February is one of my favorite months of the year. It is smack dab in the middle of one of my favorite seasons, winter. Of course, most of my readers from the Southern Hemisphere aren’t in this season during the month of February, but some of my readers (penguins) are in another one of my favorite seasons (daytime). February is also a charming month because, unlike other months, it exists at equilibrium between two different numbers of days. February 29th, Leap Day, seems like a bonus that you are free to throw away or use as you please. Also, if your birthday happens to be on Leap Day, you actually do age one-fourth as fast as the average person, and this is a very cool feature of the month. My favorite parts of February are the specific holidays and observances that occur in the month, because each of them has the effect of making everyone else think about, for a few days, what I think about constantly. Let’s examine:

Black History Month (All month): Black History Month was created to insure that no one would forget the importance of the history of Black people. Mostly, though, it just makes people think a bit more about George Washington Carver. This suits me just fine, because I am thinking about George Washington Carver all the time. I think about all the wonderful things he invented, like Stratego, the Colt 45, the Franklin stove, and the internet, with the help of Al Gore, who he met by going to the future in at time machine which he, of course, invented. He made all of these things with peanuts and with peanuts alone. Take that, Thomas Alva Edison.

Groundhog’s Day (February 2^nd): On February 2^nd, humans look to a groundhog for a metrological prediction, namely when winter is going to end. Then, human meteorologists make their own predictions on the same topic, and everybody realizes that the human predictions are more accurate and much more informed. Everyone thinks about how bad groundhogs are at meteorology in February, and my mind has thoughts of this ilk throughout the entire year. I am very vocal on the topic of whether or not cats are very good at mathematics or if spiders are at all good at mathematics. I submit that they are not. Animals are really bad at lots of tasks that we can do easily. I am deeply moved by how stupid and untalented animals are. Chances are good that if you let me near your pet, I will make fun of its inability to master human language, or, if it doesn’t have opposable thumbs, its ability to grab stuff.

Valentine’s Day (February 14^th): Valentine’s Day is a day on which the thoughts of several turn to romance, only to find that my thoughts are already there, on account of my thoughts are on romance more or less 24/7. And by romance, I mean bad pick-up lines. And by bad pick-up lines, I mean good pick-up lines.

International Breakup Day (February 15^th): February 15^th is a great day to break up with someone you love, someone you used to love but now don’t, someone you thought you loved but in actuality never did and someone that used to have a really sweet ride (catapult + parachute, perhaps). International Breakup Day is the day you finally get up the nerve to tell that loser that you can do much better than what you are getting. If my article on breaking up is any indication, I think about breaking up all the time. This February, take a walk in my shoes and really appreciate the beauty of ending a romantic relationship.

I'll send you back to the essence.