Reasons to get excited - the weather

I realized quickly after moving to Montana people here talked about the weather a lot. It was sort of strange, funny, and a little lame. History is not exactly replete with titans of their time known for their passion of cumulus clouds and chinook winds. Like air and fingerprints, weather just is.

Aside from farmers, whose livelihood depends on the weather, I thought anyone else who loves to ramble on about the weather does so because their lives are so eventless, so uninteresting, that they entertain their sad selves by staring out windows and pondering the differences between rain clouds and snow clouds, emphasizing the distinct characteristics of whichever happened to be lingering about that day.

People who have even a smidge of any excitement in their lives, I introspectively expounded, had better things to do. Exciting people take part in tantalizing events like scrolling through our Facebook feed and “liking” our friends’ sandwich and cat pictures. We ignore friends and family to play Candy Crush. And, for some, going to bars and drinking dangerous levels of alcohol that completely obliterates an already feeble ability to enunciate and simultaneously ensure a mentally and emotionally delayed state of mind is what excitement is all about.

But that was before last week.

I was reading a story to my girlfriend. I’ve been working on it and hope to submit it to a major Montana magazine. I read it aloud to her because she says my voice is sweet and soothing like Belgian butterscotch. After I finished reading, she turned to me and said, “You realize it’s a story about the weather.”

The story is about trials and tribulations, struggles and victories, longing and acclimation, and making dreams into reality, I insisted.

But she’s right — as she tends to be most of the time. My story is one long weather story. Every scenario, every emotion, every expression — everything in my story is set against the backdrop of a very specific weather pattern. Words like “windy” and “can’t-feel-my-nose cold” and “scintillating spring lilac” and “the howling of coyotes reverberating through cool Montana air” are peppered in every paragraph.

It’s official — I’m the guy who talks about the weather. In fact, this isn’t even my first weather column. I wrote a winter column not too long ago.

And now I’ve had to do what any reasonable and semi-arrogant person does when he becomes something he once thought totally lame: I now have to justify why it’s OK to talk weather.

In Montana, talking about the weather is hip because it’s cooler to be alive than dead. Unless you’re Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison. Those two people are very cool — and very dead.

The weather here is bipolar and unforgiving, and ignorance can kill you. It could be mid-July, but heaven forgive you if you leave home without water, a blanket and a bag of peanuts.

Last summer, a friend and I got caught in a hailstorm just feet before reaching the top of Mount Baldy. I was soaked to the bone, and I had to keep moving before hypothermia kicked in and I would die.

After butt-sliding down miles of scree, we finally got down and eventually found the truck. Getting lost for hours on our way down turned out to be a blessing because we learned the road we’d driven up was now flooded and more full of brown, mushy stuff than a politician promising free stuff.

A simple weather check would’ve prevented those close calls.

This week we have a cheery reason to talk about the weather. Spring is here.

Havreites have already begun coming out of hibernation. Some have been pedaling their bicycles through town, some being dragged by their dogs down our beautiful cracked sidewalks, and others have begun trimming around the yard.

Spring means I can run outside again, or run at all. I stopped running this winter because I will starve myself before I pay to run in a dimly lit, musty room. It’s funny the things we pay for.

Whoever came up with the idea to charge people money to lift heavy objects and run in place is brilliant.

Lately, I’ve been staring outside my window, trying to figure out how much longer before the trees bloom.

I’m that guy.