The Bad News

Talking about the weather has kind of gotten a bad rap. "So, how about the weather?" tends to mean that there's nothing else to talk about. It's small talk, and it's forced conversation.

Now personally, although I do think it's good to get past small talk at some point, I also think small talk has value. Humans are social creatures and most of us at least like to be around other people and to interact with other people. And the truth is that our lives really aren't so very interesting that each and every conversation we have contributes something new. In fact, even with our family and closest friends we tend to talk about the same things over and over again. It's not new knowledge and understanding that we crave, but conversation itself. In fact, I read something once about language and how we tend to think of language and communication as a knowledge exchange. But if you actually record informal conversations between people and examine them, you begin to see how very little real information is actually exchanged. As an example they showed an intimate conversation between a husband and wife, in which absolutely nothing that we would consider substantial was apparent in their words. It didn't mean the communication wasn't meaningful; it just meant that the meaning didn't lie in the words themselves.

The truth is that I like talking about the weather (you may have noticed this already). Weather is something that everyone can relate to on some level. Even if you disagree with my views on the hellisness of winter and instead believe that the onset of cold weather is the most wonderful time of the year, we can still shake our heads in bewilderment at each other's point of view, and laugh, and engage in meaningful conversation. We can even do this if we've already had this conversation a dozen times before. I do find conversations about the weather to be rather interesting, but in a way, talking about the weather is just an excuse to talk.

And so today I will talk about the weather. But today I have good reason to talk about the weather, because we're not even halfway through October and we're already getting snow. It's not quite cold enough that it's sticking to the ground, but it's still snow. The forecast today: Rain/Snow/Showers/Wind. High 38 (feels like 27). Low 27 (I don't want to think about what that is supposed to feel like). It sounds miserable, doesn't it? But that's not the bad news. The bad news is that our management decided to replace the furnace filters this week which, I discovered this morning, means that our heat has been turned off until they're finished. What timing. Last night wasn't so bad because we had a beautiful start to the week and so our apartment didn't cool down too much as the temperatures began dropping. But given that we reached our high for the day at about eight in the morning, I expect that the indoor and outdoor temperatures are going to begin to close in on each other pretty quickly. If maintenance doesn't finish replacing the filters and turn the heat back on, I may not survive the night.

Don't worry, Mom and Dad. According to my weather page, today's the worst of it. Tomorrow we're supposed to get all the way up to 46. And by the time you leave on Monday we may have even reached 52. You're in for a nice, balmy weekend visit.

:)