Put a spring in your step

Finally, that blessed day has arrived! Almost everyone in the northern hemisphere has been looking forward to this day for the past several months. No, I'm not talking about the release of the Paul Rudd-Jason Segal bromantic comedy, I Love You, Man. Today is the first day of spring! Oh, spring. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Baseball. The clockwork Sunday games of the NFL are nice, but one day a week is all you get. Basketball and hockey operate on sporadic, unpredictable schedules. As for soccer -- look, I love soccer, but you have a better chance of stumbling across Whitey Bulger than a televised soccer match. During baseball season, though, there's always a game on. Turn on the TV at 4 o'clock in the morning and you'll probably catch the last few frames of an extra-innings affair. Life's better during baseball season. It just is. Science. We think about spring in romantic, Wordsworthian terms: the gentle breezes, the blooming buds, the rain showers. But the hard science of spring is pretty neat, too. During the vernal equinox -- that's today! -- every place on earth will have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. From each day forth, those of us up top are headed for summer, while our neighbors down below (and down under) verge on winter. They say that at the very moment of equinox, you can balance an egg on a tabletop. I have a hard time believing this. Easter. Not even Christmas has such a hilarious division between its sacred religious aspects and its lunatic secular qualities. For Christians, Easter is the holiest day of the year -- the day Christ was risen. And yet the holiday is most commonly celebrated by invoking images of a magical bunny rabbit bearing gifts of chocolate and jelly beans, and sending kids off to search for hidden eggs. It's like we're not even trying anymore. I love Easter. The Boston Marathon. This may not mean much to many of you. But for me, the running of the Boston Marathon brings back delightful childhood memories of my mother dragging me to a portion of the race course that ran near our house, and standing outside for two hours watching thousands of sweaty, faceless people trot past with the grim determination of Soviets in a bread line. Wait, that's not what I meant to say at all. The Marathon, and the accompanying holiday we call Patriot's Day, is one of the best things about living in Massachusetts. It's like a dress rehearsal for Memorial Day, and the weather is always nice. Plus, you haven't lived until you've attended a cookout on Beacon Street and hollered encouragement to the best-conditioned athletes in the world, while you're holding a hot dog in one hand and a Pabst Blue Ribbon the other. What do you love about spring?