Living in Minnesota, you get used to the conversations about weather. I'm not really a big weather follower myself -- I never seek out forecasts, don't watch local news, and am often surprised to discover that it's cold or warm on a particular day. But when someone wants to talk about the weather, which they often do, I try my best to hold up my end of the conversation. "Yes. It is cold. I expect it will continue to get colder until it gets very cold, at which point the earth's annual rotation will begin to gradually bring about a more perpendicular angle between the sun's rays and the surface of our region. Greater average temperatures will then occur, and Minnesotans will then remark that it is getting warm."
The one thing you never get used to, though, is people who aren't from Minnesota dissing our state's weather. Pussy-ass Californians or Texans often come here, experience 50-degree weather, and then say "Ooooh, it's so cold! Brrr ... how can you live here?!?!" Well, I guess we manage it because we have balls. We can withstand a bit of cold weather and not collapse like a bunch of hothouse flowers.
That's not really what I say. I usually then say that I prefer the weather in Minnesota, because you get a change in seasons. I especially enjoy it this time of year, when the season is actually changing pretty rapidly to autumn. Of course, this is a stock response and gets you nowhere. So I searched for a long time for a better way to get across why having seasonal changes is better than long, uninterrupted stretches of climatic niceness.
I finally figured it out. Southern California weather, see, is like watching nothing but "Frasier" every day. It's a fine show, not exactly challenging or ground-breaking, but pleasant enough. But if you had to watch it every single day, wouldn't you get a bit tired of it? Wouldn't you eventually yearn for some piece-of-shit documentary on VH-1 in which third-rate comedians make snarky comments about the greatest Christmas-themed novelty songs of 1983? Wouldn't you ache for an episode of the hot new reality show "Semi-Attractive Morons Hitting Each Other in the Head"?
Cuz that's what weather is like in Minnesota. At least half the year, probably more, is a mix of "According to Jim" reruns and Disney's "The Jonas Brothers Do Their Taxes -- LIVE!" But when those "Frasier" episodes come on in the spring -- man! You appreciate those "Frasier" episodes so much more than you would if it were nothing but "Frasier," all day, every day. And it's not just "Frasier" either -- some nice days are "Seinfeld," some are "The Simpsons" -- I might be taking this a bit far, but you hopefully get the idea. There are so many different types of nice days in Minnesota. Right now, there's a bit of a nip in the air, which is exciting in its own unique way. In Southern California, meanwhile, this kind of weather would betoken a tragic ice age and thousands of Californians would huddle in corners, shivering madly, shaking their heads, and cursing the evil Lord Xenu for implanting thetans of frigidity in their souls.
In Minnesota, weather provides variety, and from that variety, drama. A major storm is a exciting event that we all experience together and compare notes on later. In the dead of winter, we all snuggle together indoors and gripe happily about the cold. In the summer, Minnesotans stage so many outdoor fests and fairs that you'd think we were the heartiest partiers in the world (we're not). One way or another, the weather binds us together in common experiences.
Meanwhile, poor Southern Californians are deprived of the daily drama, conversation topics, and source of cohesion that bizarre weather fluctuations can provide. So what do Californians do instead? Apparently, any crazy shit they can come up with. They start cults and get plastic surgery and make shitty movies and have referenda on whether the government should provide everything imaginable while simultaneously cutting taxes, etc., etc. I think it's all rooted in a need for drama that isn't being fulfilled by their weather.
To gather further proof that Californians are desperate for drama, I recently visited the God-forsaken hellhole they call San Diego (great town, by the way -- America's Finest City, I hear). There was this beach that the constructed specifically for children, complete with a wall that created a sort of alcove, which allowed small waves to come up but prevented a major undertow. The problem was that they didn't construct the wall quite right, which somehow made the beach very attractive to seals (who are known fanatics for shoddily produced civic projects). So the seals are always hanging out there, being cute, which sparked a decades-long vicious battle between pro-seal and pro-children factions as to which uncontrollable animal should be given exclusive rights to the beach.
And a vicious battle it was. Pro-seal fanatics formed human chains to prevent children from entering the beach. Pro-children fanatics continued to squirt out brats at an exponential rate so as to overpopulate the world and drive all other animal species, including seals, to extinction. Meanwhile legislatures tried to resolve the issue through the time-tested method of floating crazy, half-baked ideas, such as setting up speakers that constantly play dog barks to scare away the seals. (This plan was shot down when it was discovered that seals aren't afraid of dog barks -- true story.)
