That I hate February so much is one of the reasons I love Shane Jones’s Light Boxes. To mark the first of this horrid month, here are two questions I posed to Shane.

CL: Does February feel like it lasts a few years to you, the way it does in Light Boxes?

Shane Jones: It feels long, like another month hiding inside February, but not a few years. It mostly feels like I’m wearing a blanket of sludge-ice and still trying to go to work and smile at everyone in my sludge-ice blanket.

CL: Given the chance, would you actually remove February from existence?

SJ: Probably not because as much as I’ve talked and written about February, I kind of like it. It’s comparable to Oscar the Grouch. You hate Oscar because he’s a scummer, but you also like him because he’s just exactly who he is, Oscar the fucking Grouch. Every once in a while I have a vision of spending all of February in a place like Los Angeles. That would be a different experience from New York.