would you rather be too hot or too cold?

i recently alluded to my hatred toward temperature imbalances and the fact that "everyone knows" how i feel.  later, i realized that i'm not quite sure everyone does.

with the psychotic weather here this year, the question of "would you rather be hot or cold" has often come up.  during conversations surrounding this question, i often get distressed, begin sweating, and am just generally miserable.  i don't believe i need to explain how the body reacts to being cold and being hot, everyone shivers and has tense muscles in the cold and (most)everyone sweats when they're hot.  and no, i'm not saying that i'm the only one that dislikes either of these circumstances -- i'm simply saying that i really really really dislike these circumstances.

getting dressed in the morning is a feat for me not only because i'd like to look nice, but because i am PARANOID about being too hot or too cold.  i believe that this may be why i'm almost always dressed in layers. because what if i get hot?! i can take a sweater/scarf/jacket/shirt/whatever off. but what if i get cold?! i can add a sweater/scarf/hat/jacket.  on a day when i have dressed inappropriately for the temperature, like this one, i am just in a bad mood. why didn't i plan better? where was my extra layer? why didn't i correctly anticipate the temperature difference during the day?!

when thinking about the question, "would you rather be too hot or too cold?" i generally consider the extremes of "sweating a lot" and "numb fingers and toes."  when these are the options, i would most certainly choose cold. reasons: physical activity could help you warm up (you know, to prevent death), i would be wearing lots of layers, potentially, i could still look presentable (no sweat-running makeup all over the place).  reasons against excess warmth: your skin sticks together when there isn't clothing in the way (or the clothing is drenched in sweat), my face gets really really red when i'm hot and sweaty - no one wants to see that, just, ew.

so while these are the normal extremes to my version of this debate, with friends in the dolomites, the conversation took an entirely more extreme route.  there were mentions of death by heat stroke, being burnt alive, melting skin, and on the other end of the spectrum similar freezing-to-death-while-alive scenarios.  i wish i could think of some of the more horrible too hot or too cold death scenarios because i believe some of them were rather hilarious.  i'm sure i blocked them out of my memory so as to retain the extremes of "shivering" and "sweating" i had come to be almost comfortable with.

so. think about it. would you rather be too hot or too cold?!

x!

[while writing this, i've gone back and forth between having the chills and being a bit too warm for my liking.]