It has come to my attention that tomorrow is February 28, which in my book ought to be a national holiday: the last day of the shortest, bleakest month of the whole calendar. So long, Feb. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
I don't know what Nobel Laureate ever came up with the idea of February, but if it came to a referendum I would vote in favor of abolition tomorrow. Lengthen January by two weeks and March by two weeks. What does February have to recommend it? Valentine's Day? Get real. Either you have a true love, in which case you don't need an excuse to go do something nice for them, or you don't, and Valentine's Day is just a poignant reminder that in the Love Department, you are Unclaimed Freight. I am in the former category now but I spent way too many years in the latter category, and I wouldn't go back there for any amount of money. Although I will say that there is one thing worse than spending Valentine's Day as a single person, and that is spending Valentine's Day as a single person in the psych ward. I did that too, once, a long time ago.
Weather wise, February is unpredictable. It's either unseasonably warm or the weather gods dump two feet of snow on you with about 20 minutes notice. I live in the Washington, D.C. area, and it gets dangerous here. In Atlanta, where I spend the first half of my life, people at least knew they had no business being behind the wheel of a car, and if the results were sometimes infuriating they at least happened in slow motion. But Washington, as John Kennedy remarked once, is a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency, and up here people think a thin glaze of black ice on the road is a signal to drive faster. God help you if you impede them in this endeavor.
So far this week, the daffodils have emerged, and we have had a) one ice storm, followed by a b) 36-hour power outage, followed by c) six inches of snow. But the maple trees, bless them, are beginning to show the faintest trace of red, and the gardening catalogues are showing up in the mail. March has been known to bring blizzards, so we're not out of the woods yet, but I for one am ecstatic that tomorrow is the last day of the lousiest month of the year. Good bye and good riddance. I am a pretty tolerant, open-minded person, but there are some things there are just no excuse for. Paris Hilton is one; February is another.