Sprung

If you know me at all, you know I don't want to do this. I am a malcontent and that amuses other people so I guess it makes me happy. I am judgmental and pessimistic and immediately derisive toward and suspicious of anyone I don't know. Which is why this might get a little weird. Yes, spring is here. And with it I'm afraid, may be a kinder, gentler Rageaholic.

I didn't sit down to write a clichéd "hope springs eternal" post, I swear. I wish I could rail against Easter with the same fervor I reserve for Christmas. In fact, it's downright hypocritical since every gripe I have against Christmas can be applied to Easter. They're both perversions of important religious holidays that are thinly veiled attempts to bribe children into behaving for once in their goddamn lives. One of the only differences between them is that one is in the middle of the winter and one is at the beginning of spring. It's a huge difference though.

Especially when you get to see people you really should see more. Like your siblings you're related to and the ones you've picked up along the way. On Sunday night, as the Yankees and the Red Sox did battle I was busy being a bad fan. Their efforts were ignored as I sat around a bonfire with the guys I grew up with. It was better that way. Instead of someone grounding into a double play and me griping that the Sox will blow it in the playoffs I was tapping the Rockies around a fire and talking shit with expert shit talkers.

As I sat too close to the fire I could literally feel the winter depression melting away, along with my eyebrows. (Yeah, I can't believe I just typed that sentence either; it's like I sprouted a vagina and started reading Nicholas Sparks). But I could feel my sanity returning as sobriety slipped away and we clinked our cans to the fifth brother who couldn't make it because of his new job (which happens to be as a right winger for the Ottawa Senators).

It was a rough year, a harsh winter, and even that very afternoon was pretty trying, but it didn't matter. There was country music coming from someone's car while a tractor loomed behind us and I had the attention of a pretty blond girl who thought I was interesting. I couldn't have complained if I tried. And the weird part is that I didn't. Who has time for unhappy thoughts when there is beer to drink and fire to stare at?

Being driven home by my buddy the next day I was rooting around in the glove box for something when I found something better.

"Hey, where did you get these sunglasses?" I asked.

"Somebody left them at the house after Al's graduation party," he answered.

"Yeah," I said, "That was me."

I slipped on the sunglasses and laid the back of my pounding skull onto the headrest. "Things are looking up," I thought. And after a short pause, "Fuck, spring is making me corny."

PS. If you ever meet my friend JR, ask him what him and my brother Mikey found in a parking lot in Long Island one time. Trust me.