Friday 5: Stay and Let Me Look at You

I’ve been crazy busy but things are calming down.  Sometime this weekend I’ll write about my new wheels, and what led to my being a bus commuter lo these past four years.

I hope to get an early start Friday morning, and it’s getting late Thursday night, so a quick Friday 5 from here.

1. (Earth, Wind & Fire) Why are you dancing in September?
   I want to be more interesting than this, but honestly it’s really the beginning of the NFL season.  Despite my team sucking this year, I embrace the non-political conversations football brings with my friends and with my father.
2. (Neil Diamond) September morning still can make you feel what way?
   It still fills me with tension about new school years even though I’ve been out of the classroom for some time.  I wake up Saturday mornings asking myself what I need to get done before Monday, a feeling I don’t need to have anymore but was a constant, eternal concern every Saturday morning for sixteen years teaching.
3. (Green Day) What are some things you have to endure until September ends?
   The lunch spots on campus become noticeably less busy even during the lunch hour sometime in October.  Parking (woo!  I get to be concerned about parking again!) is also somewhat less competitive.  So, longer lines in the food court and longer lines into the parking structure.
4. (Kool & the Gang) What place or thing is your September love?
   There was a time when Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes were a two-a-day habit.  I’m way, way down now, and almost never drink coffee, but I’m allowing myself a PSL here and there, and have had two so far since they showed up at the beginning of the month.  My September love this year is pumpkin spice lattes.
5. (Willie Nelson) What is your September song for the rest of the month?
   So far, songs in the heaviest rotation have been Katherine Ho’s “Yellow” cover from the Crazy Rich Asians soundtrack, “Mama Africa” by Peter Tosh (really, the whole Mama Africa album, which I only recently discovered and am in love with), Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” (autumn always has me grooving on Elvis for some reason), and a bunch of John Mellencamp.  I recently picked up a bunch of his recent albums but I couldn’t spin them because I was doing this silly BTS experiment I’ll explain later.  I expect the second half of September to be tons of Mellencamp.