Intriguing

If your commencement speaker is Kurt Vonnegut, you will get some weird input. As this item at Kottke notes, he let the class of '78 at Fredonia State College in on his theory that there are not four seasons but six.

In between the autumn of September and October Vonnegut places a season he calls "locking," made up of November and December. Even though all of November and the first two thirds of December are technically autumn, they don't really feel like September and October. Then we have winter in January and February, followed by "unlocking" in March and April. Those months have traditionally been considered part of spring, but their ability to spin up bitter cold and nasty storms means they don't feel very springy.

I think he was onto something; and of course seasons are kind of arbitrary anyway. Remember that below the equator they are the exact opposite of those above the equator. So the "dead of winter" may be January or February up here, but it's July or August when you go south. And the different regions of the world have different seasonal impacts anyway. In some parts, you have only wet and dry, and they don't necessarily match with any lineup of spring, summer, winter and fall.

However you label it, I hate cold, gray and damp. And while I readily acknowledge that leaves losing their chlorophyll and displaying other colors can be a vivid and amazing sight, the problem is that the colors are a lie. They do not represent bright life, they only disguise approaching death. At least winter is honest about it.