Wednesday, February 4, 2009

A cloak of lead

I dislike February. Living in New England, where we've already had two months of winter, I'm fed up with snow and ice and being cold. Some of my favorite authors have said some truths about February:

February is pitiless, and it is boring. That parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those?
The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine’s Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine’s Day on February’s shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed.

– Tom Robbins

Though February lay about her shoulders like a cloak of lead.
– Tom Robbins

In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to you psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.
- Charles Baxter

I have an ongoing collection of quotes about February and how much it sucks. Anyone know of others?

**UPDATE** Just found another one from old Bill Shakespeare:

Why, what's the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?
- William Shakespeare,
Much Ado About Nothing

4 comments:

  1. This is actually an explanation of leap year, but I always liked it.

    For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I've no desire to be disloyal,
    Some person in authority, I don't know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
    Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
    One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.
    Through some singular coincidence - I shouldn't be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy -
    You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February;
    And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you'll easily discover,
    That though you've lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you're only five and a little bit over!

    - W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan) from The Pirates of Penzance

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  2. Oh, great, thanks...just as I was starting to feel good about having survived January, MY least favorite month....

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  3. No poems, quotes, or pithy sayings, just an observation.

    I was born in February. I am fairly certain that my mother did this to me on purpose. Ever have a swinging birthday bash on your deck in February? I didn't think so.

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  4. You should move to Seattle. February is brighter, warmer, and not as wet... Now November? That month blows!

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