[Columns in Richmond, November 2011.]

People will be going back to school soon.

On Monday, one of my college roommates posted a couple of things to my Facebook wall, and they made me laugh until tears ran down my face. It reminded me that my old friends are only one of those far away things in my life that makes me miss undergrad so dearly.

Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I think a lot of it has to do with college. The packing and moving and starting over as the leaves begin to change--it does something to me. There's magic in the new notebooks and the old books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, with treasures of underlining and notes just waiting to be discovered. When Rob and I first started dating, I was taking a Victorian class and we used to sit down together with my used copy of an extraordinarily large Norton Anthology of English Literature and read what the people who owned it before me had written in the margins.

I try every time, but I can never quite put my finger on it.

And so, for the third time on this blog, I quote:

"If only one could come back to this quiet place, where only intellectual achievement counted; if one could work here steadily and obscurely at some close-knit piece of reasoning, undistracted and uncorrupted...then, one might be able to forget the wreck and chaos of the past, or see it, at any rate, in a truer proportion. Because, in a sense, it was not important. The fact that one had loved and sinned and suffered and escaped death was of far less ultimate moment than a single footnote in a dim academic journal establishing the priority of a manuscript or restoring a lost iota subscript. It was the hand-to-hand struggle with the insistent personalities of other people, all pushing for a place in the limelight, that made the accidents of one's own personal adventure bulk so large in the scheme of things." --Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

It's hard to believe that this guy is 21 today, but it's true. 

He's back at school doing cross-country things before his senior year of college kicks off next week. It feels like only yesterday that he was graduating from high school and I was just home for the summer. I remember my senior year and 21st birthday like it was fewer than three years ago--how everything is special and legendary. It's one of the best. 

Happy birthday, Sean. You are a light in my life and I love you so much.

[Rainbow flatties on a road trip.]

Loving my job. Never did I think there'd be a time in my life where I'd wake up and go to an office where I would sit in front of a Mac with a pencil and a sketchbook to design mobile apps. But that's what I'm doing, and I couldn't be happier or feel more proud. I wear heels every day and I have a few really cool bosses and some awesome new friends, too. That's like the cherry on top of an awesome professional ice cream sundae.

Reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Still. It's really long. But it's beautiful and I intend to stick with it. I took a break to read Megan Mayhew Bergman's collection of stories, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, recently, and I'll be writing a review of it for Drawl Magazine really soon.

Watching nothing, really. I recently caught up with Game of Thrones, and I was watching a lot of the Olympics, but that's all over now. I have quite a few episodes of True Blood to catch up on and I hope to do that soon.

Thinking about how bizarre it is to be done with my thesis. And still thinking about how awesome you all were when I wrote about it here. Love and support is awesome, especially when you've spent a year pouring your heart and mind into something that matters so much to you.

Anticipating Rob's move to Northern Virginia this weekend. I know it sounds weird, but I kind of want to just get it over with already so that we can figure out what our routine is going to be. I don't know when we're going to talk on the phone or what time he's going to wake up, and it makes me kind of anxious. We've been two hours apart for a year before, but this is four hours and we're both going to be busy. I think I'll feel better once we've just jumped into it and can start planning fun weekends together.

Wishing that my best friend Emma were currently living in Roanoke. She's in town for a few days and she came over last night to do a CrossFit WOD with me and it was so wonderful. I miss being in the same city! She's wonderful and I love the way we just pick back up as if there's been no time lost between us. It's a blessing to have a friend like that.

Making me happy that another dear friend of mine, Amanda, had a sweet baby boy over the weekend, and while he initially had some complications, he seems to be doing just fine now and will hopefully be going home soon! Amanda and I were best friends in high school and somehow lost touch with each other over the years. I feel so honored to be part of her life again and have the opportunity to watch her beautiful little family grow. She's a wonderful woman and mother and she and her husband give me so much hope.

So what about you? What are you up to currently?

--Thanks to Danielle for the post inspiration.--