Weather

It's cloudy, foggy, and drizzly up on the Hill today. While in the Bunker with kungfu I went on rant that expressed my extreme discontentedness with weather of this sort. I'm funny about weather: I don't like too many clear and sunny days, high heat and humidity makes me rather cranky, but too many overcast days makes me depressed, and the sogginess that comes with rain (which I genuinely love when I'm at home eating fondue, baking cookies, drinking wine or hot chocolate, etc) drives me nuts. At the same time, I adjust pretty easily to the weather environments I've been exposed to. The sogginess factor seems to be worse here, I think because of the drainage issue crossed with my shortness issue, which means that water gets absorbed up my pants making me wet from the knees down. Plus there is that it is cold outside but not cold enough so I'm sweating in my raincoat, which is also rather uncomfortable. Maybe I like rain when it's actually cold (colder?).

So what do I like? And why? I like my weather like I like my underware: varied. ( would have gone with an analogy with men, but I'm currently totally stuck on one particular variety of the male species and I think I'm going to keep him for quite a while). This makes up in part my current (and I think lasting) preference for Northern California versus Southern Californis. I like seasons*. I like the change from winter to summer, and most of all, I love the fall. My ideal weather day is semi-cloudy, not with whispy clouds or solid grey, but with lumps of cumulonimbus across the sky - much like a storm breaking up the day after a heavy rain. I like my weather warm at midday, but cool in the evenings and late afternoons. Warm enough during the day to wear short sleeves or a tank top, but not so warm that if you were to go running you'd break a sweat before you even began. Most of all, I love the diffused? diluted? light that we get in the fall. I certainly appreciate warm summer days and nights - when you can show a little skin and not have to bring a coat. And a good solid winter - when you actually have to wear a coat. But I still love fall the best.




*I know all East Coast readers will decry California's lack of seasons, but I argue that we don't have to hold East Coast seasons and THE seasonal standard for this country. We have a definite difference here between the four seaons in terms of temperature, vegitation, and percitipation. Yes we don't have snow or super cold weather, or boiling heats with humidity - but we do have changes. Our winter may not be the same as your winter, but that doesn't mean we don't have one.