Hello, October.

As could have been predicted, I never posted more in September. Sigh.

September sort of flew past and October is even more insane, honestly. In the middle of September, I suddenly found myself with plans for every single weekend of October. How does that happen?!?! And who knows if I’ll actually make it to all of them, but I do try. Some of them are just events that I want to go to, and when I have to go alone, all bets are off for if I’ll actually follow through when the time comes. But a lot of the plans are things other people invited me to, and I usually do go to those because I don’t get all that many invitations so I accept all of them. Anyway. As of right now I have only one weekend day free of plans during the whole month of October and I’m kiiiind of hoping to go to climb a mountain somewhere. We’ll see what happens.

For those of you who were waiting to hear (soooo...none of you?), my goals from September were a bit of a flop. I did take 7 pictures, but I still haven’t developed any film. I did get a haircut, which I really liked. I practiced Passenger Seat only a few times. I made a pie and went to church all on the same day, but it was technically October first, so I’m not sure it counts. I never drew anything. Meh.

Lots of other wonderful things happened though, like my friend Kendra came to visit me for a few days and we went to the Common Ground Fair, and walked on the breakwater and visited lots of cute shops in Rockland and all that great Maine sort of stuff. I love her. It was really really fun to show someone around my state for the first time again- it’d been quite a few years since I had the chance (I did get to show lots of people around Minneapolis while I lived there, though, so that’s something).

But now it’s October, which means a whole new set of goals. I already got purple hair (which is separate from the haircut I got last month) and love it. A few things on my list are events that haven’t yet happened. I also want to read three books and write five letters. We’ll see what happens.

I’ve already finished one book, The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur’s second book of poetry. It was phenomenal. I’m also in the middle of two others. Okay, full disclosure, one of the two is one I’ve been in the middle of since September. But that’s okay! I’ll hopefully still finish it this month! The other is Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor, which I have as an ebook on my phone with a new app called Libby. I am kind of loving having access to a book wherever I am as long as I have my phone with me (so, wherever I am). I’m totally someone who believes you should bring a book everywhere, but sometimes it’s really inconvenient to have a book in your purse. And sometimes you don’t have the book with you in very specific situations like when you’ve arrived at a restaurant expecting the rest of your party to be there already but it turns out they were running even later than you and you’re already inside without a book. In situations like that I’ve been reallllly glad to be able to just pull out my phone and start reading. It’s seriously great.

Anyways, things are happening around here. I got to meet a cute, fresh, little baby (Alice) ten days ago and I get to see my cute niece on an almost daily basis and she has so much personality already, despite exclusively calling me and everyone else she knows “Dada”.

I’ve been to the movies FOUR times in the past month and only two of them were with my mother! Okay, to be fair, one time was with my friend’s mother, and I’m not entirely sure that’s less embarrassing, but whatever. One movie out of four with people my own age isn’t bad though, right?! Oh, it is? Okay, whatever. I made it down to a weightlifting competition last weekend and I’m going to try to attend a Rett Syndrome strollathon in Capital Park this weekend. It’s gonna be crazy, but life is just like that sometimes.

And as the days get ever shorter and I find myself with fewer hours of daylight with which to do things outside, I’m glad for every single plan that obligates me to leave my house. Winter is hard and I feel like it’s heading for me at breakneck speed. I’m clinging to the last vestiges of warmth I can possibly get.