Today is one of my favourite days of the year. Today is hope. Today is promise. Today is sunshine breaking over a rain-slicked highway. Today is the Friday morning of a hell-week but there’s only eight hours to go until the weekend and you don’t have any chores to do this weekend and you are gonna sit on your ass in your pyjamas and watch Battlestar Galactica while eating peanut butter straight out of the jar.

Today is March 1st. The month that Spring happens.

Yes. We do have a snowstorm coming tomorrow. Fuck it.

I’M DOING THE SPRING DANCE!

[Exuberantly-performed Spring Dance. The dance concludes with three somersaults.]

Yeah! That’s the Spring Dance! What’s that? Again?! Heck yeah!

[Even-more-exuberantly-performed Spring Dance. The dance concludes with three backwards somersaults and the splits.]

And now the pandas!

Oh YEEEEEEEAH! C’MON! EVERYBODY NOW!

[Internationally-performed Spring Dance at varying levels of exuberance. The dance concludes with the Netherlands doing three backwards somersaults, Qatar doing the splits, and Finland throwing in some jazz hands while holding sparklers. Nice addition, Finland!]

Awesome.

Holy crap. That was a week. Three news items — BANG! BANG! BANG! — that set my geek heart a-flutter:

• FIRST! The Sci-Fi Channel announces that they will be creating a 6-hour miniseries (producers include George Freaking Clooney) of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. (If I haven’t mentioned it before. Neal Stephenson is my FAVOURITE author and if you haven’t you should read his Cryptonomicon right now. Go. We’ll be here when you get back.)
• SECOND! HBO has announced they are going to be making George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire into a motherfrakking TELEVISION SERIES! Gah! One of the best (not to mention bloody, brutal, and morally ambiguous) fantasy series out there, coming to us from the network that gave us The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome. My geek-o-meter is CLIMBING INTO THE RED HERE, PEOPLE.
• THIRD! G-FORCE! THE MOVIE!

I can’t take it any more. My geek organ… it is burst.

All this AND a new episode of Battlestar Galactica this weekend?

I will say it.

IT’S BETTER THAN COOKIES.

I HAVE TEN FINGERS!

onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleven-

[Pause]

Wait a minute.

[Furious recounting]

Sorry. I counted the granola bar I was eating.

Yup. Confirmed. Ten fingers.

…

Yes. This is what NaBloPoMo has come to.

We did say quantity. Not quality.

“Quality” in this case being a highly relative term.

…

This granola bar is really good.

Today is American Thanksgiving. Today is the day where all of our American friends will be busy cooking turkey, eating turkey, and digesting turkey. Today, they will be in the kitchens and livings rooms of America, dopey with tryptophan and pie. Today, they will be gathered in the welcoming arms of their families and loved ones, giving thanks and watching football.

This is our chance.

Today… WE GET TO PLAY WITH THEIR TOYS.

Seriously, they’ll never notice. All those toys they never give us a chance to play with, today… today they are ours for the taking!

Today is the day that you get to have at that Star Wars Death Star playset you’ve been dreaming of for years! Today is the day that you get to open all of those collectors’ edition Barbies — STILL IN MINT CONDITION IN THEIR UNOPENED PACKAGES — and have the mother of all dress-up parties! Today… WE GET ALL THE LEGO!

But it doesn’t end there! Oh no! Today is they day that we get to the front of the line on Space Mountain! Today we ALL get a ride on the Vomit Comet!

Today… we get to play Battleship… WITH REAL BATTLESHIPS!

So let’s get cracking, folks! The day won’t last forever.

And if anyone is looking for me, I’m starting off in D.C.

I’m getting Fonzie’s jacket out of the Smithsonian.

…

A NOTE TO ALL AMERICANS READING THIS:
Don’t worry. I’m kidding.

…

A NOTE TO ALL NON-AMERICANS READING THIS:
I’m not kidding. I’ll see you in half an hour. Bring cookies.

This morning, My Lovely Wife and I went out to breakfast. I got to eat eggs and bacon and ham and sausages and hashbrowns and white toast and coffee and juice. We read the newspaper. We joked that maybe we were like one of those couples that goes to restaurants and orders food and eats food and leave without ever talking to each other, but then we realised we had been making too many faces at each other for the past ten minutes for us to fit that stereotype. I then stole some of her hollandaise sauce and offended her mightily.

Then, we went for a drive. We drove around the city and I pointed out every house, flat, or apartment I had ever lived in with my parents. I showed her Park Vic, the flat on Chestnut, both places on Willow, Beech Street, Keating Road, Top of the Mountain, Spinnaker, and the house on Wenlock. On the drive, we drank coffee and ate Lindor chocolates. I told her what years we lived in each place and things I remembered from each place. I pointed out some of the schools I went to. Justin Timberlake sang “Sexy Back” on two separate radio stations and My Lovely Wife danced in her seat.

Then, we drove out along Purcell’s Cove Road. We stopped and looked at the waves breaking against the rocks. We looked at the ocean. I gave her a hug. She groaned at the complete and utter corniness of any public sign of affection in such an obviously romantic-looking locale. I politely ignored her groan. We got onto Herring Cove Road and headed back for the city. Pat Benatar came on the radio and My Lovely Wife shrieked.

Then, we got home and got on the couch. We watched some TV.

And then… I had a two-hour nap.

…

Some days… some days really don’t suck

And tonight… I might just make cookies.

[Exit while dancing small cookie baking dance.]