Being Cold

I've spent more time along and freezing in last 4 weeks then in my entire life. The freezing part? That was hard for the first 18 years or so. Alone? I've always been ok riding solo. That's easy for me to say as big, fat passes as white guy. But never were both factors so together as in the recent stay at home situation. I'm in the downstairs basement office with no heat except the ornery, overweight cat. She curls into a blob on the Ikea chair and wheezes, putting out low grade BTUs.

But, predominantly, I'm alone in my office. My building. The walls here have bent from years of seesaw temperatures. It takes forever for water to dry after sweeping it through with a mop. The floors stay slick and dangerous with dappled slow drying water. 

There are varying degrees of cold. 

There is the sudden chill. That one wakes you up as you feel it creep up your spine and to the top of your head. The nagging chill from the bottom of your feet as it cuts through your socks and under the tongue of your sneakers. That is the worse as its cold enough to slow everything down but not enough to kill you. It makes me miss keystrokes as I scrunch the sleeves of my sweater as high as they go over my wrists. Press my hand against furniture and it saps whatever warmth Ive built. Errantly graze a brass door knob and feel it sickle through skin. Rime forms in standing water and the drip drop noises sound thicker.