How to Stay Warm When Nature Clearly Wants You To Freeze To Death

Judging by Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, every news headline, and the feeling of morbid, animal fear I felt when I put my face close to the window, it’s ball-shriveling, ovary-freezing, nose-blackeningly cold outside today. So how the fuck are you supposed to dress? Elaborately.

Because I lived, for the entirety of my childhood, in a town where this was the weather yesterday—

— I cumulatively spent years dressing with the understanding that if I dressed improperly and something went wrong, I could actually die. So here’s what I do when the temperature outside approaches Absolute Zero Degrees Kelvin.

They’re a pain in the ass to pack, they’re bulky and heavy and every time I moved over the past 2 years (7 times! Long story!) I hated how much space they took up and briefly wished them away, but hotdamn are my Sorel Joan of Arctic boots ($150-195) the best thing I own for the cold and snow. They’re waterproof, have great traction, fit well, and I think they’re kind of cute in a hypothermic grunge way. When I wear them, I feel invincible, like the Rankin & Bass Abominable Snowman on PCP. Since I moved from Chicago to New York, it’s only shitty enough out to require I wear them a few times a season, but I’ve found them to be 100% worth the price tag.

If you don’t have anything like Sorels, try wearing multiple pairs of wool socks in the boot-iest, most rugged shoes you have, and avoid puddles.

You’re also going to need to dress in layers, but not, like, multiple pairs of jeans worn on top of other jeans is both uncomfortable and strange looking. Bottom layer should be long underwear, and bonus if you can stay warm without getting too bulky. I’m a fan of Uniqlo’s HeatTech line ($25 and under); it’s cheap and comfortable and warm and it comes in a bunch of different colors, so if you’ve got a special someone in your life they can be dazzled by your matching long underwear in vibrant, trendy hues. You know, “Saskatchewan Lingerie.”

If you don’t own any long underwear, just wear the thickest, opaquest tights you have underneath your pants and socks, and wear like 4 shirts. That’s called “Saskatchewan Period Stained Laundry Day Lingerie.” But it’s better than nothing.

Face masks look scary and will totally mess up your hair and/or lipstick, but you know what? Now is not the time to be vain about your goddamn beauty routine. This one, from REI ($25), is pretty good:

Sometimes, extra clothing just doesn’t cut it. In the olden times, country-bound cold people would keep themselves warm on cold nights by putting warmed stones in their beds. Now, we’ve got rechargeable hand warmers (Fab.com, $11.60) we can carry with us in our pockets.

Of course, if none of this works, you can always just light a barrel of garbage on fire and jump into it, like a hot tub.

So, what about you, readers? What jackets, scarves, boots, gloves, mittens, socks, human sized solar heated hamster balls, etc do you rely on in the cold?