I'm not a winter hater!

That’s it. I’ve had it with these freezing cold temperatures.

Now, ok, I’m aware that I am a wimp. For all of you well-adapted Northeasterners, this weather is perfect for beach picnics and sand volleyball. However, I maintain that even though I appear to be perfectly human, I’m either part reptilian or I am the only ectothermic human, ever. Either of these hypotheses perfectly explains my inability to keep myself warm in the winter.

If only my body could sustain itself with a heartbeat of 20 beats/ minute; it would be fantastic! I could eat massive quantities of delicious fatty foods for months and get hugely fat (that would be awesome). And then, I could sleep through the freezing cold months and wake up super skinny. Not only is this the best diet plan ever, it’s the perfect way for me to hibernate through the cold.

Please don’t get the idea that I’m a winter hater. That’s not the case, cross my heart. There are so many wonderful things about winter (most of them are snow related) and I am admittedly overwhelmed with childlike joy at the sight of snowflakes falling. The sound that shoes make crunching through accumulated snow is exciting and the way that I can see through the bare forest gives me a whole new perspective of the landscape. Recently, tracking animals has started interesting me. After a light dusting of snow, it’s a game to deduce which animal left the track, where it was going and what it was doing. I’m like Sherlock Holmes! (It’s not weird, it’s cool) In fact, when there’s snow, I almost forget about the cold entirely.

All I really need to do to help myself stay warm (and therefore more fully appreciate the beauty of winter) is recreate my circulatory system to mimic that of penguins and certain other waterfowl. They have a brilliant counter current heat exchange blood flow in their lower extremities. So the arteries and veins are located next to each other so when the warm blood flows from the heart, the heat is transferred to the colder blood flowing in the veins, helping to warm the blood entering the core of the body, thus preventing a drop in body temperature due to horrible horrible stupid freezing cold.