if it’s going to be cold, i prefer snow. as lauren has pointed out, it only takes 10 minutes for new york snow to get dirty and ugly. chicago snow seems to retain the fluffy white picturesqueness a bit longer thanks to the extreme cold – nothing that falls out of the sky is going to melt until at least april, possibly may, and the snow does great things for chicago architecture – highlighting all of the little decorative railings, ledges, gargoyles – the stuff that no one bothers to put on buildings these days. i’m not such a fan, however, of the part where the sidewalk snow turns into an inch-thick dark brown sludge that is, in my father’s words, “slicker than snot.” it’s like walking on a oil spill. like rollerblading, i fully expect to acquire specially developed glute muscles from the effort required to remain vertical on this stuff.