Top 5 Reasons Why Fall is My Fav Season

1. aka Autumn

It has a formal alter-ego, how bada** is that? In my book Fall (or Autumn..) runs along the lines of James Bond or other things that society has deemed "cool" and I'll go along with but don't really know all that much about.

2. Football

Now, there are few sports I know less about than football. To me, football seems like just a bunch of huge men pushing against each other and not really ever getting anything done. Terms like "3rd down" and "1st and 8" mean absolutely nothing to me, so it might seem strange that football is in my top 5 list. The very simple explanation? Football jerseys. They're cute, on guys too, but especially on girls. And let's be real, I'm 23, so trying to look cute is like the second thing I think of when I wake up in the morning... Though I have yet to buy myself a jersey.

Go bears.  

3. Pumpkins

And here is where I begin to let on just how far my obsession goes. Pumpkins are great. I love them. If someone said to me, there's this vegetable that we carve funny faces into and then make into delicious pies, of course i'd be smitten. This is why it continues to be very important to me to obtain a pumpkin every Fall in one way or another. Since this year I was home for October for the first time in four years, I thought it a great opportunity to spend some quality time with my mother at a pumpkin patch. The suggestion went something like this:

"Mom, don't make plans for this Sunday... We're going pumpkin picking!" I waited for her response, what I assumed would be elation, an exclamation of joy, laughter, glee..

Instead I received nothing less than a blank stare. Was she even listening?

"Mom... did you hear me? Can we go to a pumpkin patch this weekend?" At this point I think my mother realized she was no longer dealing with a sane almost-adult, but rather an 8 year old trapped in a 23 year old's body.

''... Okay honey, we can do that.''

"Mom, get ready to MAKE SOME FAMILY MEMORIES!!" I shouted, fist pumped, and skipped off to my room.

Sunday couldn't come soon enough. When we arrived, I could hardly contain myself. Every time I looked around I saw something better: Cows! Roosters! Gourds! A HAY MAZE!!!!!!!!!! I almost wet myself. After 20 minutes of going in, out, and back in the hay maze again, my mother suggested we move to the pumpkin patch and away from the hay. Was it worry I heard in her voice?

And there it was, in all its glory: The Pumpkin Patch. It didn't even phase me that this "pumpkin patch" consisted of only about five dozen already-picked pumpkins in three piles, which were located in what seemed to be a gravel driveway. No, I didn't care. there was no longer anything standing between me and those orange orbs of love (....). Well, actually, there were - there were others as ruthless as myself and as deadset on getting the perfect pumpkin.

...Yeah, I was a bit out of place. And yeah, I may have beat the jealous looking biddy to the right to the best pumpkin of the bunch. But at the end of the day it was mine, and that's all that matters... to me.

4. Things that are scary

One summer when I was going into sixth grade I decided that it would be my goal to watch every horror movie in Blockbuster (dream big, kids). That said, it's no surprise that I like things that are (or try to be) scary. Really, any attempt is appreciated. I'll be first in line at a haunted house (if they weren't so GD expensive) and Stephen King may or may not be one of my favorite authors. It's a little ridiculous, this obsession. But I have fond memories of the first time I saw the heartwarming slasher-thriller... Scream.

5. Halloween

The final and most obvious of all is Halloween. Second only to Christmas, Halloween is the one day a year when you can dress up as whatever you want. Traditionally, the costumes are supposed to be "scary" creatures: witches, ghosts, zombies. And no, I'm not going to say Halloween is an excuse for me and my friends to skank it up (though I secretly have always kind of wanted to buy one of those "adult" costumes in a bag - how conveniently slutty!) On the contrary... there's a tremendous amount of pressure to have, all at the same time, an original, cute, funny (and girls can never REALLY be funny... think about it), charming costume. 

For years, the pressure has proved to be too much. I've been part of group costumes since high school, and although we have high hopes of choosing the perfect group theme and outfit, it almost always looks - for lack of a better word - disgusting. Let's take my senior year of high school, for instance. Now, I have no idea how we got this idea in our heads but we definitely did NOT want to be slutty but we NEEDED to be ... manly. Assuming we could wear boy-ish clothes and look cute, we decided to be the characters from the Sandlot. Really an adorable idea, right? 

.

Wrong. 

In our baseball tees and denim hats (of which mine seems to be incredibly too small) we resembled moreso an offensive word for stereotypical female field hockey players than the endearing boys of The Sandlot. Other years have proved to be even less successful: construction workers, "fighters", robots... But the magical thing about Halloween is that there's always great anticipation and hope. Hope that your undoubtedly unflattering costume doesn't make you look as masculine as the year before.