things that are cold, part deux: ice and Syracuse basketball

This morning when I walked to school, the sidewalk was a continuous sheet of ice.

Back in the beginning of January, I allowed some of my anger about ice to spill out after I took my own spill down a set of twelve or thirteen very icy steps outside of my apartment.

This morning was nothing like that. I remained upright, feet spinning out only once in a while, and I didn’t have more than a few feet to fall, if indeed a fall was imminent. I still felt frustrated with the current state of affairs. These thaw-freeze cycles are really murdering the pedestrian conditions (and, probably, the motorist conditions as well, but I haven’t felt inclined to take my car out in the past couple of days).

Apparently Connecticut is in the throes of a “salt shortage”. I realize that the preferred salt for roads and sidewalks is calcium chloride because you get an extra ion to further plummet the freezing temperature, but you’d think that in a pinch, good ol’ sodium chloride would do.

I just personally do not understand how we can be in a salt shortage when the ocean is LITERALLY RIGHT THERE. Note my correct usage of ‘literally’. Go get the salt water and pour THAT on the streets. Honestly.

Been bumming because Syracuse earned itself the dubious distinction of having the greatest discrepancy in ranking for an upset loss basically ever (or maybe just for an undefeated team, but that can only help the difference) last night to Boston College. Embarrassing and frustrating. I should have made cookies instead, or something.

And here I was, all prepared to suffer our first loss at Cameron this Saturday, with a few benefits. We won’t be undefeated anymore, which is actually the worst. It’s the best, but it’s the worst. Everyone stresses. Stupid games like Boston College at home get in our heads. A loss to Duke at home is a respectable loss. DJ, who will allegedly be wearing orange to the game and perching himself in the student section with his pro-Duke peers, is likely to escape the game with nothing worse than a “BEAT DUKE” shirt that smells like beer.

But now I want to win pretty badly.

I know. It’s a hard life. But if we’re being honest, I would have wanted to win this one anyway.

I think that one of my goals in life is to pull together a pretty impressive collection of hoodies. Pullovers are warmer, zip-ups are more convenient, and I actually really like to wear the hood while I sit at my desk or while I watch the Syracuse game. Sniff. It’s nice. Probably makes me have to wash my hair more often, but honestly, I’ve managed to spread out hair washing to once a week, more frequently if I do something that makes it gross earlier. And that’s pretty great.