#and then the snows came we were always out shoveling and we'd drop to sleep exhausted

[blorboresidue]

february is the worst possible reward I can think of for having made it through january

[lord-radish]

I love lyrics that call back to earlier in the song/album. February by Dar Williams is a masterclass on the subject, having two meaningful echoes in the same song.

The song is like this Russian nesting doll of misery, it hits a low point and then the bad stuff from earlier comes back up and gets resolved. I don't think I've heard a song do it quite like this.

First, the outer layer of the nesting doll - the keys:

The inciting incident, and the resolution that brings the story to a close - the beginning and the end. Throwing them away and getting them back is kind of like a framing device.

Then there's the next layer of the doll - flowers:

When you're in a long-term relationship, romantic or otherwise, I think people intentionally numb themselves to things that bug them about the other person. These lyrics remind me of that - they begin neglecting the flowers they planted, and the neglect and denial gets to such a point that they just refuse to acknowledge the existence of flowers altogether. The flowers are no longer a problem, because flowers don't exist - out of sight, out of mind.

So when flowers come back up and the narrator can't remember what they are - one of the pair wants to face the reality of them being there and the other doesn't. It's that breaking point where you have to face the existence of whatever the flowers represent, whether you want to or not, or where you choose to keep living in total denial. And this relationship reaches that breaking point between reality and denial.

And it's after that breaking point that we get that second part about keys:

I read a YouTube comment a while ago that spoke about how the "new lover" could be the same lover from the beginning who's reformed. But personally, I think the leaves changing (i.e. fall) denotes a significant time shift, and the new lover is a new lover after the narrator has had some time to move on.

I'm biased towards that reading because frankly, this analysis reminds me of my former best friend. And I'm at the point where I'm getting new keys to the house, and my former friend isn't the one getting them made. So I'm inclined to believe that old lovers and new lovers are separate people, because that's applicable to my own life.

Anyway this post spun out of control, I just wanted to talk about how cool it is to have such a rich, self-contained narrative in a single song. To have these callbacks that work so well in the span of five minutes is just really masterful and I love this song to pieces.

[maculategiraffe]

You know I think Christmas was a long red glare,

Shot up like a warning. We gave presents without cards,

and then the snow. And then the snow came,

We were always out shoveling,

And we'd drop to sleep exhausted,

And we wake up, and it's snowing

[certainempatheticturkeymuffin]

I'm one of the fortunate ones in this whole situation. My mom had a friend that had power when ours went out. We lived in Kentucky for a few years so my mom knew to keep the faucets dripping. When the friend's water went out, our power came back on. My mom stocks up on water bottles religiously because she doesn't like the taste of the tap water here. She gave the friend some water and we went back home. Our pipes are fine, our car is fine, and now all we have to deal with is the Boil Order and our water coming on and going off again.

The first day (Sunday) wasn't too bad. My mom had planned ahead and all was good. She saw the forecast and refused to let me outside to touch the snow. She figured we'd be snowed in for a while and bought a bunch of food so we wouldn't have to leave. The car was completely iced over and it was so cool. I hadn't seen so much snow since I lived in Kentucky, and I was about four or five at the time. My mom had wanted to do some last minute errands to get some more water and an ice scraper. We broke ice off the windows and mirrors, and we got to play in the snow. I found great joy in punching the ice to see it crack, though it was super cool when it just slid off in a large sheet. The doors were completely frozen shut, so we had to let the car heat up a bit. Then we did all except the left back window (because no one sits there) and left. We bought a glass tile remover and used that because they don't sell ice scrapers here, and we went back home, car mostly free of ice. That night, the power flickered, but we figured it would be fine in the morning.

It wasn't.

The next day (Monday) was pretty bad. The power didn't come on, and it was freezing. We all ate a freezing bowl of cereal and took a look at the situation. We had two flashlights, and my mom knew she wouldn't be able to handle the darkness. The only problem was....our fireplace is wood burning. So, she had us bundle up and break the ice off the car (again) and use a dust pan (from a broom) to shovel a path to the car so we wouldn't track any in the house. The snow was about half an inch deeper than it was on Sunday. It was much colder on Monday than it was on Sunday too. My fingers couldn't handle the cold, and my sister and I rotating to shovel the path was horribly inefficient, so we only got about half way before my mom told us to stop because we were going too slow. Initially, I had wanted to scrape ice on the windows, but, since we don't have gloves, my hands were having a hard time gripping the scraper, eventually I begged to switch places with my mom because I hadn't even managed to pluck a single piece of ice off after a minute or so of fumbling. It didn't help. My hands were red and freezing and I'd spent only five minutes outside. I couldn't handle the dust pan very well either, and I wanted to break down and cry in frustration. I rotated with my sister, running hot water over my hands so I could feel them every time we did so. My mom saw how slow I was going and asked if I wanted to freeze, my response was "I'm going this slow because I am freezing." She had finished surprisingly quickly and we all got into the car, giving up on making a path. The roads were more dangerous than they were on Sunday, simply because there was more snow. Eventually, we managed to make it to Walmart. They had no logs. No cold food. No flashlights. So my mom bought about twelve candles. Walmart's gas station was closed, so we went to the Sam's gas station and got stuck. We struggled for about five minutes before a family came over and helped push us out of the snow. My mom was irritated that they wouldn't let her pump gas at the pump she was already at, ignoring the fact that the snow was too deep in that area to even move, and I was the only one that said thank you, but at least we were out. When we got home, my mom placed two candles in each bathroom and placed the rest around the living room/kitchen/dining room area (yes they are all one single room). We used the flames to warm our hands, and I passed out for a good four and a half hours, only waking up because I was overheating in my hoodie. I woke up at about six and my mom asked me to start the car so we could have somewhere warm to sit and eat. Thirty-ish minutes later we were in the car, warm, munching on chips and lunch meat. We were having issues with the internet, so entertainment was hard to come by and it was extremely boring, but at least we were warm. We stayed in the car from seven to eleven and went to sleep cold. The internet was very choppy, so all i have are these tweets, all made on the same day, even if two of them didn't post until the next day. I don't have tweets from any other days, except today, sorry.

