In the Contest for Best Season...

For the first winter since 2005 I am not working outdoors. This has to be the main contributing factor to my sudden affection for the season. The only amount of time I spend in the cold are the seconds to minutes between my car and my destination. (If it's minutes, it's never even two) If it is even 2 minutes, it is 2 minutes in anticipation of some warm drink I will be consuming very shortly, with a book and/or friends, and potentially intellectual conversation, or fun meaningless banter about coffee, beards, or sports. On my way to this presumably coffee laden location, I am wearing my new coat, new scarf, new sweater, and sweet hat.(I have never sounded more metrosexual).
Fall used to be the most appealing season to me, and probably will remain that way after the winter in Northeastern Pennsylvania finally ends somewhere in early May, and begins again the second week of October. And you will probably be hearing a different tune on this blog come post-march madness.
I have always declared Fall to be the best season. I love the mild conditions, the partly sunny days, and the re-busting out of the sweaters and hoodies. I love the colors, the smell of the air, the restart of academia on the college campuses, and gettin' ready for some football. But in NEPA it lasts for a week and a half.
Spring is fun, but its manic, and again short lived here in NEPA. There's the one day, where everything is suddenly alive again. It's like a religious revival. Exciting, but eventually disappointing, deflating, and grossly inauthentic. Spring exists to prepare us for summer, and make us forget that there's this drudgery called work that we all have to do, and we must always remember this if we wish to avoid letdown. Spring is the ultimate tease.
I'm a fan of books and sports. Both of which get kicked to the curb in the summer. I like baseball, but it is the only thing between quad-annual World Cups, and always crappy quad-annual Summer Olympics. And baseball just never ever ever ends. Maybe it was a good idea to play over a hundred games when it was America's pastime. America's sport is now Football and they play at most 20 Games, and when's it over people can't wait for September. By the time Baseball is done with their near 200 games, people are saying, "Oh, ___. If opening day comes before July, I'm going to purposely choke on a cracker jack." Books are not in vogue in the summer. People go hiking and climbing, and on horrible family vacations. (If someone has fond memories of family vacations, please let me know) There's this feeling pervading the summer atmosphere that says, "to relax indoors is stupid". Why? Because outside is an oven? I am not a fan of oppressive heat cured only by "thirst quenching" lemonade, or going to the pool. I am not a fan of swimming.
Now, when you were a kid, summer was awesome. Now as an adult, unless you're a teacher, you gotta go work in the hot summer sun, and it's oppressive no matter where you are in the populated places of North America.
And there you have my rundown of the seasons. Let me just point out some other things about winter, as it pertains to reading and viewing sports. Winter has the NFL playoffs, the Superbowl, the BCS Bowl Games, and March Madness. Are you kidding? Sports fans spend the months of January, February, and March in pure open mouthed ecstasy. Reading is off the chain in winter because it's too cold outside. After further review, in the contest for best season, it's a push between Fall and Winter. Considering that winter has hazardous roads, snow shoveling, and car scraping, and is really long, if winter was shorter and didn't include Valentine's Day, it would win, but barely. Official decision: Push.