Sweater Weather
Currently reading:
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele
Sunset Gun by Dorothy Parker
Books finished this week: 0
Spooky!!
Library updates:
In a perfect world, I would be nothing but a scholar. I don’t need or want a million degrees or to find myself bogged down in the politics and rigid expectations of academia. I just want to learn. I’m happiest when I take a class, and when that knowledge I’ve begun to acquire finally snaps into place. When I realize I really, truly learned something, and I’m applying it out in the wild world.
I love nothing more than lazy days. But the kind of lazy day I can live on my terms. Wake early and read in a warm, unmade bed with coffee. Eventually get up and make the bed and shower and make myself presentable. Write when the mood strikes. Listen to music. Drink more coffee. Read. Sit in the sun. Cancel plans (or make some). Dive deep into something that interests me. Learn, where and when I want to. Maybe a walk; maybe some rest, or some extra sleep. No work that has to be done, nowhere I have to be. A to-do list with wiggle room, and seemingly all the time in the world to get it all——or just some of it——done.
It feels easier to lean into that life in autumn. I know I’ve written a lot before about feeling overwhelmed by the expectations of the warmer seasons, when sunshine beckons and everyone else seems to be doing something exciting and adventurous, constantly, and I feel the simultaneous urges to leave everything behind and run into the ocean and curl up in my air-conditioning and never see another living soul ever again. The autumn chill is easy to banish with a sweatshirt or sweater and a warm beverage, and the sunshine feels less judgmental than summer sun. It feels equally kind to myself to sit at the local coffee shop and curl up on my couch.
Fall also lends itself to learning, in my experience. I didn’t feel the same academic urge this September that I usually do——I think because it was still approximately 8000 degrees——so all those feelings have shifted into October. It’s time to buy a million books and spend as much time as possible reading through them. It’s time to get back into hobbies (and maybe finish that sweater I’ve been knitting for, I think, two years now?). I can better focus on movies in autumn, especially scary ones.
I’m also taking a tarot class this October. It felt like the right witchy vibe for the month. My homework this week has been to pull a major arcana card every day and reflect on the meanings and how the card connected to events throughout the day. I have a tiny notebook to record my findings, a growing binder full of information, and two new tarot books (oops) waiting to be devoured. I find myself overcome with the urge to splay the cards like Vanessa Ives and invite someone to dramatically pull The Lovers, to pull past, present, and future like Sofie and find myself in the middle of an epic, eons-old battle between good and evil.
School is very much in session.
Closing thoughts:
Stay spooky.
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 180
(Total books added to the Moratorium Library: 365)
I requested (and obviously got) a copy of Lucky Girl from Tin House——thanks, Tin House!
Everything else in this stack was purchased from Bookshop.org. (Please note that I’m not counting that new edition of Books of Blood, because I don’t plan to reread it. I bought this version for the gorgeous new cover and the Grady Hendrix afterword.)
And these two beauties were picked up from a very busy Twisted Spine, while out and about after my first Brooklyn Horror movie with Britt (hi, Britt!).
