Is March depressing, or is it just me?

Manchester Union Leader ^ | March 21, 2004 | Bernadette Malone

[billorites]

BRING ON that last sleeve of Thin Mints. March is simply too depressing to bear without that annual delivery of Girl Scout cookies, which always comes just when Lent starts and you’ve resolved to give up sweets. And thus begins the cycle of depression that sucks women in.

I ordered four boxes of Girl Scout cookies, and ate four boxes in the same week. It was the very same week the Department of Health and Human Services announced that one third of Americans are overweight, and another third are obese. I watched this report on the news while I sat on the couch eating my four boxes of Girl Scout cookies. It was such depressing news because Weight Watchers tells me that I, too, am overweight for my height. So much for my “I’m just tall/big boned/the descendant of Irish potato farmers” excuse.

It was so depressing I almost got off the couch and took a walk around the block to earn an “activity point,” (which probably would have burned off one thin mint), but I looked outside the window: a mid-March wintry mix was hailing down. Snow, rain, sleet. It was too gross to go outside and exercise, so I put it off and ate more cookies.

This was a bad idea because the worst thing about March is not the mid-month wintry mix that makes fun of you for wishing spring were right around the corner, but that spring actually is right around the corner. There’s no more time to shed those cookies you ate all winter. Soon it will be time for shorts - don’t even speak of bathing suits, please - and everyone will see the Girl Scout cookies’ new home in its full glory.

I suppose I could have eaten just one or two, like Weight Watchers says, but it’s hard to re-close an opened sleeve of thin mints. They slide out so easily. And because the plastic tray they come in is so flimsy and there are so few of them per carton, I ate a whole box of “Samoans,” too. I told a girlfriend this and she said, “You didn’t eat a whole box of Samoans. You ate a whole box of Samoas.”

Thank God for that, because actual Samoans are more fattening. They are the most obese people in the world, with something like 70 percent of urban men suffering from the problem. They’re much worse than Americans. Always look on the bright side of life, Monty Python says.

If I insist on eating cookies, I suppose it would be healthier to actually bake them myself, because I’d get some exercise while I was mixing the batter (maybe do some upper arm toning?). And I could use healthy low-fat substitutes such as apple sauce instead of shortening. But what normal girl can bring herself to bake when Martha Stewart may be on her way to jail? It’s so depressing. We’re going to miss her so much.

My girlfriends and I hashed this out over a dinner of high-calorie risotto and yet more cookies: We didn’t like Martha before she was convicted because she made us feel inferior. But in a typically female turn-about, we’ve stopped being jealous once the male-dominated law and media jumped her, and now we’re on her side.

The final straw in the news this month: The New York Times reported that scientists have found a genetic basis for why women are twice as likely as men to have bouts of depression. While there’s not exactly one “depression gene” that haunts women more than men, a combination of genes, and reproductive hormones, gives us the blues more often.

Also, the article says, women have a tendency to overthink things more than men, which makes them depressed. So wait: Do I have the blahs because I ate four boxes of Girl Scout cookies, it’s still snowing, and Martha’s going to jail? Or do those things only get to me so much because of my genes and hormones? Break out the last sleeve of Thin Mints while I ponder this on the couch, dazed, in a cookie-stupor.

Bernadette Malone is the former editorial page editor for The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.

[Alas Babylon!]

Yesterday it was 85 degrees and perfectly sunny here. Some overnight T-storms and now it is a cooler 64 degrees and breezy, but still sunny. I mowed the lawn, worked in the garden, gave the kids a ride on the tractor, and just sat outside listening to all the birds singing and soaked up the warm sunshine. But that's just March in Alabama. Not depressing at all!

[SamAdams76]

This is my first year without Girl Scout cookies. My favorite used to be those cookies with the coconut and chocolate. I'd eat a box of those at one sitting easy.

[Mamzelle]

Try some Murray sugar-free chocolate covered wafers...4 little ones a 9 impacting carbs.

