Saturday, Sept. 02, 2006

T.G.I.Fall

I love fall.

They say that spring is a time for renewal and beginnings, but I never got that. Sure, trees start budding and seeds that had been dormant in the ground for months start to sprout with the onset of sunbeams and warmer temps. But so what? I'm not a tree, or a seed, or even a sunbeam. But I *do* love school supplies and football, so you may start to see why autumn appeals.

When I was a kid, I loved school. Well, the "school" part of it, anyway. I didn't care much for the "other kids" part of it. And, hell, I still love school. I love to learn new things, and take classes. And I especially love the supplies.

I don't know what it is, but school supplies rock my socks. Especially notebooks, and folders. As a writer, the love for notebooks is perhaps obvious. All those beautifully blank pages, white and crisp, a promise of poems and stories that I hadn't yet written, but would one day live on those pages. I knew I would fill them, and I always did, with textual doodles, descriptions of places and people and things. Buying new notebooks, with fun covers and lots of pages, made me feel rich and happy. The folders offered their own sort of promise, of organization and of security. I knew I could slip my homework into a folder, take it to school, and when it was time to turn it it, I would open the folder and the homework would be there. I would feel responsible and confident. Such a small thing, such a large impact.

I could blame it on my father, who, to this day, is a pen geek. He has specific types and styles that he likes, and he also likes to buy new types to see if they meet his expectations. I love new pens. And pencils, and crayons. Colored pencils. Erasers. Protractors and compasses. Rulers. Pencil boxes. *Love* pencil boxes. They're good for SO many things! Rocks. Small notebooks. Odds and ends. And, of course, pencils. It's an obsession, I know. Where some women indulge on shoes or jewelry, I covet 5-subject notebooks with built-in pockets.

And, speaking of obsessions... mmm, football.

I bought SI's NFL Preview issue today. Awesome. I love how they have a profile on every team, including a standard lineup, so I can see who got traded where, who's first string this year, where my favorite guys are, who got good draft picks, who might be good this year. There've been pre-season games on for the last couple of weeks, practically every night, and I love it. It feels like I've been looking for something for the last six months, something that I've scratched my head over and couldn't put my finger on, and as soon as the games started, I found it. That's what football season feels like to me -- the return of something that had been sorely missed for the months after the Super Bowl, and now that it's back, I slap my forehead and say, "Of *course*! That's what was missing! Hey, pass me my beer, they're ready for the snap..."

Notebooks and the NFL. My Steelers and a 4-color clicky pen. Quarterbacks and a 128-shade box of Crayola. Good gods in shoulderpads, what more does a woman need?

Maybe a pencil box. And another beer. And another pencil box...

saturncat at 11:08 p.m.

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