ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beth Macy
SOURCE: BETH MACY
My first serious beau dumped me in February.
I was once nine-months pregnant in February.
And just a few weeks ago, on an early February afternoon, I had my hair dyed a color that is not found in nature except on plums and eggplants.
None of these things would have happened in, say, July.
Ask anybody who's ever had a loveless Valentine's Day, and they'll concur with my thesis: February stinks.
Too far away from Christmas, not close enough to spring. Too late to commit to the weight-loss resolutions, too blustery to do anything but bake.
But lurking out there behind those cruel cold fronts, change is beckoning. Bulbs will sprout, bugs will reappear.
The problem is, we're too antsy in our scratchy wool socks to sit still. So we dye our hair the color of red wine. And we go on with the business of waiting for spring.
As Bill Nye wrote: ``Winter lingered so long in the lap of spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk.''
And, by R.H.W. Dillard: ``Stability and constancy waver and fade even in the circling solar system and the silent roaring sun, but today the sky is open and blue, and the sun swings across the blue ridge, sweeping out winter like a spring broom.''
Don't we wish.
Anybody who's braved the recent slick streets - to get to the mall, of all places - knows the slushy dregs of February. There we are, hundreds of us, rifling through rack upon rack of sleeveless dresses the color of Easter eggs, kidding ourselves that it isn't 7 degrees outside.
There we are at home, devouring the new spring catalogs - seriously considering bathing suits - while the Christmas Visa bill still gnaws at us like indigestion.
There I was, falling for this ad in the J. Peterman winter sale catalog: ``If you are not thin, not tall, but rather the sort of full-bodied person whom great painters such as Renoir or Rubens would search the capitals of Europe for, these reckless wide-legged pants are not for you.
``They might make you seem too noticeably lanky, too tallish, too feminine, too elegant; only millimeters away from thinness.
``In that case, a concerned press may begin to urge on you large goblets of cabernet, peeled French peaches, smoked Black Sea trout, moist Bavarian cakes filled with rich cremes.''
I was reading my Visa-card number to a telemarketer in Lexington, Ky., before I'd even looked at the price.
This is the kind of foolishness February inspires in me.
My friend Frances, a catalog devotee, spotted my reckless new pants first thing. ``J. Peterman,'' she snapped. ``I ordered them, too, but sent them back right away - too wide.'' However, she did concede that ``they make your butt look smaller.''
Pass the cabernet, please.
Frances, who is disgustingly cheerful about February, chided me for trying to rush winter away.
``I love it because spring's coming, but you still have a month to get ready,'' she said, as if that gave February some merit. ``You people who are so down on it are just looking for quick-fixes. Honey, you need to relaaaax.''
Another friend, a confirmed February critic, said most experts concur with the pessimistic viewpoint.
``My psychiatrist is going to halve my Prozac dose - but not till the weather gets warmer,'' she offered. ``He doesn't change people's medicines during February.''
And there's my own personal psychiatrist - Cookie Stover, my hairdresser - who explained the phenomenon this way: ``When it's bad weather like this, everybody comes in wanting to get rid of the drab and bring in the new.''
In the past month, she's cut enough one-length 'dos into shag hairstyles to match the entire casts of both ``90210'' and ``Friends.'' The number of plum dye jobs she's performed: one (gulp).
``People are sick of the weather, and they're sick of themselves,'' she said. ``They need a change.'' (As a public service, she asked me to mention that curly frizzy perms are definitely OUT.)
Likewise, Martin Travel's Barbara Phillips can tell the February-doldrums meter is on the rise just by the number of frantic inquiries she's receiving.
``We're getting tons of spur-of-the-moment calls,'' she said. ``People will call and say, `Get me to the Bahamas - tomorrow.'''
But for those of us whose budgets preclude such getaways, I have a plan: Let's acknowledge the annual awfulness of February and use it to our advantage.
Let's focus on all the dread-inspiring duties we have to do every year, and get them over with in a single month: Schedule your pelvic or prostate exam, do your taxes, clean out your closets, go to the dentist, scrub the mold out of your vegetable drawer, respond to aunt Marge's four-page Christmas letter, calculate your body-fat percentage...You get the idea.
Let's make February a month-long pity party and wallow hard. As a special bonus this year, a leap year, we even get an extra day!
I have just one question for March, when sanity returns: Does hair dye come in salt-and-pepper?
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Robert Lunsford. color.by CNB