For some reason, February typically marks the time in the year when I start to become socially conscious.  Last year, I was beginning to think, talk, and research local eating and sustainability.  By July I had kind of given up on all that.  Not because I didn’t believe it, more because I wasn’t in a very good place and when it is a struggle to see the purpose and meaning in my life, the pathetic attempts I was making to live a more eco-friendly life just depressed me even more.

This February, I’m back thinking about sustainability.  In my mind, I’ve been planting my container garden in the new house and virtually recycling! Hell, I put pots on my wedding registry.  I’m getting out my Barbara Kinsgolver and sharpening my desire to live simply.  (Simply with a laptop, of course).

I’ve been thinking about my writing.  About how badly I want to tell a story that means something–and how I continuously fail at that beyond the romance novel medium.  For the first time in my writing life, I am thinking I want to attempt literary fiction.

I’ve also been cooking up a project for my students getting them to think about apathy.  I’m a pretty apathetic person, but there are certain issues I care deeply about.  There has always been something, ANYTHING that I believed in, felt some passion towards.  Sometimes, honestly, I think my students are blank slates of all sorts of empty.  It may not be true, but I need them to reassure me that there is something there beyond the laissez faire attitudes and utter lack of motivation.

And then there’s my educational research class and my attempt to write a paper on the need for grammar basics to be retaught at the 12th grade level.  I have delusions of grandeur thinking I can make this more than just an assignment.  Thinking I can truly create something revolutionary.

In other words, February is a time for all kinds of crazy.