It's autumn: the leaves are changing, the owls are back, and my preferred nail color has shifted from pink to burgundy.

In the south, the third season of the year is usually the shortest. Most of the time you barely notice its presence at all--the weather is warm and muggy, then all of the sudden the humidity is gone, the leaves fall abruptly, and cold sets in. Because of the unusual amount of rain we've received here in the last month, the whole fall feel has lasted a tad longer than normal. Even still, one can still miss it if one is not watching closely.

Autumn is my favorite and least favorite time of the year. Favorite because the weather--when it arrives--is perfect. Autumn is a colorful season, not extreme, and carries the memory of coziness with it: mulled spices and firesides and a new set of slippers.

Least favorite for one main reason: Halloween. One of the most useless holidays, in my opinion, second perhaps to Valentine's Day. Halloween is a roadblock to the start of the family-oriented holiday season, in my opinion; one always feels guilty thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas until Halloween is over. If it weren't for the over-emphasis on the fabled day of orange and black, we could get on with the Season's Greetings as soon as the autumnal feel fled the scene, no strings attached and no guilt involved. Who's with me? Anyone?

But I digress.

[We interrupt this blog post for this special announcement: the cat sitting next to me has the hiccups.]

mugged

It was hard for me to get up this morning. Jeremy gets up at 6:00 a.m. everyday (barring weekends, of course) and sometimes I can manage to get up about a half-hour after him. I do enjoy these days, when I can accomplish them--they are, however, few and far between.

I have gotten up and 6:30 every day this week, though. That is, every day but today. Today I felt like my arms and legs were made of whipping cream. Heavy whipping cream. Then I felt like a truck had run over me, but it was only Jeremy, who was now washed and dressed and had come to squish me, as he always does on those days I'm not out of bed yet.

With my mind semi-alert but my body completely rejecting the idea of getting up, I simply laid in limbo for a good half-hour after Jeremy left for work. Finally I fell asleep again. I woke at 8:11, startled awake by the sudden thought of something I really needed to do (what it was, I don't recall...I think I've done it already, though.)

When I came downstairs to the kitchen, there was a Lee University mug sitting on the counter, looking spry and regal in its grey and burgundy motif. Jeremy must have gotten it at the college fair last night, I thought, picking it up to look at it and peeling the sticker off the bottom. ("The Grande Mug", it said.) Setting it back down, I moved to make the coffee, then sat down at the piano to play a couple of hymns. When the coffee was done I left my musical seat and went back to the kitchen to pour myself a cup, stopping briefly to eye the Lee mug, again, sitting rather forlornly on the counter.

I have a healthy obsession with mugs. I like strange, artsy, mismatched mugs that have bright colors or are hand made or are very old. My favorite mug for years was one I found at Goodwill, cracked, with the brown and yellow "Yuban Coffee" screen-printing flaking away. The handle had been broken off and haphazardly glued back on again.

New mugs with logos--"business mugs", in my mind--I have never let into my collection. I guess they're too left brain for me. A little too math and science. A little too skirt suit. My other mugs are right brain cups, all art and abstraction, feelings and language and nuances. Even their shapes are out-of-the-ordinary, unlike my helpless newcomer, the Lee Mug, which stood with its "typical mug" shape and straight lines.

I hovered beside the coffee maker while considering these things. I had moved to get a mug from my collection in the drawer when I was drawn, inexplicably, towards the Lee Mug. I held it in my hands for a second, weighing the pros and cons of forgoing a right-brain for a left-brain drinking vessel. In the end I rinsed it out, dried off the outside, and poured my coffee into it, mixing in the cream and testing the flavor, no, not enough, a little more, there that's good. And I felt strange, starting my day off with business mug. Even stranger was the odd feeling of satisfaction I felt in representing my alma mater during a coffee break.

and now for something completely different

There are many downsides to living in a house during its renovation: not having doors, tools being constantly underfoot, cleaning the living room only to have your husband unexpectedly sand the staircase and cover everything in a 1.5" layer of sawdust, etc, etc.

The good part is that things are always changing. From week to week and month to month a room will undergo drastic changes. This is an excellent environment for someone like me, who gets extremely bored with colors and furniture arrangements and style that stays the same day after day. I'd actually like to think that my insatiable need for visual variety is the indicator of some sort of hidden, mad genius. Or something.

While growing up, I could only go so long without changing something--usually it was my hairstyle (later, hair color) or the order of the knickknacks on my bedroom shelves. Every couple of months I would wind up rearranging my bedroom furniture. I remember, as a teenager, arranging and then rearranging my room twice in one month. It didn't have to be a brand new layout every time; it just had to be different than what I saw presently. I even dismantled my bed, at one point, and slept on a mattress on the floor for many months. The change of view was incredibly refreshing.

Now, as a "grown-up" (I use the term loosely) I still get the itch for a change of scenery with predictable regularity. I rotate rugs and vases and accent pillows from room to room. I find a new spot for the coffee maker every few weeks. My hair is never the same color twice in a row (someday soon it will fall out altogether, but that's another subject for another day.) I have even contemplated packing up half of my coffee mugs so that I can change them out every now and then.

