R.I.P. January

Traditionally, August has been my least favorite month. But I'm trying to debate whether it should be January or August.

Last August was actually pretty fun. I had a short break from school and did all sorts of fun things.

But this January wasn't the greatest. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say it was miserable, but I've had better months.

First of all, in January all the holidays come to a crashing halt after New Year's. And you're just left with a cold, boring winter. The Valentine season starts in January, but Valentine's Day is a vastly inferior holiday. For me, it's just a day for heart-shaped candy. Boring (but tasty).

One of the reasons I don't like August is because I don't like heat. But the cold got a little annoying this year. It got to the point where 20 degrees seemed warm. Piles of snow got in the way and simply wouldn't melt. The Wasatch Front always gets the inversion, and this year was one of the worst, longest-lasting inversions I can remember. Between the air quality and the ice and snow, I only went running once in the entire month of January!

Then of course there was the freezing rain incident. In all my life, I can only remember one other time where we had freezing rain, back in the fall of 2004. As a result of my slip, I will need a root canal (according to the dentist, whom I saw on Thursday), all the teeth on the right side of my mouth (even the uninjured ones) are really sensitive to cold water and cold air, and I am now terrified of ice. Freezing rain is rare, but it came as a result of the cold ground that was cold for so long.

Now we are in February, which isn't that much better. We have a lot of silly holidays that are hardly holidays. Valentine's Day is the most popular one, but it really is just a candy day for people like me. We have Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, and while they were great presidents, I don't really care about their birthdays. And Presidents' Day is just a day off--why should we give the same honor to Calvin Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson as we do to Washington and Jefferson?

The weirdest February holiday--and perhaps the weirdest in the whole year--is Groundhog Day. Why on earth do we have a holiday based on a silly superstition all the way from Pennsylvania? Why do people celebrate Groundhog Day but not Leif Eriksson Day (October 9)? It's ridiculous!

And then in the end of February lemits starts. Lemits is a term I coined to refer to the really weird time of year that starts in February, climaxes in March, and tapers off in April. At lemits time, it's kind of like spring--it's a little warm, and it stays light a little later. But it's still wintry, because it's still kind of cold, and it still gets dark kind of early. I always feel weird during lemits. I don't know how to describe it besides weird. Lemits is often, but not always, depressing. I find myself more easily depressed during lemits. Things that are sad become sadder, and things that aren't sad become sad.

But I think I'm looking forward to lemits, compared to this past January.