The next day (Tuesday) was bad. We were freezing, and my mom had booked us a hotel, knowing that we couldn't stay without heat for too long, especially considering the fact that we didn't have wood and candles could only supply so much heat. We packed up immediately after waking up, leaving around noon to go to the hotel, even though check in wasn't until three. My dad was nagging us, trying to get us to make the two hour drive to San Antonio to stay with him, which was definitely a "No" considering the state of the roads. We told him we were staying at a hotel, I told him which one, and he called them for us. They were overbooked. My mom was not pleased, and, after double checking, tried to find a solution that wouldn't force her to drive two hours to my dad's apartment. All the hotels in the nearest cities were booked. So my mom called her friends and luckily one of them had power and water, and two extra rooms, and she lived five minutes away from the hotel parking lot (though the actual trip was about double that because of the snow). We all decided to stay in one room, because it kept that one room warmer and we didn't want to impose. We went back to the apartment to get a cot, because Miss Sabina had an air mattress, and we got all settled in. The room had carpets, but the pets weren't allowed in, so we were fine. I have a severe allergy to most animals that aren't reptiles or amphibians, fur and feathers are real bad, and Miss Sabina had two cats and a dog. It was fine though. Maybe half an hour after settling in, my mom got a call, the hotel had a booking canceled and offered us the room. We didn't want to go through the trouble of getting everything back in the car, so we declined it. My mom set up her computer to do school work (even though she works from home, the set up is so convoluted that she'd rather use her PTO than have to try taking it apart and setting it up again), and we were all set. The cage thing we put the cot on was really uncomfortable, so I ended up putting the thin cot on the floor, because even though my hips jutting into the ground was uncomfortable, being able to feel all the metal supports of the other thing was way worse. We went to sleep, warm.

The next day (Wednesday), my mom got an email that the apartment complex had shut off the water, but all was fine in Miss Sabina's house. I did learn that we only own one salt truck and only the bridges were salted. We don't own any plows, and the people on the budget committee(i think that's what it's called) don't want to allocate any money to plows or salt trucks because this storm was apparently just a fluke. Miss Sabina works with the city btw.

The next day (Thursday), Miss Sabina's power started flickering, but it was fine. I was apparently on my period, I didn't realize it because I always get a brownish discharge after it ends and theoughout most of the year, even though it's usually in lesser amounts and usually doesn't have drops of red. I definitely noticed when my pants and underwear were stained a dark red the morning of Thursday. It was inconvenient. That would've put me on my period for a straight eleven days. It was annoying.

The next day (Friday), the water was shut off in Miss Sabina's house. We checked our apartment, because finally the roads weren't completely covered in snow, and the water was still off, but the power was back. Twelfth day on my period.

Today (Saturday), we packed up and left Miss Sabina's house. Our water comes and goes, but my mom managed to buy a pack of bottled water that'll last us a while if I control how much water I drink (I usually drink a lot). I took advantage of the water being back and managed to finally take a poo, because one does not poop in another persons house, not when you're me, anyway. My stomach feels better now, and maybe I'll actually manage to eat something more than half a serving. I'm glad the heat's back, even if the boil order is going to be annoying, and the lack of water, but we're doing fine compared to many other people. My dad's fine, my brother and grandparents haven't called, and my best friend lives in Nevada and is unaffected. Thirteenth day on my period.

I'm so happy I was this lucky, but I'm definitely not getting caught dead in this situation again. When I graduate, I don't care if the northern states are better prepared for this, I'm going to hoard everything to make sure I'm not blindsided by this again. And maybe I'll invest in mittens.

I would like to say "fuck you" to both Ted Cruz and my period, because I was so happy to have a lighter period than usual, and it went and fucked up by extending to two weeks (at least) instead of lasting the normal miserably heavy four days.