[JimVT]

Yesterday I had a family of robins in my front yard.

I also started pansies, ageratum and impatiens under my grow-lights.

I am ready!

[xJones]

The thing is, you have to buy those Girl Scout cookies when you have friends with Girl Scout daughters. Those innocent little eyes shining up at you, trusting that you won't be a cheapskate mean person and not buy any. :)

And once you buy them, what else can you do except pour glasses of milk and open the boxes?

[RunningJoke]

"The final straw in the news this month: The New York Times reported that scientists have found a genetic basis for why women are twice as likely as men to have bouts of depression."

Does the New York Times have any credibility left? Tomorrow they'll have to print a retraction.

It is amazing even on a conservative web site: you'll find crap about excuses for bad decisions instead of the real reasons of poor discipline and bad behavior.

Put the cookie down and walk away from the pantry.

[GraniteStateConservative]

I thought this was going to be a story about a busted office pool bracket. Damn Gonzaga and their media hype.

[irish guard]

New Hampshire is the answer. I understand the problem, living here in Wisconsin. Yesterday it was 53 and a cold front came through and the temp dropped to 24 overnight with blustery winds. We northerners finally get a sniff of real warmth in mid to late April, when we can still find ourselves with snow accumulating up to five inches.

We try to convince ourselves we like the changes of season....BS

We try to convince ourselves that the summers are much nicer...BS..ever been to San Diego?

We try to convince ourselves that we like less humidity....BS, still gets darn humid in Wisconsin in the summer.

OK, I'll admit it...we are just plain stupid for living this far north. Winter takes too long to go away. Right now, parts of northern Wisconsin are sitting with more than a foot of snow on the ground. No wonder March is depressing.

[nmh]

I love March because Spring is here! It comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. My bulbs are starting to come up and it's getting warmer outside. Even if it were still winter, I'd enjoy the snow and beauty that brings. I love all the seasons!

[OldBlondBabe]

"We try to convince ourselves we like the changes of season...."

Yes, but I get tired of experiencing the change of seasons all in the same month. Here, in Southern Michigan, it was beautiful and sunny yesterday, in the 50s. Right now, it's 27 degrees....50, forecasted for Wednesday.

[TalBlack]

greed.

As I read this (one of the things) i wondered was: If I am swigging a Bud and leafing thru a copy of "Barely Legal" am I doing something "guys do" or am I some pig swigging a Bud and leafing thru a copy of Barely Legal?

And don't any body answer "Both"!

[TalBlack]

greed=Agreed

[MinuteGal]

Winter blues? Cabin fever blues? Snow and cold blues?
Lose 'em on the freeper cruise
Sign up now, y'all
For a getaway tropical ball.

Bahama Mama

[Agnes Heep]

When winter’s snow descends upon the land,
And pall of sullen drab all light beshrouds,
Behold this wretched face; this feeble hand;
These eyes, resounding gloom of passing clouds.
Had I but faith enow (but I have not),
Vast mountain peaks to cast into the sea,
To touch Death’s icy flesh and make it hot,
Forever more to know my grave were free,
Then would I slay this melancholy blight,
Which binds my soul in ribands cast of blue,
And morning wrest from sempiternal night,
As from the crypt I stumbled, born anew.

But faith will not suffice to raise my head.
Futility! I would that I were dead.

[RunningJoke]

"Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting."

[Jhensy]

It comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.

Here in the northeast, I believe the lion has eaten the lamb this year.

[edwin hubble]

Agnes,

"When winter’s snow descends upon the land,..."

Is this one of yours?... .Truly Awesome!

I was about to post: It's April, not March...

from Eliot:

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. "

[Lijahsbubbe]

I feel your pain. I'm in Minnesota.

[Ditter]

March is the highth of spring on the Gulf Coast. My azaleas are in full rampant bloom (so are my allergies). I am putting out Impatients in my shady garden. The trees are leafed out & the grass is greening up. July & August will be depressing for me. Thank God for Spring AND A/C.