An Ode to January

Ahh, January. How do we love thee? Let me count the ways!!

First, there is.......







Hmmm.....what to start with. Think.....

Ok. First there is......






What can I put down for the first. Hmm....I am at a quandary here.

Shoot - I seemed to have lost my train of thought. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. January. This is supposed to be a blog on why I like January so much. How do I get this ball rolling....

Ahh - got it! Ok, here goes:

First......








Dang, lost it again.

Well, the best I can say is this. Have you ever wondered why December goes so fast and February seems to drag on forever?

It's because





JANUARY SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


There is just nothing more to it than that. You know how sometimes people refer to the month as it's closing out as that month "dying"? As in, "the boy born as the month of July dies" (vague Harry Potter reference here). Well, if it were true that a month could die, once January died, I'd do a happy dance on it's grave!

I hate January. If you could rank all 12 months on order of goodness, you would not be able to rate January because #12 out of 12 is just far too kind for that month. You'd have to allocate about 35 blank dates to give January it's proper ranking of #38 out of 12, and I feel that would be even a bit too kind.

Why is January so bad you ask? First off, I'd say "DUH!!!" But if you were really clueless, I'd have to tell you my reasoning. First off, it's cold here in January. Too cold. As in, so cold that your nose hairs start to freeze together while you are trying to walk around and actually breath like a normal human or mammal. Generally, you find yourself minimizing the time you spend out of doors because it takes so long to bundle up to the point where you don't freeze to death by walking outside. You run from your car, to get into a warm house or store, or workplace, then when the business of whatever you were doing is done, you run back to your car and cuss it for not staying warm while you were gone.

At this point, various folks begin to tell me that the real solution is to move to somewhere warm. I am not fooled by this argument. In fact, I have a stronger argument against it. You see, by moving to somewhere like this, it does indeed make January tolerable from an "outside warmth" standpoint. But in effect, you are swapping the nasty January for a nasty July or August where you can't go outside without various body parts literally melting off. Then you find yourself running from your car to your destination in hope that heat stroke doesn't set in while you are out there, then running back and cussing your car for not staying cool while you were gone. It may make January more tolerable, but I love July & August and I could never make myself hate it as much as January. Trust me, I have been in Arizona in July. 116 degrees in the shade? No thank you.

Now back to the January bashing. The other day, I looked directly at the Sun. And I stared at it for an extended period of time. "Aarggh! What were you thinking" you are saying at this point. "Didn't your Mom ever warn you not to stare directly at the Sun?!?!? You'll melt your corneas off!" Well, don't you worry your little head, dear, there was no melting (it's cold out here, remember?) No, it wasn't because it was cold. It was because there was 54.5 miles of airborne garbage for the sunlight to travel through before it made it to my corneas. By the time the sun rays made it to my eyeballs, it was a shell of it's former bad old self. It couldn't barely muster a tear from the old tear ducts due to it's complete lack of intensity. In fact, you could look directly at that blob of a sun and you could almost see the face of the sun, verging on the edge of weeping, big old bottom lip sticking out and feeling sad being repressed behind a sea of airborne gunk. I felt sorry for it. I almost wanted to shout to it not to worry that some day this horrid month would be over, and he'd be back on his feet melting corneas off like it never happened!

Yes, there is an unusual amount of gunk in the air in January around these parts. In fact, I would say of the 31 miserable days of January, perhaps 10 of them have any real extended periods of unobstructed sunlight that makes it to this part of the world. It's not uncommon to go for weeks at a time without being really sure the sun had imploded, or just taken it's ball and gone home because it couldn't play anyhow. When it finally does show up, I find myself closing my eyes, feeling the tingle of actual sun rays on my face and remembering what it was like to be summer again. Then the smog bank rolls back in, I am yanked back into reality, and have to pull my hoodie over my ears before they freeze off again.

I have heard the argument as well that I should take up something like skiing to overcome these January blahs. The rational is that going up to the ski slopes is refreshing because the sun is most always shining up there and you can go enjoy the outdoors. Really? Is it that drastic to take those measures? You see, you have to take on all the other risks associated with skiing.

Skiing. Who came up with that idea? Did someone wake up and say, "You know, I am going to go strap some wood boards on my feet, go to the top of the highest mountain, and slide uncontrollable down the side of the mountain, and hope I don't hit a tree on the way!" Of course, being the top of the mountain, the snow is around 65 feet deep, and as you are going down the luge of death, the wind chill hits -55 degrees and any exposed flesh is immediately frozen. Not to mention should the inevitable happen, and you wipe out. Then joints that aren't meant to bend in ways that get bent in such a collision begin to make you notice they are there. If you are lucky, you don't end up being hauled down off the slopes in a stretcher.

I know - it's not that bad. It just seems like a harsh thing to do to go get some sunlight in the winter. I haven't actually ever skied before, so I have to admit I am making that whole argument against it up. I could do it and really love it. If I could associate anything with cold as being something I would love to do. It would be hard to overcome the psychology of it, is all I am saying.

And so, as of today, January is dying. True, tomorrow is February who's only real saving graces are that for one thing, it's only 28 days, and for another thing, it's not January. But come, let's join in and have a moment of silence for the death of January. Then the celebration can begin!