2005-01-10 - 3:22 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Get Back", The Beatles

Oops, I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be updating every day. I have a two unfinished posts that ain't gettin' finished anytime soon, so I'll cop-out and use an IM conversation in which my inner pervert is revealed. I'm talking about a billboard for the Mini Cooper that shocked me on I-95 (not the content itself, but the fact that it was on a billboard).

Evelynne: BTW, did I point out the Mini billboard to you?
Evelynne: "The four crotch crotch rocket"?
Poindexter: no.
Evelynne: Does that sound appropriate?
Poindexter: Um.
Poindexter: I don't know. I can't not think of that guy and his "sweaty crotches" remark, so it never sounds appropriate.
Poindexter: but "crotch" really isn't a bad word, is it?
Evelynne: It's not very family friendly.
Evelynne: What's a crotch rocket?
Evelynne: It sounds like a euphemism for penis.
Poindexter: LOL
Poindexter: no, it's a fast street bike.
Evelynne: It *IS*?
Poindexter: yup
Evelynne: I guess I just have a dirty mind then.
Poindexter: like a rice rocket.
Evelynne: Hunh.

The "sweaty crotches" remark is a long story that I don't know all the details about. Apparently someone Poindexter's uncle worked with, some French guy, was talking about watching the girlies and said something about their "sweaty little crotches". You have to say it with a leering French accent. I think something got lost in the translation there. But it was funny and so it stuck as one of those goofy phrases (like "the four-lane" or any number of Looney Tunes quotes) that Poindexter likes to use whenever the opportunity presents itself.

One of the more common complaints I get from Poindexter these days (said with a hint of mock whining) is, "You're hot."

This is nothing new, exactly -- my body radiates heat rather than conserving it so in the summertime I'm used to hearing that particular complaint. Poindexter doesn't want my hot body touching him while sleeping in the summertime, so we tend to do the spooning equivalent of air kisses to avoid sticking.

But the freaky thing is that he's still saying this, even now that it's winter. Usually in the winter, I am freezing cold all the time. I have to wear thick acrylic sweaters (which don't breathe like natural fibers do) or layer with long underwear. My feet are always little blocks of ice. Even if I'm wearing socks and slippers, my feet are still like ice and I have to either exercise or sit in the sink to warm them up. This year, however, I can only remember one day back in November when my feet were bothersomely cold. And that wasn't even one of the coldest days. Not only that, but I've been outside walking around in temperatures below 40 degrees with no thermals and just a small jacket (like my new green one), rather than bundled up in the miraculous ankle-length down coat.

In addition, in the winter we used to be able to sleep with a sheet and comforter and be comfortable. This winter we are too hot -- again with the sticky problem -- and it is apparently all my fault. This is true even though sometimes when we wake up in the morning it is only 58 degrees in our top-floor bedroom (we turn the house down to 60 and the furnace is three floors below). So we had to switch to a cotton sheet-blanket-sheet-blanket combination (four layers) instead.

I'm getting hotter. That is WEIRD! I can't really complain, because I like having warm feet all the time (in fact, right now they're actually kind of hot). But it's WEIRD!

Our house always had air conditioning, but I remember my parents using the whole-house fan a lot in the summer when I was a kid. My brother and I, who had to go to bed early when the house was still hot, used to complain about it and try to get my parents to use the air conditioning. They unsympathetically told us "the fan will cool off the house". Yeah, by YOUR bedtime it will, but not ours! NOW, however, they keep the house at 72 degrees in the summer and 68 in the winter and complain that they are hot at our house. I tell them, unsympathetically, to wear shorts and t-shirts when they come over.

But if this "too hot" phenomenon continues ... am I going to be a cold-house person like my parents in ten years?! Has this happened to anybody else?

The upside of all this is that I'm a lot happier and have retained my summertime level of motivation. Bulking up and still feeling cold makes me extremely cranky and makes me not want to do anything. This year, however, with my newfound warmth, I am still all excited about organizing and getting things done. It's pretty amazing. Given that half of January looks fabulous and I'm going to be in Arizona for half of February (a week with our friends and a week with family), I may get through this winter without any doldrums. Good thing I wrote down my symptoms last year, because I'm definitely going to forget them by next year if I never get them this year.

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