My early-morning walk wasn’t the act of quiet contemplation it usually is. The snow that winter finally brought us yesterday had frozen to the roads making them go crunchy-crunchy under my feet. And it wasn’t dark as the inside of a cow, either. The heavy cloud cover that I guess means the weathermen were right when they said we’re going to get more snow also reflects the sodium light from the street lamps right back down on the city. Finally, it wasn’t cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra, or whatever metaphor your local slang uses to describe the coldest day of the year. Remembering the way I froze my little nipples off the last time I went for a walk, I dressed myself in the warmest coat I had hanging in the closet and pulled a pair of heavy pants over my pajama bottoms, but I didn’t need anywhere near that much insulation. Still, it was nice to be toasty warm instead of chilled to the bone by the time I got home. Crunch, crunch, crunch.