5

So, I’m practicing walking around without grimacing as the icy wind taunts me with its, well, icy wind. I am tired of looking like the frigid cold is cutting through my spleen with one of those slightly serrated butter knives, even though that’s what it feels like while I am out in the cold for too long. I want to look like one of those expressionless, Botoxed women I see jaunting around the chic town in which I work, albeit with more clothing. Yes, on the surface, my actions sound like a folly, but I have a goal. So, we have a windchill of 5 degF today. Yes, 5. I went out for a walk at lunch. I walked to the supermarket. It’s about a half-mile away from my office. I discovered that it’s all about relaxing the face muscles when you’re walking in 5 degree weather and you want to look like you’ve had Botox instead of scrunching your face up like you’ve just had a sip of sour milk. I found that it was working. My face was relaxed and I looked like I didn’t have a care in the world, even though my major organs were freezing and on the verge of shutting down due to hypothermia. But, relaxing your face works better when you also relax your shoulders. So, if you were driving down the main street of my little corner of suburbia today and you saw a woman walking like she was in some yogically induced stupor, that was me. The only downside to this experiment was that it was so cold that none of the idle rich were out today to see my triumph.