We've been wearing snow boots a lot lately; the city got almost a foot of snow last week. Winter goes on. A lot of people feel that February is the nadir, the very depths of the annual bottoming-out of life (have you heard Dar Williams' February?), but I love this month. Even though it's just a few days shorter than most months, it goes by fast. I'm so relieved in the first week just to be done with January (now there's a long, dark month), and then there's Valentine's Day to look forward to and cards to make. I usually spend at least a week of the month sick, so that changes things up, and then before you know it (as I realized once again yesterday), it's practically over. Honestly, I just got around to changing my calendar over.
Also, the sun is setting so much later these days. It's still light when I leave the office. In a week it'll be March, and then Easter, St. Patrick's, Daylight Savings, and spring.
The approaching end of the month means I need to live up to my resolution to read a book every month. I'm more than halfway through The Omnivore's Dilemma, and am hoping to make some headway this weekend. I heard somewhere that Terry Gross reads a book every day, which makes my goal seem sort of pathetic, but without this deadline, I'd be in danger of never finishing a book at all. I don't know how many (non-school) books I read in 2007, but it was definitely less than 12. Omnivore's Dilemma is engaging, depressing, enlightening. I'm not sure what to follow it with. Maybe fiction? Something a little less facty. I'm also reading Marjane Satrapi's Chicken with Plums, trying to finish before I go to Maryland in March to see my friend Sarah. We always trade graphic novels when we visit each other.
Sarah, I hope you'll like it.
