Spring blooms

I've diagnosed myself with SAD. I am so tired of being cold. I hole up with a blanket as soon as the sun goes down. It's like I've organized a one-woman sit-in against Mother Nature.

"Look here, Weather, you get warm or I'm not going anywhere."

Luckily, the days have expanded and April promises to pull me out of my winter blues. The weekends are choc full-o-stuff and university concerts and performances dot the weekdays.

This weekend, as you can see in good bets, the Storytelling Festival, First Friday Art Walks and concerts will pack the streets downtown.

Tonight the musical comedy "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" gives a one-night performance in Bedell Performance Hall and the Southeast Missouri State University production of "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches" continues through Sunday in the Rust Flexible Theater.

High schools are putting on their spring performances and band and dance concerts have been scheduled through April.

On April 17 the Arena Building will host a multiband show that includes local acts and formerly-from-here band Tone Def All-Stars, and "concessions" from Breakaways for the legal drinking concertgoers.

The Show-Me Center will host Ludo and Jackson's young act Small Town Boyz that same night, and the Annual Comic Con is set for April 25 and 26.

Juried art shows have filled the galleries and more will come in May, then it's festival days and Bel Air nights.