THE GREAT GADFLY:

I Am A Winter Wonderland

But no, here comes winter. Time to itch. Time to scratch. Time to slough off large sheets of skin. As if the winter months didn't give me enough to worry about, considering I get to look forward to being a sad, sleep-deprived fattie for the next three years, or however long a winter in this damn city lasts. Which is shorter - a Chicago winter or the Bush presidency? I can't say.

I'm thinking that maybe if I ate more greasy foods, I could combat the dry skin problem I've been encountering as part of my Chicago Winter Experience. Maybe if I ate more grilled cheese sandwiches, french fries, onion rings, jalapeno poppers (Why are they called poppers, anyway? Were these things invented by a leather daddy or something?), fried Twinkies, various tempura dishes, fried tofu cubes, fried ice cream at Chi-Chi's, fried fry-fries, sauteed grease pie, oil pudding (fried, preferably) and/or a big tub of Butter Flavored Crisco sweetened with two whole bottles of Karo syrup, my skin might actually consider replenishing some kind of moisture over these terribly, horribly, miserably dry months.

I've never had the dry winter skin problem before. It's a gift Chicago has given me. Thank you, Chicago. You always know just what I want.

Oh, I've tried the Aveeno. Oh, I've tried the Gold Bond in the green bottle. As much as I love slathering oatmeal and hyper-mentholated medicine-stinky goo on my body, I dunno, it's just not doing the trick.

I'm thinking maybe I should get one of those big plastic bubbles like John Travolta had, and I could make a nice little humid mini-ecosystem out of it. Maybe I could even finally get a cat and let kitty live in the bubble with me. I'm sure cats love life in a mobile plastic bubble.

Oh, but anyway. Last night was my first night with the radiators going full blast, and I woke up this morning looking and feeling like something that would crumble out of a sarcophagus. Fortunately for me, I collected my left arm in a metal mixing bowl and was able to add water and reapply the limb to my body. Yes, my skin's kind of like Plah-Doh when you leave the lid off too long.

Taking a shower, I actually heard my pores sighing out loud as I stood under the continual spray of water. It was refreshing to distraction until one of my dry, pruney eyeballs fell out of its socket and I had to soak it in the sink for ten minutes until it bobbed to the surface of the lukewarm water, staring at my other eye like a jilted lover. Goddamned eye drama, anyway. Like I have the time for it.

A bad night of sleep and a loss of body moisture makes for some darn interesting headaches, too. I currently have a triangular kind of pain that has branch locations in my neck, my jaw and my ear. When I crane my neck a certain way, all three chime in with a nice dull throb. So I don't crane my neck that certain way.

Thankfully, we set our clocks back yesterday, so there's an hour less sunlight and more energy depleting dark winter hours to enjoy. The skin around my eyes haven't quite reached that fabulous Klaus Kinski/Judy Davis shade of disturbed'n'disgruntled bruisey-purple, and damn the luck, all the caffeine in the world just won't get me the desired effect. Maybe by Christmas I'll look like the hag I know I can be if I really put some effort into it.

I decided a couple of months ago that I wouldn't cut my hair all winter, as a form of silent protest against what has now become Discomfort In General. I hold high expectations for the coming of next year's spring - I'll have found a beautifully stabilizing new job, an entire magical island of inspired, insane genius neo-Algonquinite friends, a beau who's half Yoko Ono and half Jake Gyllenhaal, and perhaps even the adoption of the most adorable kitty-cat in the whole wide world of kitties - I'm thinking something old, orange-stripey and fat; my landlord of course will gleefully welcome this addition to my home without suggesting a ridiculous pet fee, perhaps even offering to feed the little darling when I go out of town, which I will of course be doing often after this dream-Spring occurs.

Yeah, I know. I ask too much.

But when the sun comes peeking out of the dreary dying winter sky next year and I've amassed at least enough good fortune to make me forget about the things for which I wished but didn't get, that's when I'll drag out the clippers and shave off the length of sad months survived.

Until then, I'll be rolling sticks of butter across my back and rubbing the insides of Ruffles potato chips bags on my elbows and knees, praying that I hold out one more day until my skin cracks open and falls off my frame like something from a Michael Jackson reality TV show.

And as I gather my failing epidermis around my traumatized and trembling haunches, I will aim higher, higher, ever higher.

I have a foot cramp.