Autumn Has Arrived in DC

I opened the door on Sunday and was greeted with that crisp air--for some reason autumn always makes me hopeful and cheerful. Something about the scent of leaves, that cold has a smell. More than that I think it makes me sentimental. I remember what it felt like in Kent, to be walking to class on a fall day. Maybe fall reminds me of the academic life. Of campuses and knowlegde and books. That same feeling was there when I was in NYC, bopping around the Village or the Upper East Side. Nothing was better than pumpkin spice coffee from Rohr's, which reminded me pumpkin spice at the Zephyr. And here, I order it online and come home or wake up to it as it fills the apartment. Not much and everything has changed. Now I'm walking around Foggy Bottom and have settled into the life of part time professor. Just got my section of CW for the spring---a M/F and perhaps will also be teaching 2 (though it depends what everyone else wants as spring semester we move from 18 sections to 12 sections of the intro class). And with the promise of autumn and another semester here come more publications. A sestina in McSweeney's and my first piece of fiction in New Voices! I spent the day working on a revision of my story, A Summer Fabric--though I'm thinking of calling it something else. I have until the 17th to get it as right as I can.