A little over a week after Christmas, we woke up to a winter wonderland – 9 days too late to be charming. What might have been a charming wintry atmosphere was now just freezing cold water on the ground that made it dangerous to do anything. It mocked. In the ensuing days, snow begat more snow and harsh freezing weather begat more harsh freezing weather.

It’s eleven days after our first snowfall, and when I look outside from my balcony, I expect to see Kurt Russel chasing David Keith and Wilfred Brimley around with a flamethrower in our park.

Like many people who don’t have lobotomies, we spend more time indoors in the deep freeze weeks. Me, Burke, the cat, the dog. We stay inside and do winter activities – namely, gain weight and hate each other.

OK, ‘hate’ is too strong a word, but only as much as ‘gain’ is too mild a word. The dog has taken to running around in circles and starting fights with my hands and ankles just to release some pent-up tension. We go outside with her, of course, and the .00021% of husky in her loves the snow beyond anything. She runs and plays. It’s an old story – we’re all stuck inside, the weather is freezing, and cats in small flats = a Shining situation.

Moreover, I’m dealing with the comedown from Christmas. No, not the merry fun time comedown into real life and all of its horrors. No. I am talking about the holiday-sanctioned period of guiltless gluttony comedown into eating like a human who wants to stay alive. For me, this means popcorn.

I don’t know what it is about popcorn, but I could easily eat two bags of microwave popcorn a night. This is despite all the downsides – like the forty minutes of flossing I have to do afterwards or the fact that it gives me very weird hyper-realistic dreams. There are adult themes and scenarios in these dreams, but they never quite involve the people I’d expect them to. Instead of sipping daiquiris with Adriana Lima, I get Adrian Brody (sparkling conversationalist if I’m being honest). Or I get a strange mix: I didn’t go skinny-sledding with Rihanna, but with Rihanna Gosling. Strange. Not horrible. Strange.  

It’s freezing cold and snow has come late to us. The snow is insult to injury, as anything remotely Christmassy mocks us after the day. Decorations, a tree, a mall. Snow before Christmas is cozy, charming, fits with the mood. But did we get a White Christmas? Hell no. We did, however, get a frozen, slippery return to our miserable jobs.

What astounds me still is how easily I used the word January in December. How I flung it around like it was an order for McNuggets. ‘Oh, why don’t we do when we get back in January.’ ‘We’ll worry about that in January. Have a Merry Christmas!’ Whoever I was speaking to would agree and we would settle into the comfort that comes from careening towards a two-week break centered around eating and drinking too much while getting gift certificates for books.

But now, here we are. January. It’s no wonder this fakakta month is chock full of strange please-don’t-do-yourself-in observances. It starts out January 1 with Z Day. Oh, this delightfully quirky holiday regulates that Zs come first in that day. Which is no doubt a nice way to celebrate your year’s biggest hangover.  

In this wretched month, the 14^th is dress up your pet day. But this is nothing special as my dog has the sweater and jacket selection of a minor Kardashian. For Christmas, that holiday that seemingly occurred six months ago, I got a doggy carrier. I am that man. I own it. I also own three doggy carriers. I feel like this is going to end up on a form one day.  

I once tried to put a tiny Santa hat on the cat and the reason I know how to say that in Czech is because I had to explain the situation to the ER nurse later that afternoon. For my cat, January 22 is evidently ‘answer your cat’s question day’ which explains why she was shouting at me at 5:30 am. She has a lot on her mind and only one day to find out where I keep the tuna.