i like noting the little mile posts of time passing in my life. the phases of the moon. the subtle turning of the season. when our first year’s lease is up. like the previous month’s mile post, this is another one: its the first time i’ve lived in the same dwelling for an entire year since i left my parents house eight years ago. we did it. managed to dig our heels in and stay in one place for a whole year. and while a friend is in fact tempting me with his soon-to-be-vacant, much-posher-and-cheaper-than-ours apartment, we are leaning toward just staying put for a while. having some continuity, or as much as one can have and still be living paycheck to paycheck.

usually the autumn brings a sort of melancholy to me, but this year there is something comforting about the gathering fall. the leaves have just barely begun to turn, but already it is dark when we rise for work, and dark as i take the train home at the end of the day. today was the first really cool day, scarf-weather, and right now the radiators are creaking back into action with a comforting series of clanks and hisses that always precede the warmth, filling the air with the pleasant scent of warm dust.