house and then they are going to deliver it right to her front door, in a box, bound with rubber bands, fresh and hot off the printer. And for some reason, it absolutely blows my mind. My file went from being here, electronic in Utah, to a hard copy in New York, delivered within a day. Maybe my astonishment is all hayseed yanked off a farm in the mountains and set loose in overalls, blinking up at the bright lights of the big city–boy howdy, that’s shiny! But I tell you–that’s brilliant.

And as I was uploading and marvelling over the futuristic convenience of on-demand printing and shipping, I looked at my twitter page, saw that a friend was stranded because his train was delayed by an oil refinery explosion along the tracks. I didn’t have my cell phone on me, so I emailed his phone instead and asked him if he needed a ride. We messaged back and forth while he was on the shuttle bus. “I think the driver is lost,” he wrote. But no, he doesn’t need a ride. “Holler if the bus driver starts heading towards Vegas ,” I write back. When we don’t hear from him for awhile, we check Google News, and see that the trains are running, if slowly, and he ought to be home soon with Arby’s bag in hand.

And okay, I want to jump up and down and yell oh my GOD do you REALIZE how many AMAZING things just HAPPENED in that SINGLE PARAGRAPH! Today a wonder we behold. These things are so commonplace and ordinary and I feel a little dopey when I get that urge to bounce around and take people by their sweet little chipmunk cheeks and look deep into their eyes and urge them with uncomfortable-for-everyone sincerity to say hallelujah, amen! I should just take everything for granted until we get ourjet packs that are guided by the minds of the monkeys who run the Large Hadron Collider . But probably tomorrow I will become speechless with wonder over the miracle of heated automobile seats and those sneakers with the little wheels inside.