Ahh… this is my favorite time of year. I love the fall.

Matt and I went to New Jersey today to help my dad pick up a big curio cabinet from a store.

The store where we picked up the cabinet was in a shopping center. While my dad went inside to get the employees to bring it out, Matt and I sat in the car in the parking lot and listened to the radio. We saw middle-aged ladies push shopping carts into various stores. It was all so New Jersey – no, it was all so suburban. It’s so different out there. Matt remarked that if we lived in New Jersey, he’d probably miss the city a lot.

On the ride back, I had to squeeze myself into the back part of my parents’ SUV, wedged between the side of the vehicle and the cabinet, hoping the bungee cord that was holding the back hatch closed wouldn’t come loose and make the hatch open and make me go flying out the back of the car (along with the cabinet). Fortunately, we both survived.

The trees in front of my parents’ house were ablaze in orange. The neighbors had orange pumpkins outside and fake purple cobwebs draped on their shrubs.

After my parents and Matt and I lugged the cabinet into the house and into a good position, my parents took us out to lunch. On the drive through town, we passed house after house decorated for Halloween: pumpkins, ghosts, more fake purple cobwebs. Fake purple cobwebs must be the thing for Halloween 2005.

In the late afternoon, Matt and I took the bus back into the city and went home. A while later I went book shopping: I went to the Strand, Barnes & Noble, and Shakespeare & Company. (I didn’t buy anything.) By the time I was finished browsing, it was dark outside. The streets around Broadway were packed with pedestrians – shoppers, promenaders, NYU students.

As I said, this is my favorite time of year – the fall, especially the time around Halloween. The air is crisp and everything feels alive. Too bad it’s so fleeting; then again, that’s probably why I love it so much.