“Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most”
Do you know how people react when you tell them that you hate the great outdoors?
I'm all alone, the party is over
Old man Winter was a gracious host
But when you keep praying for snow to hide the clover
Spring can really hang you up the most
— Song by Fran Landesman / Tommy Wolf, “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most”
Back in 1955, when I was barely a concept, somebody wrote the song above, but whoever wrote it didn’t mean what I mean when I say that I really hate spring.
What Fran Landesman meant, in describing that time of year, when lambs frolic in the fields (never suspecting their fate as lamb chops), when love overtakes people (who never suspect that this sweet interlude could end in a ditch)…is a good time, a great time, a time for robins and renewal.
That’s part of what I don’t like about spring. Although its muddy, worm-strewn vistas evoke for others the promise of flowers gardens and new swimsuits (I don’t like those, either), it’s the emotional imperatives of spring that really…well, hang me up the most.
Spring demands that you rush outside, freeing your face and limbs from their winter caul, and worship the sunlight.
I hate that.
As an indoor cat, I might appreciate the charms of a beautiful day (in short doses, preferably through a window) but hearing endlessly about people who can’t wait to get out and go camping (please…don’t get me started on camping…) or hiking or swimming in bodies of water where you can’t see the slimy creatures on the bottom…none of these things has any appeal for me.
Do you know how people react when you tell them that you hate the great outdoors? Especially in this, its season of rebirth? They react as if you said their kids were ugly. Normal people love nature in every expression. I only like storms. I even like to be out in storms. This is a character flaw but it’s too late to change. I live at the seaside, but I can’t stand the ocean or the sand. Give me a partly cloudy day and a perfectly sterile pool. Let me sleep in a five-star hotel…or in my own bed.
April really is, as the poet said, the cruelest month…but March is a contender too.
HOT READING TIP
THE IDIOT by Elif Bautman
Write to me about this novel if you read it. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and it is filled with many perceptive descriptions and sensitive insights. But I didn’t like almost all of it – I appreciated it, but I didn’t like it – in part because I couldn’t break the code of all the characters’ obsessions with foreign languages and how to say things such as “train” or “bread” in Russian or Hungarian or Turkish. (I mean, I do know what the leaden symbolism of “speaking in a foreign language” connotes but…) It is the story of a kind-of appealing college girl in love with a thoroughly unappealing older boy, who is not in love with her, but whose every breath and dream is devoted to him. I guess it’s a good book to read in SPRING, the season of unrequited love.
HOT WRITING TIP
Try to write about something other than unrequited love – or if you have to, put in some great botany or a major art heist.
HOT RECIPE TIP
Perfect Hardboiled Eggs
If you already know this, just skip it - but it was not until recently that I learned how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg. (Like a character in a book that I’m writing now, I have an uneasy relationship with eggs, mostly because I know that they are one cell, and also because they sort of look creepy and slimy). That being said, and yes, I didn’t need to say it - here’s how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs, from someone who used to simply boil them until they are the equivalent of a rubber ball and then rip them apart trying to get the shells off.
The eggs-act formula:
Place some eggs in a large saucepan, with a few inches of water and a dash of salt (no one else recommends this, but I believe a dash of salt is good for everything, and not just with cooking, but also fashion and politics).
Bring to a boil and allow to boil for one minute.
Turn off the heat and allow the eggs to sit for 9 to 12 minutes (depending on your preferred level of hardness).
Make a bowl with water and ice cubes. Plunge the eggs into the ice bath, which makes them really easy to peel!
Don’t forget - my latest novel, A Very Inconvenient Scandal is available everywhere good books are sold. Looking to interrupt your start to Spring with some quality family drama that isn’t yours? Get your own copy today!
FINALLY, if you’d ever like to write to me (something I always welcome, unlike Spring itself) you can do so here.
Oh, my friend, I do agree. Here in Wisconsin, I think some sort of craziness takes over a lot of people. Around here, as the thaw is barely beginning, they're running around in shorts and flip-flops. It was in the thirties most of this month, but on the few days when the sun came out, they were driving around in convertibles and kite surfing in Lake Michigan.
I do love the smell of spring, but it doesn't make me want to skip, tra-la-lalling through the park. And honestly, I will probably spend the majority of my time from now on locked inside my house, due to the dire warnings of a TRILLION-strong cicada invasion.
I definitely prefer inside to outside, throughout the seasons, and I am fine with that.