News item #1: After a night of dreadful insomnia, Nick and I have concluded that our bed is all used up. My theory is that there is a given number of sleeps per bed—about 1,000 probably—and we have exceeded that number. I asked the employees at Bed, Bath & Beyond about purchasing a replacement pack for our bed, but they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Poseurs.

News item #2: I've had several snow days from work this week, which is totally nifty. I'm lucky to work at a place with a generous inclement weather policy (I've worked plenty of places where the inclement weather policy was "get here now or be fired, ye scabrous dogs"). Too bad it takes three hours to de-ice the car before I can get to the grocery store and buy survival goods. Just picture me sitting in our apartment after the power goes out (as it inevitably will)—I'll be huddled up in a ragged army blanket, trying in vain to open a can of baked beans with benumbed, frostbitten fingers. Can you conjure up this scene of Dickensian misery and pathos? And by the way, my overpriced peacoat (with Thinsulate!) from J.Crew is simply not cutting it in these temperatures. I'll have to strap four or five geese to my upper torso before setting foot outside again. That is, if I can tolerate the squawking.

Favorite literary description of cold:

Neil Gaiman in American Gods. "This was not simply cold: it was science fiction. This was a story set on the dark side of Mercury, back when they thought Mercury had a dark side. This was somewhere out on rocky Pluto, where the sun is just another star, shining only a little more brightly in the darkness. This, thought Shadow, is just a hair away from the places where air comes in buckets and pours just like beer."

News item #3: I just heard A Perfect Circle's version of John Lennon's "Imagine." It's all gloomy and minor-key, with a sound that seems to be expressive of drug-addled pessimism rather than hippie idealism. It's almost as if they are being ironic. In fact, it could only be a bigger travesty if it were sung by Britney, or, in the worst of all possible worlds, Britney and Mark David Chapman. A damnable duet, indeed. Reminds me of the first time I heard Limp Bizkit singing the Who's cowboy classique song, "Behind Blue Eyes." I made it to the speak-n-spell part, then threw a ball-peen hammer at the stereo. "What's wrong with you, Fred?" I shouted at the gaping hole. Don't you have any self-respect? Shouting homophobic epithets at concert-goers is one thing, but please keep your angst off my radio."

News item #4: Did I mention I'm cold? It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth.

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