It's Boot Season.

It's Boot Season.

The girls are starting to complement their skirts with ever-thicker corduroy, or tweed, or wool buttoned coats and with staunch 'n' sturdy Eskimo footwear. Boots of every ilk-- furry, leather, moon. I love the functionality of it. Almost as if the drop in temperature jolts some primordial instinct in the girls to ditch their usual slenderfying but impractical heels or flip-flops or what-have-you, and bulk up, at least externally, putting on layers for the winter. Is it just my evolutionary instinct that finds that so attractive? Boots.

Fall has FALLEN, onto us, I guess. (PS: I fully recognize that fall is probably The Number One Most Juvenile and Cliche thing to write about. I know. Probably you all got your opinions about fall out years ago, when you were still in the womb. But guys, I'm a beginner, and you have to begin where the beginners begin.) You can't deny that fall casts a spell on you. If you try and deny that, you are just bitter, and you need to forgive whoever it is and move on. And it's urgent that you do it so you can enjoy this fall, because, it's a particularly delectable one. I just stepped outside to the sound of the American Flag not flapping but Snapping, RUMBLING, in the wind. That's how strong it was blowing. Meanwhile the sun shone, creating this gorgeous kaleidoscope effect as it glinted off the breezily liberated hair of all the girls walking across the quad.

In that air that seems to defy classification as anything besides "crisp," like the air of anticipation when you light a firecracker, you smell dances at the armory, and roast pumpkin seeds, and girls in boots, and the madhouse kitchen, and the first snow.