Now, I ain't saying that winter ain't a son of a bitch.

First of all, it's cold, and dry, and my nose bleeds all the fucking time, because, you know - well, actually, I don't know shit.

My father told me a while ago, before he died, that you got a bloody nose because The Lord was cross with you if you hadn't done enough Christmas shopping; if you hadn't bought entitled assholes enough shit that they don't need. As if I got time for that shit. That's why nose bleeds don't hurt; they just look fuckin' awful. It's more humiliating than it is painful. Just God's reminder. Make sure you buy Aunt Lucy, your favorite neighborhood succubus, a nice electric blanket to go along with her heating pad and massage chair.

At first, I thought winter was fucking awful.

So much snow. Like, I got shit to do.

I have to go out, and chat with my friends, and fuck my exes and eat food and go to the beach and bask in the good old American dream. I gotta sit in sunshine and do my college papers, you know? I can't be shovelin' driveways and listening to my friends bitch about how much Christmas shopping they had to do.

"The fuckin' lines, Jimmy!" they yell through the phone. "As long as Saturn's rings!"

I don't wanna hear that.

Do you wanna hear that?

I don't.

I didn't want to sit and mope and watch TV all day. I didn't like to stare at the sky and wonder if it'd ever stop being gray.

But then I met someone.

And she fuckin' loved winter, let me tell ya - she was convinced that winter was the "embodiment of all things beautiful, and pure."

Sounded like garbage to me.

Her eyes were brown, and her hair was brown, and her skin was brown. She wasn't like winter. She wasn't pale. She didn't have icy blue eyes, pale skin, and lips "as red as blood."

But she was intelligent. She could look you up and down and know you. She could add up numbers real fast.

"Two plus two is four, four plus four is eight..." She used to go up all the way till 32,768.

And she loved winter. She loved snow. She was born in June, 1993, and she used to say that her daddy used to say that her mom used to say that she hated summer from the very moment she came outta the womb.

I'm talking about her like she's dead, or some dramatic shit. She ain't dead. We just ain't talked in a while.

But she taught me some things about winter.

First off, buyin' presents isn't all that bad if you like the people you're buying them for.

Two. Nose bleeds are caused by dry air.

Three. Pumpkin spice is the shit, but peppermint hot chocolate ain't half bad either.

Four. If you wanna do something, you can go sledding.

Five. If you don't, you can bundle up in sweaters.

Six. Ice cream in winter is only a strange concept if you aren't an interesting person.

Seven. Frost is God's way of saying that today is going to be a good day.

Eight. When you're sad, light a candle and sing songs.

Nine. Bad things happen in summer, too.

Ten. This list is bull, but if it makes you feel better, then it worked out alright.

The truth is, if you eat ice cream in January, and then complain about how cold you are, then you're probably someone I don't wanna hang around. And frost is literally just ice, and a sore pain in the ass for farmers. But hey, maybe there's a reason for it.

She told me:

There's snow, and sweaters, and excuses to stay inside like a fucking old lady. Your friends could call you up, and you could decline their bullshit questions to go out for beers every goddamned night. You could say no, and they wouldn't call you a pussy - because, to be honest, they weren't feeling it either. Winter was sacred.

You could sit like a sack of horse shit on your ass all day long. No one would blame you. You could feel like a sack of horse shit. No one would blame you. Truth be told, they felt awful too.

But she... she'd sit next to me, her eyes as big as dark brown saucers. When her brown nose was red, and crusty, and raw, she stilled loved winter, and she loved the cold, and she loved the feeling of ice on her tongue. Ain't that a thing?

At the time, I didn't understand it that well, really. We looked fuckin' miserable, bundled in the darkness of sheets that smelled like dead old people and moths. I ain't sayin' it was unbearable, man, but it was pretty fuckin' awful. We didn't care, though. We just talked about stuff - the real shit, shit you wouldn't bring up at the dinner table. We talked like we were in a damned tryst. Spoke in the dark like it was some kind of a secret.

She giggled through her fuckin' words. Said it in her proper sounding New Yorker accent. Not as thick as my Boston one, and definitely more pretty. That ain't fair to her, no; it was heavenly. She sounded like Christmas.

Her hot breaths sent chills through me, in a weird, oxymoronic kinda way - and then she turned on her radio and we sat in the artificial light until she dropped off in my arms. She looked quiet. Real quiet.

I sorta miss those nights, honestly.

Pumpkin spice and moth blankets and snow that tapped like what I imagine typewriters would sound like if you were surrounded by them: zzt zzt zzt zzt zzt zzt zzt prrrrrr-snikt. She looked like chocolate milk and heavy breathing. Frost that rose into the fuckin' sky and disappeared. I asked her about that once. She said it was the law of diffusion. Molecules of water vapor had to go from a place of high concentration to low concentration. Or something.

She said that people who didn't get some things, like math, or english, or science, got other things. Like love.

But I don't know shit about love. I know how to roll a cigar, and I know how many gallons of gasoline my car takes when I ride it to the store. I know how many seconds are in a minute, and I know that people die and you shouldn't be bothered because they don't really matter. I know that at 32 degrees, my hot water usually stops working.

I don't know nothing about nothing. I am a dumb piece of shit.

But I like the taste of snowflakes. And I found out that Breaking Bad is better if you watch it when you're not alone. And her laughter was the best fucking cough syrup I ever had.

Winter ain't that bad. Even when you're crying so hard that you swear that the cold froze the fuckin' tears onto your cheeks. Even when your lips are so numb that trying to say "I love you," comes out more like a cry than some words that you tried to put together in your head.

I don't know nothing about nothing, guys. I'm gonna be dead ass with you: the only thing I remember from highschool is the crazy and irrelevant fact that an ostrich's eye is more big than its brain.

I don't know shit about love, either, no matter what she said.

Well, I'm kinda talking 'bout her like she's dead. But she ain't dead. We just ain't talked in a bit.

Maybe I'll call her up for pumpkin spice sometime.