February is always a weird month.  It’s only 2-3 days shorter than other months, but somehow it feels like it always flies by.  Maybe that’s because January and March are so different.  When the month began, my world was a snowy mess.  And now, it’s practically spring.  I’m already getting that fluttery, jittery feeling — that urge to go outside and run around even though it’s not really warm yet (the same urge that leads everyone in Minnesota to flaunt their pasty shoulders on the first above-freezing day).

This February was particularly weird because it pretty much defeated any hope of routine.  I spent a week indoors and another on vacation (more on this in a moment).  Of course, there were still opportunities for too much thinking and the usual silly stuff, but I sort of felt like I spent the whole month on the go.

So, as I look back on February in search of a moral (read the primer), it’s hard to identify a theme.

I never wrote my “What I learned in Cancun” post because, well, Cancun doesn’t lend itself to a whole lot of learning.  We had thought we would beat the rush by going the week before American spring break — but instead, we encountered Canadian spring break.  And although Cancun is technically in Mexico, let’s be honest: it’s Vegas with more sand and less class.  It’s a theme park for college kids.  Six Flags Jager.

There was a lot of weird:

• One night, we went to a club to see Lil’ Jon…perform?  Perform isn’t right.  Appear?  He doesn’t sing, he doesn’t rap, he doesn’t even DJ (some white kid with an iPod was playing the songs).  He…demands that people drink?  He sexually harasses women?  He…I really don’t know how he makes money.  Someone told me he’s a producer.  Maybe that makes sense.  But then paying to see him is like buying tickets to watch Peter Gammons watch a baseball game.  I’m rambling.
• You can’t get good Mexican food in Cancun.  I didn’t have even passable ceviche the whole time I was there.  In fact, it was a culinary disaster (Pat O’Brien’s, I’m looking at you) until we found the little taco stand up the other end of the highway.  Ate a lot of tacos.
• We went snorkeling one day, which, if I’d been in a snarky mood and in reach of my computer, would have produced a post with the sentence: “Today I learned that Americans are terrified of fish and unaware that they live in the ocean.”  Seriously, a whole crew of people “eeeeek”-ing out because a school of grouper swam past their legs.
• The hotel had a guy named Javier who was supposed to be the sort of concierge.  He had a desk, and on it were all these pamphlets for things you could go and do.  Unfortunately, also on the desk was a sign that, in the morning, said “JAVIER WILL BE BACK AT 4:30,” and, in the evening, said “JAVIER WILL BE BACK TOMORROW AT 9:30.”  I saw him once, in the bathroom, carefully fluffing his simply amazing perm.  It was like seeing bigfoot.

I could go on.  And it would sound like Alvy Singer’s Vacation Diary.  You would think I had a shitty time in Cancun.

But I didn’t!  I had a great time.  I drank Dos Equis, I ate tacos, I saw parrotfish, I let my heels dig in the sand and stared out at the ocean, I watched sunsets, I laughed at my friends’ sad attempts to get laid, I saw fucking LIL’ JON.  If I’d hated it, I would have done the old Andy thing I used to do when I’d try something I didn’t like — come home and angrily insist I would never do something like that again.

Instead, the whole thing made me want to go on vacation again as soon as possible — although, maybe somewhere a little less Americanized.

My favorite post this month was this one.  The exuberance reflected therein was the result of being in a new place with people I liked.  And when I got home from Baltimore, I realized what the lesson was, and it’s going to be February’s moral.  In January, I learned not to be afraid of happiness.  In February, I learned a bit about how to make it happen.  February’s moral:

Exploration makes me happy.

Obviously, if “exploration” only meant “vacation,” I’d be sort of screwed.  But isn’t the whole point of this Internet project that exploration is easy?  It’s all around us!  I get the same kick out of Marlo’s rim shop as I do out of a tropical “paradise.”  In fact, I get some version of that endorphin hit out of nailing a new Korean taco recipe or seeing a new bird.

I can’t believe this stupid blog is working so well.

-andy