Farewell Friggin February

With this last day of February, we mark the one-year date since Tommy T-Bone Wolk died. His is the last of the deaths of the First Death Month of the Calendar Year at Austanspace. He is still missed quite sharply.

As I stare out these Dickensian windows it has turned to slush world. This is Ingmar Bergman weather, for most people. It's runoff time, almost sugaring time. If you can just make it to early March, you'll live thru another winter. If you can get to June without breaking anything, you'll be fine til the fall. I don't make these rules.


In my 51 Februaries, this is second only to the February of 1986 in brutality. That was so bad that my friend Evan and I stayed in our respective beds for the whole month. Sober, too.


Still, with all the thrills and chills, hard times, bad news...there was good in this month, too. Nobody ever told me good was easy. I don't expect it to be anymore. Sometimes you even need a wall to charge at to get you off your ass again. The impact, however, will rock you back for a while. With all my head injuries I should be used to it. I should also put some padding in that helmet.


It seems I've traded my opiate addiction for Led Zep. I just can't listen to anything else right now. A little ELP on the side. But nothing soothes me, somehow, like Zep. Go figure. To the best of my knowledge, we are all ending February alive this year. That's a good start to March.