What sees me through December

In Germany, December is dark. In December, Germany is dark, too, but that makes the whole thing sound much more sinister than it really is. Anyway, you may think that the 8 hours and 3 minutes of light between sunrise and sunset sounds like just enough, but then you assume all sorts of things about the quality of light that are simply unrealistic (for instance, that one may experience two days in a row without rain). My instinct is to ingest an unholy amount of gebrannte Mandeln and hibernate, but the powers that be will admit no such thing. I AM NOT A BEAR, I repeat to myself each morning. But I am not yet fully convinced.

And so, dear readers, I give you yet another list, this time of my December survival strategies. It is not overly-lengthy, but, then again, neither is the time until cookies become the mainstay of my diet.

1. SWEET POTATO!! the concept, the smell, and the pie. I recently learned that China grows 80% of the world's sweet potatoes, which lead me to declare that I was moving there immediately. I subsequently read that they feed 60% of this 80% to pigs, which means that 48% of the world's sweet potatoes are eaten by even-toed ungulates. No matter, the humans are winning.

2. Elaborate fantasies in which I am seduced by Ernst Haeckel in the Canaries. None of these involve him drawing my nasal flora in exquisitely beautiful detail. Of course not. That would be perverse. Nor would it involve playing house in a cave and playfully throwing loquats at one another while watching the sun set over Teide. Absurd! But who am I kidding, really? I would settle any day for his assistant in the photo, Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay. Can't you tell from his swagger that that man's an abolitionist?

3. Last, but very much not least, embracing rejection! Or shall we say refusées? Why is 19th century modernism so much more charming than the twentieth century variety? I say we go back to embracing this productive loser dynamic, or at least use all of the hideous wallpaper of the world to say a thing or two.