Thursday, 03 January 2002 | Cracker

I can say, with relative certainty, that there's no milk or bread at the local grocery stores, no shovels left on the racks at Home Depot, no movies to be rented at Blockbuster, and no kids sitting in school. Why? Because there's snow everywhere, and it's North Carolina. Lucky for me, I can walk everywhere I need to go, except for work.

Of course I'm still sick, so I'd probably be home anyway. Yesterday evening, around the time the snow was starting to fall, I tried to venture out, but found standing and walking around really exhausting. I'd gone to a used bike shop full of animals, and, while I was squatting to pet an orange cat, I noticed a large, green parrot staring at me from between two shelves. When I looked up at him, he yelled "Cracker!" at me, which was nice. I spent the majority of the rest of the evening inside, swallowing vitamins, eating pasta, and watching A Time for Drunken Horses, a movie that'll make you feel guilty for even having the resources to watch it, sitting there lazily with a full belly, wrapped up in a blanket, in a warm room, the outside glowing with white frost.