Thessaly's Tooth

No, I’m not randomly naming Glenn Miller songs, not today anyway. I’m trying to get in the mood for fall. Fall is really my favorite season, but we all know what it leads to, and the memories of last winter are still too fresh in my mind to be looking forward to the next one.
In Nebraska, where I’m from, we only really have two seasons, summer and winter, which last six months each. Spring consists of about seven days, which don’t come consecutively but are scattered throughout the months of February-May. Fall runs along similar lines. Here in Michigan, there is a distinct spring and fall, but winter still lasts for six months, which compresses summer into two or three. And that summer isn’t always hot enough to make you genuinely suffer and begin to long for the frozen wastelands of January.
This year, we had summer in July and again in September, but it just wasn’t miserable enough to make me truly appreciate the crisp fresh air and mega-blue skies that have recently made their appearance. Much as I like the colors of fall, I’m already missing the green leaves of summer, even though I can still see them right outside my window.
As usual, the retail stores aren’t helping. I should just stay out of them altogether in the months of July-October. I don’t want to think about back-to school in July, Halloween in August, and Christmas…yesterday, when I saw Christmas cards out at Schuler. Nobody does. I assume people buy all of this stuff, or the stores wouldn’t put it out, but I for one refuse to participate in all this holiday inflation.
But, it is legitimately Fall now, so I might as well try to accept it. It could be worse…it was 104 degrees in my hometown like a week ago. I’d definitely take Fall over that.

So, I have added a year to my age since my last post. How about that? I’ve worried about getting older this year less than I have for the last few birthdays. I first panicked about turning 30 when I turned 26, by the time I really turned 30 I had pretty much accepted it. This has been going on for a while; I was completely freaked out about turning 20 when I was 19, thinking it sounded entirely too grown up for me. I think that was the year that when I mentioned to my Dad my concern about getting older, his response was “19? I’m sure glad I never have to be 19 again.” I can now say I fully agree with that statement. There are some good things about being young, to be sure, though I can’t think of any right now. And, there are some bad things about being older (though I maintain 32 doesn’t qualify me yet as “older”), but for the most part things just keep getting better al the time.
I have noticed something about my method of writing blog posts. Usually I get a Great Idea (you’ve noticed those, right?) and then think it all out and write it right away. This process takes an hour or two, usually at an awkward time when I should be doing something else. But if I don’t do it right away, it’s all lost, I simply can’t come back to it. For example, I started a marvelous essay about the importance of Relationships versus society’s emphasis on Career and the Individual a week or two ago, and interrupted it to go do something else. I tried to work on it again today, but it’s useless. I can’t think of another thing to say about it, and though I remember pretty much how it was supposed to go, I can’t bring myself to finish it.
If I did finish it, it would probably be awful. I don’t know why it is, but in other writings, it must really show through whether my heart was in it or not. I’ve written things I’m really interested in and things I’m not, and even though I spend as much time and take as much trouble about both, the ones I’m really interested in always seem to do better, even though I can’t really distinguish much difference between the final results.
So now you’ll never hear my thoughts on Relationships. Aren’t you sad–no, I know you’re not. Now that I’m no longer interested in the topic, it sounds pretty awful to me too. Don’t worry though, I’ve got a new one brewing in the back of my head, so you’ll have that to look forward to. Honestly, I should write the things and then wait two days before deciding whether to post them, so I can coolly evaluate just how wretched they really are. But then nothing would every appear on my blog. And the whole point of the blog format is to post things, not to post anything good. Which is pretty awesome.