Paradoxical undressing

Who uses it: Emergency medical technicians and doctors
What it means: The final stage of hypothermia, when victims become convinced that they're burning up, and take their clothes off. It happens most frequently in people who have been drinking, and is one reason that police often think urban hypothermia victims have been sexually assaulted.
How you can use it: When it's cold outside, baby.

The thermometer in front of my neighbor's apartment reads 24 degrees, which is really not so cold, especially compared to the 9 degrees it was last night. It feels even warmer in the sunlight. I forget what a shock it is, to people who aren't used to it; Ashton had to buy long underwear before Saturday night's pub crawl.

Dizzy seems not to notice it at all, unless it's wet, or the wind is blowing. The heat bothers him a lot more.

The temperature rarely drops below freezing in Tidewater Virginia, where I grew up, but I've always been fascinated with stories of extreme cold. A group of survivors from the wreck of the Endurance spent 17 days rowing the Antarctic seas in the James Caird, a 22 1/2" lifeboat. It was April and May, late in the Antarctic fall, and no one slept for 17 days -- but every one of them survived.

I look at the chilblain on my right index finger, and think that people must have been a lot tougher back then.