Get Your Autumn On!

That’s right, it’s fall, aka autumn, aka your favorite season, that fleeting changing of colors, temperatures, clothing layers, and footwear for northern hemisphere humanoids. Are you celebrating it correctly? Pick one to six of the following bullet points if you want to do it right. Otherwise, be prepared to rhetorically ask yourself “Wow, what happened to fall?” in December.

• Rake fallen leaves into a pile in your lawn (or someone else’s lawn) and rejoice that you are doing the only kind of yardwork that results in a pile of fun. Toss a kid or a dog in the leaves and frolic. Remind yourself that after you mow the lawn, all you get is a big pile of useless goddamn grass clippings. Fall 1, Summer 0.
• Ride your bike across town to get to a coffee shop, restaurant or bar, and upon entering, enjoy the fact that you have not sweated through your shirt.
• Take a series of photos of leaves that have changed from green to various hues of yellow, orange, red, amber, and finally brown, then look at them and frown slightly that what you’ve captured digitally doesn’t really match the beauty of what you’re seeing.
• Or don’t take a photo and just enjoy it.
• Take a stance on pumpkin spice. Do you like it? Hate it? Express yourself. Are you ambivalent about the flavor of pumpkin spice? Stop being that. There is no middle ground. Get your shit together and either like it or hate it.
• Also, pumpkin beer
• Crunch yellowing leaves underfoot.
• Celebrate the return of flannel by buying one to five new flannel shirts. Perhaps ponder how they keep coming up with new types of plaid, or that plaid, I mean tartan, has been around for more than 3,000 years. High five, Scotland.
• Go into your garage or closet or gear room and fondle your skis, snowboard, or other snow-sliding equipment while softly repeating the word “soon.”
• When conversing with co-workers whom you regularly have nothing in common with, take solace that you can at the very least talk about the “nip in the air” this morning.
• Finish planning and collecting items to comprise your Halloween costume. Notice I said “finish,” and not “start,” because if you’re just starting to envision the ultimate Halloween costume now, you obviously don’t care enough and Halloween will be nothing but a disappointment for you this year.
• Procure some cinnamon sticks with grandiose plans to use them for something.
• Watch your ambitiously procured cinnamon sticks slowly make their way to the back of your kitchen cupboard from now until the spring equinox.
• In solidarity with farmers, celebrate harvest season by working 18- or 20-hour days for several consecutive weeks.
• Get some gourds to place in your house, carve into ornaments for your front porch, or, as a last resort, use their innards to create something edible.
• Basically shit yourself with excitement at the first snow in the mountains anywhere in the Lower 48.
• And by “basically,” I guess I mean “metaphorically.”
• I mean, I love skiing and all, but I think we can agree that losing all bowel control is a little bit much in this instance.
• Wrap your neck and three-quarters of your face in a scarf for maximum coziness, and/or robbing a liquor store.

-Brendan

[photo by Hilary Oliver]