In which I wore a coat to work this morning. RIP, summer.

That huge tree in the neighbor’s yard has begun dropping horse chestnuts into the alley by the bushel, it’s darker earlier every night, and we had our equinox on Saturday: it must be fall.

I really need to get some working lights on my bike since it’s going to start being dark all the time.

I’ve decided that if one hasn’t gotten into a box in over five years, she probably doesn’t need any of the contents. So now I’m going through the dozen boxes I brought with me — and put in the attic when I arrived here in October of 2007 and have ignored ever since — and basically donating everything that isn’t actual garbage or a family photo album. (I still want to scan the albums. They’re so bulky and nobody really displays stuff like that any more.) I went through three boxes over the weekend and kept nothing but a couple of paperbacks and a stack of photos that belong to my ex-husband and which I’ll mail back to him.

Applied for an additional position at the paper; have a second meeting about it tomorrow. Might end up working full-time again through virtually no fault of my own! I love working part-time, I really do, but there’s nothing wrong with extra income. And I really do enjoy working in the newsroom; the people are great, the vibe is great, and it’s only a couple more hours each day.

Last Friday my boss walked up to each of us in turn to tell us what our remaining vacation hours for the year were; I was pleased and shocked to learn I have 33 hours to use up before the end of the year. Once I get my vacation dates approved I’m going to book a flight so I can spend a week with LDBF, who is the best thing ever.

I could go on and on about how wonderful he is, but people generally don’t care about new couple stuff. (My friend Embo usually responds with something along the lines of, “Eww! Barf!” when I say cute shit about him.) Suffice it to say he and I still talk every single night and both feel as if we have yet to uncover in one another anything we don’t like. We have a great deal in common, are very compatible, and would probably already be shacked up by now if we didn’t live so far apart. It’s wonderful to be in love, but it’s kind of a bitch having to do it over the internet. Thank God for Skype so I can look at his face, at least.

I’m going to go do the dishes and then maybe take a decadent autumn afternoon nap. I can do that shit as long as I’m still working only part-time!