It was today, while putting up different curtains in the living room, that I was struck with an epiphany of creativity. I had thrown the previous curtains over one of my chairs when I decided to tuck it around the cushion--I wondered what the chair would look like blue instead of orange. And I liked it! It was an incredible change in the look of the room, and it appealed to my need for diverse scenery.

What struck me was an idea that I had never considered previously: the two orange chairs--actually halves of a sofa--are modular, designed to break into pieces and be rearranged at will (that's why I wanted them) and therefore perfect for handmade recovering. No store-bought cover would fit them, but all one would really need to do would be to sew four large squares.

Of course, I would NEVER want to do something permanent, but having two or three sets of slipcovers for the chair set would be a dream come true. I was so giddy when the idea hit me that I laughed and did a little dance and frightened the cats. Even now, the thought of being able to change the color of furniture at will is incredibly exciting.

So I'm making a list of possible materials and colors to use--Velcro and such. I'll keep you posted.

Can it really be going to rain for the next ten days? I think the last two evenings (three including tonight) have been accompanied by the peculiar sound of raindrops hitting the chimney cover. I am running out of rainy day music to listen to; while I love to shut the windows against a driving thunderstorm, light a candle, and turn on some old album by Simon and Garfunkel, several evenings in a row of such a pattern can get somewhat old.

I remember having in college a whole list of music that qualified as "rainy day songs". Frank Sinatra, Groupe Oyiwan, Simon & Garfunkel (of course), Yann Tiersen...along with several other things I can't even recall, now. Those were the days when I didn't do anything without a personal soundtrack (except go to class...those were pre-ipod days.) I collected so much music from my friends and family that I could put my media player on shuffle and have non-stop music for almost two days.

Of course I lost all that music the first time Jeremy decided to re-format my laptop. I've never quite recovered.

stylish schizophrenia

I went to-night to a the bookstore; I aimed to spend a giftcard of my husband's which he had bestowed upon me, as he wasn't planning on using it.

So I snatched it with glee and went on my way-- though I do not go to a bookstore to buy books. Books I buy at yard sales and thrift stores and occasionally amazon. It's sad, but true...I went to the bookstore to look at the paper and notecards.

Once inside, I tried not to be too indecisive--I had just been to the international market and had all sorts of things in the car like milk and basa and some japanese strawberry puff-thingies that looked interesting, and I didn't want anything to spoil. But it still took me a half an hour to browse around two aisles, unable to decide on which style I liked best.

I have multiple personalities when it comes to design. I was actually sitting in our master bedroom, today (I was supposed to me cleaning it out) and daydreamed about how it would look when finished. I really couldn't for the life of me figure out what the end result might look like. See, I have a very eclectic style of decor, of music and of clothing, and of all things aesthetic; all this really means is that I can never make up my mind about anything, because I like it all.

So for one moment I was enamored with sleeping in a very clean, posh sort of palette of greys and navy blue and gold. Then I was set on relaxing with a more modern, feminine look of olive green and coral. Then I fantasized about settling down in an earthy, organic feeling rooms with whites and greens and natural fibers for window treatments. Then it was back to grey, but with teal this time. (Of course it's silly for me to settle on only two colors, because I will always end up somehow throwing in something of a contrasting hue. I really can't help it. The living room was supposed to be a pale green, white and black. Now there's an orange couch. It's how my brain is hardwired.)

Anyways, it was this same mental cacophony that impeded me from making a decision in the bookstore. Was I more drawn to the floral printed notecards, the lavender ones, the ones with a mod cartoon turtle? The paisley was certainly nice.

I turned down another aisle and found a set that were entirely cream, except for a tiny black cat, no more than half an inch wide, lying down in the middle. It was very chic, very minimalist. I agonized over it for a while, really loving it, but the thing is that I am the absolute furthest thing from a minimalist that you'll probably ever meet. After a while I felt ridiculous. If I bought the cards, I'd most likely have to balance the starkness by writing my notes with orange or green ink, and then it'd be the living room all over again.

Fortunately I was saved from my inability by the entire section of owl-themed things, magnets and notecards and sticky-notes, and little spiral-bound notebooks that would make excellent to-do lists. Owls trump everything else, in my book, so I ended up with a mug (!) and a to-do-list-book and a set of magnets for a friend who is also an owl lover.

I am still hung up on those little cat cards, though. Does this mean I might truly have a minimalist side that is trying to emerge? I suppose we'll see if she'll manifest herself in the master bed decor.

Excerpt from Facebook Chat, 8/16/09

Carol: Are we keeping score, then?

Erin: ...no.

Carol: I'll quit talking 'cause I'll lose!

Erin: Haha, I was about to say that!

Carol: No, I'll LOSE!

Erin: No, I'll LOOSE. But I don't know what I'll loose. Hopefully something that doesn't make a mess.

Gimme a W, gimme an E, gimme an I-R-D.

I think my body is subtly starting to panic.

Or, my prayers that I might share a friend's anxiety have been answered.

Or, I am worried about too many things.

Or, I have had too much coffee today.

Or, all of the above.

Nevertheless, I feel like I'm floating in a sea of pinpricks, and my stomach hurts, and I need to sit down, and I need to stand up, and I need to talk. Talk talk talk.

I'm not twitching yet, though.