Love in a cold climate

When we're all done rocking around the Christmas tree, when we've removed our gay apparel and the boughs of holly are wilting over the mantelpiece, when we've cleaned up the last vestiges of empty champagne bottles and party hats, what are we left with? I'll tell you what.

Winter. Winter, in her grim glory. She has us now, wrapping her harsh wooly mitted fingers right around our necks, squeezing intermittenty, for the next few months.

You know that expression, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity"? Well, in this country, in winter, it's not the cold that gets to me most- even though that cold is a particularly nasty, wet, raw, seeping into the bones sort of chill. No. It's the dark. We wake up in the dark, go to work in the dark, come home in the dark. Once in awhile, on a brisk sunny day, we might get the odd pale ray of sunshine, but for the most part, it's like being in a cave. And after all the holiday lights come down, it's bleak.

I'm a fanatic about energy conservation-admittedly not because I have any aspirations to save the environment as such, although that would be nice, too. It's because our electric bills are so astronomically high. Especially when I am home alone, I feel compelled to turn off every light behind me, apart for one little bulb burning in the room. This is fine, except when I suddenly need to go to, say, the bathroom, down the darkened hall. Then I must make my way, groping for the lightswitch on the side of the wall. Unless I miss, and walk into the door as I did the other night. Great.

Of course, our home is also heated by electricity. E. and I wage a constant stealthy war at the thermostat. It's the battle between Heat Miser and Cold Miser. He likes to bask in his t-shirt in a balmy room, where I am firmly of the school that one should "Put a sweater on if you're chilly"! I spent all the winters of my childhood shivering by a great hulk of the old coal stove in the basement of my parents' house, since they didn't believe in using the electric heaters, either.

All of this cold and dark is something of a passion-killer, to say the least. Forget about rolling around like greased naked seal pups on a sheepskin rug in front of roaring fire. I want to put on my warmest pajamas, grab a hot water bottle, and crawl under the covers. To sleep until spring. Hibernation, not procreation.

That of course, is directly at odds with the Plan. For those of you just tuning in, a swift recap- we're going to shag like bunnies for the next three months, hope that this last ditch effort at getting pregnant works, failing which we go straight to IUI, do not pass Go, and certainly do not collect two hundred dollars (quite the opposite). However, the bunnies part of the equation hadn't reckoned on the factors like how offputting it is when your beloved hops into bed with feet that are LIKE ICE BLOCKS, dear God, get those away from me this instant. The bunnies part of it overlooked the fact that I am simply not at my alluring best when bundled up in enough layers to pass as a body double for the Michelin Man.

And still, we can but try. I can just about bear it, as long as I can keep my fuzzy socks on. I know it's not sexy, but then again, neither is hypothermia.