No one apparently thought of maybe building another beach, and this time doing the wall right. Maybe this one could have a fence at the mouth of it, maybe 40 feet from shore, that keeps the seals out but allows modest waves to get through. No, this was not considered. Because if this problem were resolved, what would the pro-seal and pro-children factions get excited about? How would they spend their time? Watching "Frasier" reruns?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Bait taken. I think it's going to be a full-post response. You just woke up a sleeping bear that then got attacked by a swarm of killer bees that just ate a bushel of jalapeños. Dipped in sulphuric acid. In other words, an angry bear. Who's defensive about the climate of where he's from.
Heh heh heh ... of course, I actually realize that San Diego is a great place (the "God-forsaken hellhole" comment was meant sarcastically, in case that wasn't obvious), and the weather is wonderful and yadda yadda, but I still prefer seasons. It's just much more fun to say that in a very long-winded and exaggerated way. Please do respond in kind.
There are so many great thing about the midwest, but I honestly do not think the weather is one of them (I do like the seasons, just milder versions. And there are other aspects of the weather I liked in the midwest, like how the few good days were an excuse to leave work early. also, the gardening seemed a lot easier). I do feel, however, that the other good things about the midwest tend to outweigh the weather. I mean, I can romanticize the way I felt about being inside all cozy during the torrential downpours or snow storms, but the truth of the matter is that I was usually outside in that shit, and it sucked.
Another similar analogy to the weather in the midwest is exercise (for me anyway, being raised for a life of contemplation, not activity). Exercise sucks. A lot. I dread doing it, and all I can think about while exercising is how miserable I am and how much I wish it were over. After exercising, though, I feel really relieved it's over and I can really appreciate how good it feels to not be exercising.
You do make a good point ... I have to admit, part of my motivation behind this is "I am a Minnesotan. That's what I am. If you don't like it, fuck you. If you don't like any aspect of Minnesota, fuck you." I honestly think, deep down, that that's what drives most people's feelings about their hometown / home state. It's like when people insult your mother. Even if your mother really does suck, you just viscerally don't like it and want to fight back.
Plus. I've always been a sucker for the underdog, and Minnesota is definitely the underdog in this argument. Very few people on the coasts think that rational human beings could possibly want to live in the Midwest, even if (especially if) they've never been to the Midwest.
I agree with you 100% on that point. I don't know why it's so hard for people to wrap their heads around someone living somewhere slightly different than where they live. I mean, the difference between living in Berkeley and Woodside (where I live) is probably way more pronounced than the difference between living in Berkeley and Madison, but you wouldn't guess that from the way Californians act.
I think living in so many places growing up maybe made me a little more adaptable to new locations, so maybe I don't fully understand extreme regionalism.
Yeah, I think I am a bit of a regionalist -- I could think of many places I'd enjoy living, but I really want to just stay in Minnesota forever. Maybe it's because I didn't enjoy living in New York (for whatever reason, probably my own fault). I was also extremely tied to St. Louis, before and especially after we moved, and never really got over that, so there's definitely a huge nesting instinct in me.
I have to say, being a Minnesotan who happens to live in Colorado, that I'm touched and flattered that you now consider yourself a Minnesotan, Ed. Minnesotans never give up being Minnesotans, no matter where they end up. Even if you're not descended from the humble Scandinavians and Poles who came over to work for the rich Anglo-Saxon railroad barons, you feel like one - humble, hard-working, long-suffering, not-deserving-of-things-that-make-life-better-like-AC-in-hot-upstairs-rooms... That's a lot of hypens and I apologize. I bet even the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons really feel like Scandinavians deep down. Of course, I can only talk about those kinds of Minnesotans and not the new Minnesotans, like the Southeast Asians, because growing up in Duluth, there were only about two Asians (Koreans adoped at birth by white parents) there. So they may not feel like either Scandinavians or Anglo-Saxons. But maybe someday there will be a member of this group subscribing to this blog and they can speak for themselves about what it's like to be Minnesotan.
About weather, if you can't talk about weather, talk about ticks. Minnesotans always have something to say about ticks. They don't care about mosquitoes (that's just what silly non-Minnesotans always go on and on about), but they do care about ticks. My stepdad has a video that his grandson made of his sister's 6th birthday party. The picture is of her and her mom cutting her pretty horse cake, but the audio is of my stepdad and some Northern Minnesota Guy in the background talking about ticks.
Post a Comment