What I remember most about the winter months of 2003 was the snow. In particular, the American Short Fiction course I was taking at Towson University, in what would turn out to be my last semester before dropping out (I went back to finish my degree in 2006, and finished spring 2007). The class met only on Wednesday nights, if my memory serves, from 6pm until 8:30.

Actually, after the first night of the course, we didn’t meet again for like a month and a half. The Baltimore area was either snowed out of service, or threatened to be snowed out, so without fail, the news would come over the radio or the TV or the internet that Towson University was closed, and I’d have a free Wednesday night.

The winter storms culminated in March, with a storm that started very early on a Sunday morning and left several feet of snow on the ground, and me — and most of my neighbors — snowed in for several days. It was really the first single snowstorm of note — as in, the kind of snowstorm you remember six and a half years later — since 1996 (I don’t remember that one very well, except holy shit, there was a lot of snow).

My point is — I think this is going to be a very, very snowy winter.

There was a time when this would have filled me with panic. But that’s when I had a car and drove.*

I make this observation (snowy winter, not panic about driving in the snow) based on these observations:

1. We’ve had an unusually cool summer, it really didn’t start getting muggy and nasty until August, and today feels like spring again (well, comparatively).

2. It’s been a few years since we’ve really had an ‘oh-shit’ snowstorm.**

Anyway, all I’m saying is — stock up on some canned goods.

*A friend once told me, “I was taught to drive in the snow in Pennsylvania, where everyone learns how to drive in the snow. The problem with coming to DC, is that most people can’t actually drive in the snow — but think they can.” Well, that’s not me: I can’t drive in the snow and am fully aware of that fact.

**Y’know, it’s fine for people who grew up and lived in points north to make fun of the mid-atlantic region for not being able to cope with the snow (I’m talking about you, Mr. President), but it actually makes fiscal sense not to have the snow-removal infrastructure that other cities do: we don’t get that much.