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1�0�101010�0�1 2003-08-20, 8:12 a.m.

falling in love with fall


I'm better today. The depression thing was a little self-indulgent. It's left over from my younger years — every once in awhile, I like to settle into to this satisfying funk and stay there for a few days at a time. Nothing much wrong with it anymore, since I no longer harbor true thoughts of self-worthlessness. I just get moody and sigh a lot now.

On my drive home from BART last evening, I felt for the first time that we're truly entering autumn. Back in the Midwest, it would still be in the 90s right about now. The first couple of weeks of school every year were nightmarishly hot, and of course, because I was a marching band geek, we suffered through the first two football games sweating in polyester uniforms. Then it would get cold, practically overnight, and by mid-September we would see frost and pull out the heavy jackets.

Here, summer tends to linger long into the autumn seasons, but we get twinges of the season here and there. Last night, I could feel it. I'm not sure what distinguished the evening from our usual fogged-in cold summer evenings. Maybe it was the pale sunlight that was managing to squint through; or the crispness of the cold compared to the damp passing cold that you get with San Francisco fog. Anyway, by the time I got home I was feeling poetic and happily awaiting the afternoons when I could throw on a wool sweater, make hot apple cider, and write and write to my little heart's content.

***

Truth of the matter is, I associate autumn with falling in love. New school year, new boys, lots of snuggling and pulled heartstrings on cold nights.

***

I'm excited right now. Got an email from my publisher asking me to do another book. She said my first book sold 18,000 copies, which I guess is a big thing for them. I've been mulling over doing another one recently; I have an idea for one, in fact, and started a book proposal. But I remember the hell I went through last time. The thing is, I'm a project manager now and would be so much more organized than I was previously. And, we could really use the money for the house fund.

Should I do it? A. will not approve. But now that I have no wedding to plan, why the hell not?





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