Daylights Savings Time

It's cold here.

I know that sounds ridiculous, to complain about the weather in Los Angeles, but I was just in Bilbao where they were having a hot streak, it was in the eighties, which felt comfortable, because that's what I'd been experiencing at home, but then I came back and had to turn on the heat.

That's when the fall begins, when I can't wear my shorts and I can't sleep without the heat. I try to stretch it as long as possible, you'll catch me in my short pants in November, but usually I've got to crank the thermostat by the third week of October, but not this unseasonably warm year, but when I got home from Spain, there was a nip in the air.

And then it started getting dark an hour early.

I thought I loved winter, now I can't wait for summer to return.

You see I used to live ignorantly on the east coast. People didn't travel back then like they do today. This was before airline deregulation. I'd been around, but I had no idea that it could truly be so warm in the winter. My first December in Los Angeles I wouldn't wear anything heavier than a jean jacket, something I didn't break out in Vermont until May. Well, maybe some borderline days in April. In the east, you're optimistic.

But there's no worse month in Vermont than November. It's not quite cold enough to snow, but it is cold enough to freeze your tootsies off.

How depressing. That's what I like about getting older, the lack of depression. Being young sucks. Your body works, but you're confronted with so many questions, life is a blank slate, for all the winners we read about in the press there's a plethora of losers, or lost.

And there's nothing worse than graduating from college. Everybody's in your business and then suddenly they're not. That's when you become an adult, when you no longer go to school, when you no longer are beholden to the administration, never mind your parents.

But before that...

College is weird. There are infrequent tests. Very little classroom time. Your schedule is your own. You're champing at the bit to get out and start your life, but you're revving in neutral, it's so depressing.

Then again, I went to college in the dark ages. Literally, with no TV, never mind internet or Netflix. Campuses did not compete on facilities, there was no exotic food, never mind StairMasters. Hell, we didn't even have telephones in our rooms!

All we had was each other. If you weren't a conversationalist you'd have to drop out, there were no diversions, just the four walls. You had to come out of your shell.

I think about all this when the clocks change. When suddenly it's dark while you're still doing your business. Driving home in L.A., walking to dinner at Middlebury. And it's never quite bright, the sun is at an angle such that despite what the thermometer says, er, the weather app, it doesn't feel that warm, the app says it's 70, but I was chilled walking to my car just now.

At least we're all connected. The world has gotten smaller. But we've lost some freedom along the way. Not only our privacy, with Big Brother watching, but the ability to be alone with our thoughts, to feel. Used to be if you were waiting for a bus, before everybody had a car, you couldn't divert yourself with your phone, you just had to kick the curb and be alone with your thoughts, it made us who we are.

And I'm not sure who everybody is anymore. We seem to have winners and losers. The winners drop out of college and succeed, those who graduate don't spend time finding themselves, but start their careers. And those without advantages, those who screw up, don't realize their permanent record is going to hold them back forever.

They talk more on the east coast, they make better friends. It's because of the weather, all we have is each other.

And you can take the boy to California but he still remembers...when darkness closed in and depression loomed and you sat in the overheated buildings listening to records just waiting for it to get warm outside.


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