nipples.

Is it really necessary to keep the office temperature hovering around minus two? Are we really saving money on electricity, as the rumor goes? Does the electricity bill really go down when each employee gets his or her own space heater? Can the silk blouse ladies please turn off the headlights now? Yeah, I know it's cold. Maybe a sweater vest would help.

It's finally winter here in the great Northeast and I cannot seem to get warm. My new apartment is warmer than the last one (cathedral ceilings, I miss ya) but rolling over and slapping my bare ass up on the icy wall is still a mid-slumber risk. So I get up and take a shower that's hot for about 7 minutes, until our milkjug-sized hot water heater decides to go into hibernation for the morning.

Then I put on half of the clothes I own, endure the perforated leather seats that always seem like such a good idea until mid-December of each year in the car that won't heat up again until April, and come here, where I chug down an extra large Dunkin Donuts coffee and crank the heater under my desk to III, whatever that means.

Ah, winter. Someone take me skiing, quickly, to remind me that I shouldn't spend the day with my thumb on an aerosol nozzle in the hopes of speeding global warming.