Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: happy
  • Music: Christian Kane, "Making Circles."

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Last night, as the first rain of the season washed the world clean and gray and filled the air with the smell of ozone and damp leaves, I curled up on the couch, flipped through the channels, and settled, wonderfully, on Halloween II: Kalabar's Revenge, which was airing on the Disney Channel. The first two Halloweentown movies are among my favorite of the Disney Channel Originals (DCOMs), and the second is my favorite of the two, since it spends so much of the movie being about Marnie and Luke and their weird witch/goblin love. (I don't care if they went and canonically hooked Marnie up with a traditionally pretty warlock boy in the third movie. She and Luke are my DCOM OTP.)

There are Pumpkin Spice lattes at Starbucks and Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts at Target and pumpkin pancakes at the IHOP. Empty buildings are transformed into sprawling Halloween wonderlands with names like "Spirit" and "Halloween Central." Many of them used to be Borders stores. It's like changing one kind of personal church into another, more transitory, beacon of faith.

I spent the last night of September wandering lost in a vast corn maze, stopping periodically to hug the corn, to bury my face in the leaves and just breath in the sweet green smell of the autumn coming in. If one of the boutique perfume companies could make a perfume that was the exact smell of corn maze at midnight, with the dirt and the green and the ripening corn and the cool night air...I would buy twenty bottles. I would sell my entire current perfume collection if I had to, in order to buy more bottles of that perfect corn maze scent. Because it would be the scent of my soul.

For me, this really is the most wonderful time of the year. This is the time when the air smells right, when the coffee tastes right, and when it's easiest to resist the siren song of things I shouldn't be eating, because those things are everywhere.

October is like coming home.
Tags: good things, so the marilyn, this is halloween
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 74 comments
Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →

martianmooncrab

October 4 2011, 18:00:06 UTC 5 years ago

and the candy corn ripening....

seanan_mcguire

October 4 2011, 21:24:28 UTC 5 years ago

YES.

tenaya_owlcat

October 4 2011, 18:02:36 UTC 5 years ago

Since you mention wandering through a huge corn maze, I have to ask... were you at the one in Dixon? 'Cause that maze is great. :)

seanan_mcguire

October 4 2011, 21:24:42 UTC 5 years ago

No, Pirates of Emerson, in Pleasanton.

tenaya_owlcat

5 years ago

  • New comment

sheistheweather

October 4 2011, 18:03:20 UTC 5 years ago Edited:  October 4 2011, 18:03:32 UTC

Birthday season, for me.

vulpine137

October 4 2011, 18:09:59 UTC 5 years ago

You and me both. Makes for a great season, doesn't it ?

sheistheweather

5 years ago

  • New comment

melchar

5 years ago

  • New comment

wcg

October 4 2011, 18:06:56 UTC 5 years ago

May the Great Pumpkin grant all your wishes.

seanan_mcguire

October 4 2011, 21:25:39 UTC 5 years ago

And yours as well.

tsgeisel

October 4 2011, 18:10:42 UTC 5 years ago

Those other people can have their Spring. It's all about Autumn for me.

seanan_mcguire

October 4 2011, 21:25:49 UTC 5 years ago

Yes.

eksleebriss

5 years ago

  • New comment

cupcakery

October 4 2011, 18:15:45 UTC 5 years ago

I make pumpkin cinnamon pull apart bread the other day. It was heaven in food form.

childinthegrave

October 4 2011, 18:50:59 UTC 5 years ago

oh my god, is there a recipe for this amazingness?

cupcakery

5 years ago

  • New comment

ceosanna

5 years ago

  • New comment

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

  • New comment

cupcakery

5 years ago

  • New comment

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

  • New comment

evaleastaristev

October 4 2011, 18:43:31 UTC 5 years ago

32 ounzes of Candy Corn, $5.

I love October.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 15:29:12 UTC 5 years ago

Mmmmmmmmmmmm candy corn.

childinthegrave

October 4 2011, 18:52:42 UTC 5 years ago

i dislike corn mazes, but that may be because i got hopelessly lost in the first and only one i went in and ended up cutting through the corn toward the spotlights of the parking lot two hours later (only to find out that i never made it more than a quarter of the way in, i felt like a major dink). i do agree the smell of ripening corn and earth is quintessentially "autumn" for me, though.

seanan_mcguire

November 9 2011, 16:09:41 UTC 5 years ago

Whoops.

It's an amazing smell, it really is.

manwe_iluvendil

October 4 2011, 18:55:13 UTC 5 years ago

It's my favorite month of my favorite season. And not just because my birthday is on the 30th. Fall is fucking magical, dammit.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 15:30:23 UTC 5 years ago

FUCK YEAH, PUMPKIN KING.

Deleted comment

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 15:28:52 UTC 5 years ago

Me, too.

tikiera

October 4 2011, 19:08:53 UTC 5 years ago

We went apple picking/apple buying last Saturday. It was a perfect opening for the Halloween month for me. I bought way too many apples, as despite the heat, it finally smelled like autumn, and half of that was the heirloom apples I picked up. I have been eating 2-3 apples per day every day since, and wow, it seems to be good for me.

This morning smelled like cold. It smelled like cold and the air felt like autumn.

Tomorrow I buy Night of the Comet, pick up nail polish in Halloween colors for my next pedicure (orange or glow in the dark green with black crackle - can't decide which).

As much as this week has been horrid so far, the fact that Halloween is already beginning to show it's colors helps so very much.

