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.

Fall in New England

(written by my friend Heather on her Live Journal - simple, but I liked it, and felt it.)

Aw early fall. The last remnants of the summer's raspberries, the last few roof and stoop nights, the approaching dusk. Breaking out the hoodies and leggings, cider and pumpkin pie, foliage and apple picking. Tomato season, kale season, squash season.

This time of year, more than any other, always feels like a new beginning. This year is no different.

It is very possible that September is my favorite month.

Tags: fall, food, september

Current Music: okay, I am listening to Jewel. what.

Chill

Today felt cold! Actually cold! Well... okay, I'll qualify that. I was fine outside walking through Boston (another interview) in a dress, leggings, tall leather boots, and a jacket. But now, inside, changed and in socks, my toes are holding a bit of a chill. It's supposed to hang around 60 tomorrow, too.

Yesterday and the day before, it was Indian Summer, in the 70s, with golden sun filtering through mostly green leaves. On Monday morning, I went to a job interview, then strolled down to the Public Garden. Knowing I might be leaving for New York (for a job) has made me appreciate Boston's beauty - the openness, the gardens that shamelessly ape those of London, with formal circles of roses and small, fanning palms. I sat watching old men, mothers, babies, students, and dogs - especially one squirrel-obsessed mutt named ralph. I felt like a grownup impostor in my brand-new suit, but the sun was warm and the breeze was nice.

Yesterday was even better. I took a book and my water bottle and went to the duck pond in Wellesley. It's different now from when I was a child - fewer fences, and the paths have been allowed to grow in some, narrower and wild. Part of the effort for the natural includes a ban on feeding. Although the adult, rational environmentalist in me is glad for the ducks and geese, I viscerally miss bringing stale heels to lure the quackers. It seems like there are fewer of them, now, though it might just be that they don't come out to the human areas as much.  I walked around to the back, and sat on the stone overlook, watching the ducks and the sun in the trees. Meditating, but with worse posture. Afterwards, I climbed my favorite tree, nestled in the lower limbs, and read a few pages. A small child (too small for the tree) wanted to come up and climb, but her father said, "There's already somebody in that tree; let's go find some duckies." What a good afternoon. Jeans and a sweater and sneakers and bark. The way life's meant to be.

Fall! Mmmm.... crispy

It's September! My favorite time of the year. An ode to crispness: apple-picking (though this year I'll be smart and not saddle my boyfriend with it - he is, after all, allergic to apples), stiff breezes, and orange leaves. Even though I'm not in school anymore, I still think of it as the real start of the year, the time for a new lease on life. Probably that's part having teachers for parents, part my secret inner Jew. Today is a beautiful day - in the sixties, fluffy white clouds, sweater and jeans weather. I just got back from an extended lunch outdoors, and have an urge to put on one more layer and go on a tramp through some conservation ground. I don't see Labor Day as the last gasp of summer - it's the beginning of short, precious, golden autumn.

Funny, even though my life has very little definition now, except for that of emailed resumes (and an interview next week!), the change in the weather still makes me new.

Also, I finally figured out my novel.