This February has been particularly dreadful. Trump's newly realized Muslim Ban has started its islamophobic tirade, Mike Pence just cast the historic tie-break vote to confirm the unquestionably unqualified Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, and Jeff Session's racism now has a place as Attorney General. It's been less than a month and we are now seeing just how detrimental a Trump Presidency can be for this nation and for the world. While none of these things deserve to be a footnote, (let's be honest I could write more than a few fury filled pages on each of these subjects and still not come close to encapsulating just how much damage they could bring about), they are not the sole perpetrators of frustration this month.

February has, and always will be, the worst month. As a child, it confused me to no end as to why this month felt it was so special that it could deviate from the standard 30-31 day pattern. Not only did it have to obstinately be only 28 days long, it couldn't even stick to that. Every four years there just had to be another day thrown in there. The image in my head of the month of February is the muddy brown slush from two-month-old snow that is just beginning to thaw. There is no sun in February. It is all mud and mush and nothing growing, just the dead rot of winter finally showing its undercarriage. February is impossible to spell without the help of handy spell-check or autocorrect and as if all this were not bad enough February is also home to the second worst holiday, after Columbus Day: Valentine's Day.

Anyone who knows me could tell you I'm not exactly what you would call the romantic type. I think rom-coms are predictable, cliché, and overdone, and PDA makes me physically ill. I would be more prone to say Valentine's Day is a scam made up by the greeting card companies (which is also predictable, cliché, and overdone) than a legitimate holiday. I mean it's not as if people in romantic relationships need a morale boost on February 14th every year to maintain the energy to keep up the good fight, or that couples, especially the heterosexual couples Valentine's Day marketing aims at, need to heighten their visibility or lend legitimacy to their lifestyle. Every day of the year celebrates those romantically involved with someone else, and sure you may say February 14th is singles awareness day too, but being made aware of your own deficiency to the traditional definition of a successful and happy life, is not something I would be apt to call a celebration.

And to top it all off, after over two weeks, I think it's safe to assume we aren't all dreaming and Trump really is president, but if by some miracle this is all some sort of deranged nightmare, please, wake me up when it's March.