good god maude (this weather's acting odd)

It snowed! Twice! It's October! What?

It snowed so much on Sunday night that driving it looked like the road had been overlain by a space screensaver - tiny white dots flying at my windshield. Snow, rain, and wintry mix. Wet feet. Pretty gross. Not October, not at all. Mom claims she can't remember any October snow like this, tho the news contradicts her and says it's happened about 5 times since 1960. So I guess can't remember is still accurate. But it happened. Today is back to much more normal, as should the rest of the week be. it's in the 50s, sunny, and the leaves are drifting lazily down to earth. I can't inhale as much as I'd like to because I think I bruised or cracked a rib the other day.

In other news, I'm moving to the city. (Day) Job or no, I signed a lease. So I'll be forced to hit the temping hard and be creative. I have two roommates. I need one more. Hopefully they'll finish fixing the place up *soon* and the weather will stay nice to show it.

The frost is on the pumpkin...

It's in the 30s tonight, and it's supposed to be chilly days all week. We're really moving through October. Matt and I went to the Topsfield Fair and the ever-delightful Agawam Diner on Rte 1 & 133 in Rowley, MA on Columbus Day. The day was clear and glorious. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera. Animals and blue skies and the most picturesque New England Diner, where people come in with whitewash on their pants and the old men really do ask the waitresses to marry them every day, but the waitresses are engaged to the rookie town cops and the banana cream pie is just one of a myriad.

Pale September (retrospectively)

Soon, I'll also post pictures from my solo trip to Amherst to see farms, foliage, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

October at the Corner of Thayer and Waterman

I put the comforter on my bed the other night, and was cold outside with a jacket, hands in my jeans. It's October, and I'm not moving to New York quite yet, my attempts thwarted by reality and human resources. It's October and I'm in Providence, sitting in the Sci-Li, pretending to be back. It's October and there's nothing they can do about my fixed-term loan, it went through Ruth, through the Corporation, official and approved. October and there are leaves on the trees and I want to be decorating a cottage somewhere, with a pumpkin on the stoop, taking a dog on a walk through a blanket of crunching leaves. October, for red houses, brown sweaters, a wish to be back in time for a guilt-free cigarette and different life. Instead I'm at the Sci-Li, pretending it's 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006. Unfathomable Octobers past. Catastrophes and suffering and unimaginable love. Simplicity I never acknowledged.