Fall.

I love it. I love sweaters, I love crinkly leaves, I love cool, misty days. I love neat boxes of unpeeled Crayolas and fresh notebooks. I love it even more now that I’m not the one waiting on the corner for the bus in the half-light of the morning. I love the fall.

I never have quite figured out, however, whether to call it “fall” or “autumn,” or whether there is any difference, or what that might be, or why this season warrants two completely different names, other than the fact that it’s my favorite.

But, one thing I do not entirely adore about fall, despite the crisp weather and good smell of the air, is the total chaos that ensues when everything starts again at once. Graduate-school class and art class and rush-hour traffic are all back, taking lots of free time with them and requiring plenty of time-juggling and excuse-making and sorting out to fit them in. As well, The Boy has his share of things starting up right around now too, and they are just more things to fit into The Schedule that I call my life. It’s mostly all nice stuff, and stuff that I want to do, and I like being busy. But it’s just dizzyingly different from, “Hey, what do you want to do all day? I don’t know… lay around? …Okay. Cool.” I guess eventually I’d have gotten bored with that. But I wasn’t quite, not just yet. Busy is nice, but occasionally lazy is nice too.