I have mixed feelings about this time of year.
On one hand, I always like late summer/early fall better than… pretty much any other time of year. It’s still warm, but the humidity’s finally easing up. (That said… I had to wear a coat the other day. It’s too early to have to wear a coat.) I don’t have the cat staring at me with big sad eyes because it’s too warm to let her curl up on my lap. I can start pulling out my cute hoodies and long-sleeved shirts. And, best of all, the neighbour kids are in school, so I don’t have to listen to them shrieking all the time.
I especially like that last one.
But… I have no excuse to buy school supplies anymore.
I was wandering through a stationery store last weekend; I knew it would be a mistake… I needed a few things (envelopes and pen refills), but I refused to go anywhere near the line at the cash registers. But worse than the crowd, the place was filled with all sorts of wonderful things. I don’t need any of it, can’t even find a use for some of it (where were those locker organizers when I was in school?), but…
I want it.
It’s the whole process that I miss… going through the list, and picking out pens and pencils and backpacks and the binder that had all the pockets but cost, like, ten dollars more than any of the others. I miss the huge stack of looseleaf paper my dad used to bring home. (Ten years ago, I was starting my last year of high school. I still have about one and a half packs of 150 sheets left over from then.) Yeah, I still make fun of my father for the year my stocking was mostly filled with school supplies, but I still use the three hole punch. I don’t know what happened to the CD player I got that year.
It’s one of the good things about writing, I suppose: I still have an excuse to buy notebooks and pens, and that sort of stuff. But it’s not really the same. I still can’t justify buying that binder.
