Spring Rocks and Julie is Fat

Every year for the past three or four (I really struggle to remember anything clearly from before I reached drinking age and I'm sure that somewhere in there there's a pro-alcohol argument waiting to be fleshed out) it seems that the first half of the year contains the vast majority of shitty happenings and a whole bunch of fretted damage control, while the second half – from about midwinter onwards – just fucking rocks. Down here in the southern hemisphere we've got spring and summer to kick us into the Christmas and New Year season and while the sky rises in the sky, so too do spirits seem to soar, but the utter brilliance of the tail ends of the last few years has led me to believe that something else – some more hidden, more other force – is at play here.

I have yet to directly ask any of my Northern-Hemisphere facebook-friends about their feelings on the second half of the year, so I don't know whether this vibe that I keep getting around August every year is universal, or if it is confined only to the bottom half of our globe, but I'm sure it's not just an Australia thing because I was in Bolivia last October to February, and those fuckers were joyous. And I'm not just describing a lift in spirits here either... I mean sure, once the first few real days of spring come through – those days when the sky is clear and shirts are optional – people start to get optimistic. I could bury myself in a pile of useless copper if I had a penny for every time a tenuous September conversation fell on the crutch of “I can't wait for summer”, but the change in attitude is only part of why I love August to February, there is another, more mysterious piece to this puzzle.

I reckon about seventy-percent of my sexual encounters have happened in the happy months of Spring and Summer – and I'm not talking about that tired 'okay, if you really want to' shit either, we're talking mad, rowdy, crack-the-bedpost-and-set-off-the-fire-alarm fucking. Springtime fucking – way more common in the spring. Add to that the fact that almost every relationship I've ever had have started between August and February, and they all tend to end around March. Huge moves have been made in my life in this part of the year – my trip to Bolivia, my first pair of good shoes, the time I lost my virginity, finishing school, starting stand-up comedy. While the other half of the year – springtime's ugly, overweight half-sister; let's call her Julie – has played host to job firings, two arrests, almost every one of my breakups, squatting in a crack-den in Clearview; Adelaide, depressed friends, and countless instances of arson and petty vandalism which only went unpunished by the sheerest of sheer luckiness. Julie, Julie, Julie... but why, people? Why does it always seem to be like this?

As I put to you before, I don't buy into the simple explanation that the sun shines brighter on the face of man, making him happy and cheerful and glad... not a fucking chance. Many of the brilliant things that have happened to me in the springtime have been completely separate from any human interference, and a whole slew of the bad shit that goes down on Julie's watch is down to my own stupid choices... what, is some behavioural scientist going to come up here and try to tell me that clouds make people angry? Rain drives youths to cover cars in petrol and turn them into towering infernos in the deep of the night? Piteous posturing! Why bother with nonsense hypotheticals, when a simpler, rational explanation sits right in front of our noses?

Birds.

Birds are great, and birds are plentiful in spring. As my housemate just said then when I asked him what he liked about birds, “they look so majestic when they fly.”... Uuuh... fuck, yeah ok guys, look, I'll come clean with you, I really can't think of anything else to write here. I was going to go on a bit of a tirade here about how birds have magical powers, or something, and how it is clear that while the springtime possesses it's own inherent charm that makes people happy and renews vitality in our hearts and souls, the birds are what really make this time of year special. I was going to be clever, verbose, and very very satirical. Ironic. Facetious. It would have been funny... but I can't, I can't think of anything, this piece just fell flat on its face. You are now witnessing, live and uncut, what happens when I try to write something special and it gets knotted up in its own specialness... speciality? Specially.. spe... fuck this, it's sunny and I'm going to play outside.

Frustrated, yes. Beaten, not yet.
I still love the springtime.

Peace, Taco.