I now just need to find candy corn sans HFCS.

paksenarrion2

October 5 2011, 00:30:39 UTC 5 years ago

I love Night of the Comet. It is so cheesy but just satisfyingly good.

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

  • New comment

tikiera

5 years ago

  • New comment

tikiera

5 years ago

  • New comment

gwynnega

October 4 2011, 19:10:24 UTC 5 years ago

It's my favorite time of the year, too.

Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts? How did I not know of this?!?

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:46:26 UTC 5 years ago

This is only their second year!

mskauri

October 4 2011, 20:49:38 UTC 5 years ago

Another LJ buddy (a marine biologist in Long Beach, CA) posted this link and I immediately thought of you!

Happy Halloween!

http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/happy-halloween.html

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:46:10 UTC 5 years ago

Best plush EVER.

sirriamnis

October 4 2011, 21:53:52 UTC 5 years ago

I have to know, how are the pumpkin pie poptarts? Because if they're good, I'm buying a case. I love all things pumpkin, too. In fact, I just had pumpkin bread for a snack, in spite of our bakery's insistence on putting raisins in it.

Fall is the best time of year, hands down. It's always been my favorite. And in Seattle we get leaf piles!

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:45:19 UTC 5 years ago

They. Are. DELICIOUS. They're like a robot's conception of pumpkin pie.

sirriamnis

5 years ago

  • New comment

incandescens

October 4 2011, 22:12:46 UTC 5 years ago

I really, really, really, really, really wish we had stuff like corn mazes and Halloween wonderlands over here in England. It is Not Fair.

(sighs)

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:44:42 UTC 5 years ago

It's a good reason to visit the US during October, though!

roadnotes

October 4 2011, 23:37:32 UTC 5 years ago

I am going to try a pumpkin spice latte, thinking of you.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:24:26 UTC 5 years ago

YAY.

tekalynn

October 5 2011, 00:45:48 UTC 5 years ago

YEAH.

♥

Hear hear, and thank you.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:23:46 UTC 5 years ago

Always welcome. :)

muddlewait

October 5 2011, 01:19:51 UTC 5 years ago

Beautiful observation about the old Borders stores. I'll be looking for that now.

The only seasons that feel right to me are this one, and a winter that's cold enough to bite. Basically, Orion time. But between the two, this wins, easily.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:23:29 UTC 5 years ago

The most wonderful time of the year.

gemdol

October 5 2011, 02:47:58 UTC 5 years ago

Pumpkin pie Pop-Tarts?! Ooh. I wonder if my Target has them.

seanan_mcguire

October 28 2011, 14:22:35 UTC 5 years ago

Look in the standard Pop-Tart aisle, not in the Halloween section.

adamselzer

October 5 2011, 03:12:06 UTC 5 years ago

October is like busting out of jail. I spent October 1st of 1994 (perfect gray october day) biking around with "sullivan street" in my head and had something of an odd, transformative experience. It was the first day I felt like the version of myself that I've been ever since. I've been other versions of me, but always bouncing back and forth around the spine of who I was that day. It could only have been in October.

seanan_mcguire

November 7 2011, 22:39:43 UTC 5 years ago

...awesome.

Best anecdote ever.

thedragonweaver

October 5 2011, 04:07:41 UTC 5 years ago

This is exactly the song line *I* think of when October rolls around too!

Back in the day, when I worked at Borders, we had our own cafe and a yearly promotion of a coffee & chai flavor called "Pumpkin Spice." For some reason I was away on a visit right before this promotion was to start and came back to a morning meeting where the staff had decided that Pumpkin Spice was the missing Spice Girl and "you're going to draw her." Hu?

So my first one had, basically, a perky redhead in a witch's costume holding a pumpkin. And our sales were good. So the next year I drew a new one where her red roots were showing through black-dyed hair. And our sales were better. It wasn't anything particularly special, only that a pretty girl caught the customers' eye and gave us the chance to explain what this product was. I drew one more for the store before I moved and I've drawn one since for a recipe collection. Only the latter two are currently online.

Pumpkin Spice 2004 Pumpkin Spice 2006

seanan_mcguire

November 18 2011, 15:41:15 UTC 5 years ago

Oh my cheese she's ADORABLE. Great work!

starmalachite

October 5 2011, 06:05:02 UTC 5 years ago

FYI: besides their usual holiday goodies, Bath & Body works has very pretty silvertoned pierced candle surrounds in pumpkin patch & sitting fox (hi, Vixy!) patterns.

seanan_mcguire

October 5 2011, 17:55:33 UTC 5 years ago

Ooooooo.

gwyd

October 5 2011, 08:57:52 UTC 5 years ago

While my specific loves are not quite yours, I feell the same way about October.

seanan_mcguire

October 5 2011, 17:40:51 UTC 5 years ago

Yay!

serge_lj

October 5 2011, 14:14:40 UTC 5 years ago

If one of the boutique perfume companies could make a perfume that was the exact smell of corn maze at midnight...

Shouldn't you write that story?

seanan_mcguire

October 5 2011, 16:46:03 UTC 5 years ago

I'd rather have the perfume.

ladymurmur

October 5 2011, 14:37:32 UTC 5 years ago

I have crunched through crispy yellow fallen leaves on my way to the mail box each day this week.

Spring may be pretty, but Autumn is perfect - the tang in the air, the colors of all the different trees, everything makes me feel more alert and alive in Autumn.

seanan_mcguire

October 5 2011, 16:45:50 UTC 5 years ago

YES.
Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →