Category: Megalomania

A Bisexual Woman’s Thoughts on Cis Het Men

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Christin aka Kiki is a middle aged white woman with short, dark pink hair. She's holding up a bi pride flag in such a way that it shows off her rainbow pride ring and obscures her mouth and nose. Happy Pride. I had a bisexual thought and since I have the time, I’m going to share it with all of you. I’m not the least bit sorry.

I was thinking the other day that I feel sorry for some cis het guys. You have the best good fortune of being attracted to women, right? Women are beautiful. They come in the widest, most exquisite varieties of beauty. It’s a naturally occurring thing. They exist and they’re beautiful. I love being attracted to women. It is four leaf clover lucky to be attracted to women.

And yet…

There are some cis het men who limit themselves in their attraction. There’s an entire buffet of women out there, all of these choices, but they insist on only indulging in one specific item. And it seems that their restriction is based almost entirely on the fact that the one thing they allow themselves is approved by other men. Even if they don’t want it, even if they’d rather have something else, they still restrict themselves to that one thing.

It’s probably not in the best taste (pun possibly intended) to compare women to food, but let’s face it. Cis het men are starving themselves.

Now, this would be about the time that some people might bring up preference. People have preferences. Are cis het men not allowed to have preferences?

Yes. They are. My point is that some of them are choosing to suppress their preferences in favor of pursuing women that other men approve of, and these men have also been conditioned by the pedo beauty standards and patriarchal need to keep women small. They aren’t acting on their preferences because, my god, what will the bros think?

There’s also the fact that a preference is something that you prefer. I prefer curvy women, but I won’t turn down a woman who’s not curvy because that’s not the only attraction metric I use. Yes, finding someone physically attractive matters, but if I am attracted to other aspects of a person, then I’m guaranteed to find them physically attractive, even if they’re not my preference.

For some cis het men, that one preference is the ONLY point of attraction and they will not accept anything else, which really makes it less of a preference and more of a demand.

Now, this would be the time that some people would say that I’m just mad and/or bitter that I’m fat and ugly and men don’t like me, and again, let me point out…I’m attracted to women. Yes, I’m also attracted to men, and I have no doubt that a great many men would trip over themselves to tell me that I’m hideous. Those are not men that I want to know. Those are not men that I will twist myself into something acceptable for. I don’t have to. Not when I can simply exist and have women be attracted to me.

I realize that these are just some shallow thinky thoughts on a much deeper subject. There’s a whole lot more to this whole men-dating-for-men phenomenon and I know that other people have spoken more eloquently about it.

I’m just saying that you’re attracted to women and you won’t even let yourself enjoy them.

That’s wild.

Wanna Watch Me Juggle?

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Black silhouette of a man pushing a huge boulder up a hill against a blue background.I’m not good at juggling.

I get the mechanics of it. I can watch a juggler do their thing and I can see what they’re doing and how to do it. However, I’m lousy at it. I know that practice would help me get better, but I’m still lacking that certain something that would make me great at it and I know it.

Am I talking about literal juggling? Or am I talking about life?

Both, actually. No matter which one we’re talking about, my skills are severely lacking.

I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now, and I say that knowing full well that there are people who would trip over themselves to inform me that I don’t actually have a lot going on because they have more going on or know someone who has more going on, and also there’s a lot going on in the world, so maybe I shouldn’t be so self-centered right now. All of this accurate. But it’s my blog, and I’ll whine if I want to.

My dad, who has lung cancer among other health issues, is doing chemo again (a different kind of chemo from last year) which requires him to go for a four hour infusion three days in a row every three weeks. If they don’t let him take his hemoglobin shot at home, it’s four days in a row, that last trip lasting less than a half an hour. Then he has a follow-up appointment with his PA the next week. These are all 50+ mile round trips, usually earlier in the morning than either one of us want to be up and on the road.

Since I don’t have a grown-up job and only work part-time, I’m not missing much work by sitting in the waiting room for four hours those three days a week. I work from chemo, as it were, putting in four hours before I go in for my shift an hour late. It makes for a very long day. If your math is any good, you’ll realize that I’m actually working more on chemo days than on regular days (usually). Those extra hours go in as comp time. I have a lot of comp time.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I could possibly have that much work to do outside of the library. I mean, don’t I just shelve? Help patrons? Read all day? *insert other misconceptions about library work here*

Well, I run two local history true crime programs, one for adults and one for teens. They alternate months, but it still amounts to needing six cases for the adults and six cases for the teens. These require a lot of research as well as my own need for notes. Pages of notes. I’m in perimenopause. I can’t be trusted to remember words.

I’m also in charge of the library’s podcast. Now, I can’t record or edit in the chemo waiting room, but those episodes need scripts written and research done. That can be done at chemo.

Speaking of podcasts, in addition to the library’s podcast, I also have one and half podcasts of my own. I do Here, Watch This with my friend Shann, who does all of the heavy lifting when it comes to editing and producing. I just have to record and edit my part. And also watch the episode picked for me and write up my script for it. So, yes, it does take a little bit of work, but not nearly as much as it could.

I also have my podcast, Book ’em, Danno, which I do all of the heavy lifting on. I’ve finished the seventh season and I’m working on some prep work for the eighth.. I’ve got things pretty well down to a science, but it still takes time and work. And I’m doing this podcast work and that podcast work around the library podcast and the library work and the chemo schedule.

And the domestic schedule! I’m the only reasonably healthy adult in the establishment, so I’m in charge of all the cooking (which I was already doing most of anyway) and cleaning and yard work and most of the maintenance and also the caretaking. My dad can do many of the important and unimportant things on his own, but he still needs lookin’ after. I don’t think people understand how much problem solving is required with long-term illnesses. From figuring out pain management to keeping them comfortable to making adjustments to help them function better. It’s a lot.

So many balls in the air. I’m bound to falter from time to time. Damn certain to drop a few balls now and then. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like the ones I drop roll under the fridge.

My arms are tired. I’m exhausted.

My only option is to put down some of these balls. Put them aside and pick them up in the pattern again later. Or give them to someone else entirely. That’s what I’ve decided to do.

I’ve hired out the lawn mowing. Well, the front yard. I’m rewilding the backyard for my local critters and pollinators, which will require much less work, but still give me the outside break that I need. Digging in the dirt and talking to some flowers is a mood booster. The rest of the yardwork I can handle on an as needed basis.

Here, Watch This has gone on indefinite hiatus (in part because Shann is juggling a lot right now, too). I’m looking at extending my usual hiatus between Book ’em, Danno seasons, giving myself a little more of a break and a little more time to get ready before kicking off Season 8.

You might have noticed that I didn’t blog at all in March. I don’t want to completely put the blog on hiatus, but I think posts will be happening randomly instead of on a weekly schedule. If I have the time and energy, you will know.

There’s not much I can do about the caregiving, the library work, and the housework, but without those other balls, the juggling will get a lot easier.

Maybe even easy enough that when it’s time to add those other balls back in, I’ll be a juggling pro.

I Know That Face

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Split picture showing Grandma Bert, a white woman in her fifties with short, wavy hair and a big smile. She's wearing Santa Clause earrings, a red blouse, and a flower print vest and Kiki, a white woman in her forties with short brown and silver hair and a big smile. She's wearing a white shirt, a black vest, and she's got sunglasses on the top of her head.I do not look like my parents. I don’t look like my sister. And my sister doesn’t look like either of our parents. Growing up, I heard, “you don’t look like your mom” and “you don’t look like your dad” a lot. I once had someone tell me that one of my friends looked more like my sister than my actual sister does. Our family portraits look like Olan MIlls grabbed four randos off the street to create a sample family portrait to lure legitimate families in for a sit.

This isn’t a case of adoption or babies swapped in the hospital (I maintain that my mother made us do the ancestry DNA thing because she was sure that she’d taken the wrong babies home). We aren’t total strangers. My eye color comes from my dad and his dad. I sound like my mom’s sister and sometimes my sister and sometimes my mom. But, the point is that I’ve gotten used to not seeing myself in my family. I’m not like my cousins or my friends who ended up being carbon copies of their parents, or have children that are replicas of themselves. I look like me and no one else.

Except maybe not so much anymore.

A long time ago, my dad’s aunt told me that I had the same kind of cheekbones as my grandma. I dismissed it at the time because I didn’t really see it. I’ve always had excellent cheekbones even at my heaviest and I admit that my grandma had some fabulous cheekbones, too, but I never thought they were similar.

Carrie once told me that she always wondered where my nose came from until she saw a picture of my grandma. I never thought our noses looked that much alike, so I dismissed the notion of similarity. After all, I’d always looked like me and nobody else.

And then one day, a friend of mine and I took a selfie and when I saw it, I immediately thought, “Holy shit, I look like my grandma”.

Because I kinda do.

It seems that as I’ve gotten older, I’m aging into resembling her.

This is not a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing. My grandma was a beautiful woman. It’s just not something that I anticipated happening. I spent my life only looking like me. It never occurred to me that I might age into looking like someone else in my family. Obviously, I’m not evolving into her mini me (except maybe in attitude and willingness to use a fly swatter as a weapon), but the similarities that we do have, the features that I did inherit, have become more pronounced as I’ve aged. It’s honestly kind of wild.

My grandma died in 2004 when she was 65. I was 24 then. I’m 46 now. I admit that sometimes when I catch sight of myself in the mirror or in pictures and I think I’m look like my grandma, it’s a little bittersweet. ‘Cause I miss her.

I can only hope that I continue to age well in her honor.

The Pettiest Hills I Will Die On

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Black and grey photo of a graveyard, featuring several tombstones and monuments in the foreground and bare trees in the background.We all have hills we’re willing to die on.

Many hills are serious business. Like, I will die on the hill that everyone deserves food, housing, and healthcare. Full stop. No exceptions. Genocide is bad. Always. Non-negotiable. Trans rights are human rights. Leave those folks -especially the kids- alone. I got no problem identifying as a problem. I’m pro-immigrant. Abolish the boarders. They’re made up property lines anyway. I’m anti-billionaire. They’re a parasitic class that should not exist. I said what I said.

But there are some hills that I’m willing to die on that are the pettiest hills to plant my tombstone on and I will do so with glee. Here are a few.

Stop calling it a manbun. It’s not a manbun. First of all, you’re gendering hair and that’s weird. Why are you being weird? Also, it’s usually not a bun. It’s a topknot. If you’re going to be condescending, then be right. Also, why the fuck do you care? You got some unfun hang ups about performative masculinity or something?

Stop putting raisins in things. Raisins belong in raisin bran and my great-grandma’s raisin cookies and that’s it. Quit putting them in oatmeal cookies, stuffing, mac and cheese. I am looking so hard at you right now, fellow whites. Knock that shit off. This is more obnoxious than trying to turn cauliflower into everything. Leave that ghost broccoli alone while we’re at it.

Stop saying, “They didn’t teach us that in school.” Yes, they did. You weren’t paying attention. If you were in high school with me and you say this about teaching taxes or budgeting or some other life skill, I will personally kick you in the back of the knee. That class was called Consumer Ed. and it was required to graduate. It’s no one else’s fault that you were too busy talking and didn’t learn shit.

Related and this is very specific: Stop saying, “I never use algebra!” Yes, you do. You use it all the time, but you don’t recognize it because it comes in the form of a word problem instead of an equation. You’re still solving for X. Also, all that learning you did in school -whether you use that specific information or not- developed neural pathways in your brain that you use today. Or maybe not because you’re saying stupid shit like you never use algebra.

This last one is controversial, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you are a parent, stop complaining about the kids these days. These little shits aren’t springing from the ground fully formed with an iPad and a grandiose sense of entitlement. If you think kids are better off playing outside without screens, then do that. You’re literally in charge here. This goes for grandparents, too. You should have done a better job, I guess.

These are just a few of my petty hills and I fully acknowledge how petty they are. They literally don’t amount to the beans the hills are made of, but they’re mine and no, I will not change my mind. That’s the point. I’ll die on these petty hills.

Put it on my tombstone.

Turning 46

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Drawing of a blue and purple striped party hat with a red brim and red knob on top.Here I am, officially on the slippery slope to 50, and lemme tell ya. I feel fine.

Okay, yes, this country is in the toilet and the world is in disarray and I’m probably going to catch a felony in the grocery store parking lot one day, but on a personal, aging level, I’ve hit a certain kind of zen.

My life is never going to look the way people think it’s supposed to. I’ve blown it up too many times, resisted the all of the responsibilities I could until they were rudely forced on me. I never wanted to be an adult, never wanted to be much of anything other than a dreamer. Writing has always been my vehicle for that, but when it came to turning it into a livelihood, that was just a trick I couldn’t pull off. I do believe I’ve come to terms with that. I’m not stopping; I’m just not making bank.

I know that I should be ashamed of myself for being at my advanced decade and not having a full-time job and being single -not just single, but never married single, haven’t had a relationship in years single- living with my dad, which is spoken like some kind of curse, but the guy has been my roommate since I was 15. If I’m going to have a roommate, it might as well be someone who’s got me in the will.

Right now, as I become 46, as I start that roller coaster hill down to 50, I’m actually pretty content with where I’m at in my life. Not complacent. This is a roller coaster, after all. Hands up, test your nuts. But I’m content.

I like my job at the library. I like that I’m being more social and leaving my house more. I love that I’ve discovered the joy of local bands. I love that I’m strengthening my friendships and building new ones and working to rebuild and strengthen family connections. I love that I’ve finally decided to take care of my damn self. It almost gives the illusion that I’m getting my shit together.

I plan on traipsing through 46 with this energy. I feel like I can make the most of 46 with this energy. Because like I said, I’m content not complacent. I want to grow from this point. I want to cultivate this vibe.

I’ve mentioned before about my Remarkable Life plan, and I have honestly seen some things come from it as if by magic, just like Debbie Millman said. What it really is, though, is being conscious of what I want and what brings me joy, recognizing those opportunities, and then being brave enough to take them. Saying “fuck it” has worked some sorcery in my life in the past couple of years, even though those years have been hard.

I can’t manifest my way out of reality. I know that. I know the exact state of everything, from my insides all the way to the very far out. However, I can do my part to make my little piece of existence more bearable.

Joy is rebellion and 46 feels like both.

Setting the Vibe for 2026

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Christin aka KikiWrites is a middle aged white woman with short brown and silver hair and grey eyes. She's wearing teal and purple glasses and a blue and grey split plaid dress. She's doing her trademark smirk at the camera.I wasn’t actually going to do this post considering *gestures at literally everything*, but fuck it. World’s on fire. Doesn’t mean I have to burn. I can still catch a vibe.

Actually, this year, I’m looking to set two vibes.

The first vibe is to get healthy. Not lose weight. Get healthy. I could never lose enough weight to be loved in this society, so yeet that idea from your brain pan. This is about getting healthy. This is a mind/body/spirit venture. This involves me correcting bad habits, creating good habits, and hopefully getting rid of the tendonitis that has plagued me. Yes, it will involve taking better care of my soul’s meat vehicle, but it will also involve taking better care of my mental health, the health of my relationships, the health of my environment, the overall health of my life.

This is actually going to be a rather difficult vibe shift for me to achieve because for all of my selfishness (and I am a very selfish person), it does not translate into taking good care of myself. I’ve never been good at it. I have subtle, self-destructive tendencies that have proven hard habits to break. I’m addicted to negative self-talk disguised as being realistic. I have been subsisting on stress and anxiety for decades.

If I do not have patience and tolerance for people doing bad shit to others out in the world, then I can no longer have patience and tolerance for me doing bad shit to me in my existence. That kind of hypocrite behavior isn’t sustainable.

Related to this first vibe is the second vibe I want to set. I’m going to be more authentic. I’m going to be truer to myself. Does this mean I’m doing to be a better person? No. Absolutely the fuck not. At my core, I’m not a good person. Did you miss the part about being selfish? I’m not very thoughtful. Kindness does not come quickly or easily to me. My self-awareness is sometimes profoundly lacking. I struggle to be considerate. I judge like it’s my job and I get paid commission. I’m not gifted at helping others even when I want to or I try to. I have my flaws and defects and I am very aware of them.

However, I’m tired of restricting myself. I no longer want to hold myself back out of fear or perceived lack or possible rejection or inferred weakness. I don’t want happy and angry to be the only emotions I’m allowed to display. Worrying about how I’m perceived and what the neighbors might think has fucking exhausted me.

I want to openly and loudly care about who I care about in my own knobby, awkward way whether they like it or not. I’m not going to cross boundaries or be a doormat, but I’m going to support them and they’re just going to have to deal with it. I want to express unbridled joy and I want to feel my sadness and I want to be nervous in a healthy, excited way. I want to have tears of all kinds and not be ashamed of any of them.

I have been hard for so long. I’m ready to be soft. I’m ready to be authentically squishy. This doesn’t mean that I won’t have boundaries. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to allow someone to cross me or people I care about. Just because I choose to be softer doesn’t mean I’m not fierce and I’m no longer capable of violence. Remember what I said about being authentic. At my core I am a bad person. I will hurt your feelings and I will not feel guilty about it.

I already started leaning into these vibe shifts before the end of 2025. It felt right and I didn’t want to wait.

I don’t need anyone else’s starter pistol to tell me to go.

A Chapbook of Grief

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A light brown and light red pen lying on a sheet of lined notebook paper.Instead of torturing you with yet another poem this month, I’m going to tell you about a chapbook I’ve been working on with the goal of having the first draft done by the end of the year.

First of all, a poetry chapbook is about 20-40 pages long. The number of poems depends on how long the poems are. I’m a short poem writer. Most of my poems can be contained on one page. So, in my chapbook writing endeavor, I’m looking at about twenty poems just to be safe.

After my friend and roommate Carrie unexpectedly passed away last December, I ended up using poetry to channel a lot of my grief. In the immediate aftermath, scribbling my feelings down let me keep functioning. It was like a release valve. It kept me from exploding into a useless ball of guilt, tears, and snotty Kleenex (but trust me, there was still a lot of all three).

Early in 2025, I decided it would be a good idea to focus this grief and poetry into a chapbook. Purposely write my pain as a way to process and cope. In a way, somewhere in my grief-addled brain, I thought it would be a good way to honor and memorialize Carrie. She always thought she’d be discarded and forgotten, and I didn’t want that to happen. In retrospect, maybe centering an entire chapbook on my own grief wasn’t the best way to do that, but it gave me something to do.

I do believe that it helped quite a bit. I do think I ended up processing more of my grief than I thought I would. However, I also reached a point where I didn’t want to write about it anymore. I was tired of poking at that wound. I didn’t want to pick at that scab anymore. I wanted it to heal. I was afraid to touch it. I could lie and say that I was worried that repeatedly touching it might cause it to get infected, but the truth was that I was tired of the sting and I was afraid it might hurt as badly as it first did if I prodded hard enough. Honestly, it probably would.

So, I stopped thinking about it, stopped writing about it, and kind of ignored it.

I didn’t look at the poems I had written for months. I flinched just thinking about it. And I put off finishing the chapbook so I wouldn’t have to deal with the discomfort of revisiting that intense grief.

So here I am at the end of the year and the first draft of that chapbook is still unfinished. It’s looming on my To Do List and I’m more uncomfortable with the idea of leaving the chapbook unfinished than I am with making myself finish it. Because by not finishing this first draft -even if I never revise it, even if nothing comes of it- feels like I’m letting Carrie down once again.

I’ve got a few weeks until 2026 and I’m going to finish it. I’ve only got a couple more poems left to write. I can do it.

For Carrie, I’ll get it done.

The Family Word

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

An open dictionary with white pages and black text. The entry shown is for dictionary. A yellow tasseled bookmark marks the page. Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.The holidays are a family time, so this is a great time for me to talk about my family’s favorite word, possibly the most versatile word in the family lexicon.

Booger.

I know what you’re thinking. What the absolute fuck? And that’s fair. Nobody is going to think of booger being versatile, yet alone a great word. Stay with me, though. I might change your mind.

First thing’s first: Yes, booger has the traditional meaning of the mucus clumps that hang out in your nose. Booger is also a character in Revenge of the Nerds. Both sides of my family acknowledge these truths. We’re not rewriting the entire dictionary here.

However, on my dad’s side of the family, booger also means an imaginary creature -usually not seen by anyone- that’s scary. For example, when one of the cats gets spooked by something -a noise no one else heard, something only they saw- we’ll say that the cat saw or heard a booger.

This use of the word is also frequently used to describe drug-induced paranoia. “The coke boogers were after him.” “He’s been seeing meth boogers.”

On the flip side, you can also be a booger. Someone who’s a booger is someone who’s easily scared. For example, one of ours cat was scared of everything when she was younger. She was a booger. Boogers have a tendency to see or hear a lot of boogers.

I realize that can be kind of confusing. “She saw a booger because she’s a booger.” Context is very helpful. Also, practice. It’s just something you know.

On my mom’s side of the family, however, booger’s alternate meaning has to do with an injury. You booger yourself up. If you fall and skin your knee, you’ve boogered up your knee. It’s almost always used (at least that I’ve heard) in relation to the skin being bruised or broken. You didn’t booger yourself up if you hurt your back or broke a bone. But if that bone is poking through the skin, then you boogered up your shin when you broke your leg.

Booger can also relate to messing things up. If I’m doing some tiny terrible art and mess up the branches on a tree, then I’ve boogered up that tree. Get into a fender bender? Boogered up the bumper. Mess up your crocheted blanket? You boogered up the stitches.

The interesting thing about this amazingly versatile word is that though my sister and I have been known to use it in every definition, our parents don’t. The years they spent together pre-divorce did nothing to influence each other’s use of the word. I’ve never heard my dad say that he boogered something up and I’ve never heard my mom call someone a booger or be scared by a booger. I find it fascinating that never happened given how folks will pick up on slang and word usage from each other. You’d think after twenty years together, they’d be using booger to its full potential, too.

Maybe their booger resistance was just another reason their relationship didn’t work out.

Patrons in the Wild

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A picture of a row of library books illuminated by several hanging bare bulbs. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.Please note that the title of this post is IN the wild, not GONE wild. That’s a totally different topic.

If you’re just tuning in and are unfamiliar with my lore, I live in a small town and work at the library in said small town. It’s one of those towns that there’s a good chance you know someone’s name or face if you not both, especially if you grew up here, went to school here, and/or work with the public here.

So, the other day, I went to the grocery store and ended up in line in front of a regular patron at the library where I work. As soon as he got in line behind me, he spoke, we exchanged pleasantries, and bid each other a good day as soon as I was done putting my groceries in my cart. It was a perfectly cromulent interaction.

A few days later, I had to go back to the grocery store for the third time that week (it was an ORDEAL) and I ended up saying hello to a different regular patron as we passed each other.

After spending years hermiting, I’m still getting used to this sort of interaction. I’m used to traveling through my day without running into anyone I know well enough to say hello or being recognized out of context. The context in this case, of course, being the library. I do believe we’ve discussed before how I struggle with the object permanence of myself.

Anyway, I’ve had several of these interactions in the last year since I started leaving my house more and acquiring something of a social life. I ran into one regular patron while waiting to be seated with my friend for breakfast at a popular local joint and we ended up chatting about her husband (also a regular) and his latest shenanigans. On another occasion, I said hello to a patron I knew as my friend and I were finding our seats for a showing of Men in Black at the local theater.

The funny thing was that both of those times the bestie I was with, Haley, also said hello to people, which is the norm. Haley knows EVERYBODY in town (she’s related to a good chunk of them), so going anywhere in town with her (and sometimes out of town) is like going out with a celebrity. Expect to get stopped. Usually, I just stand there patiently and awkwardly while she chats for a minute. It’s all good. It’s been the usual for decades and I’m cool with it.

So, it was a real twist to be able to participate in this phenomenon because someone knew me. I was able to chat with my regular patron while she chatted with the lady she knew because they happened to be going to breakfast together, too. It was a wild experience that I hadn’t anticipated.

For someone with anxiety who prefers her social interactions to happen in their usual contexts -like talking to patrons in the library- because I otherwise feel unprepared to people, I’m pleasantly surprised with how well I’ve done encountering patrons in the wild.

There may be hope for me and my social life yet.

Untitled Tree

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Two trees in autumn. The bigger one has golden-orange leaves. The smaller one has red leaves and is more sparse. They stand out against a blue sky and the houses behind them.I realize the title of this post sounds arty, but it’s nothing of the sort. I just couldn’t come up with a clever title.

I try to blog here about once a week (though, let’s be honest, no one notices if I don’t), but there are times when topics are hard to come by. This is one of those times.

So, let’s talk about leaves.

This autumn has been a strange one because the leaves changed late this year. Really late. Like, if it were a woman, it would have taken ten pregnancy tests. We were less than two weeks out from Halloween and most of the trees were still green.

For context, let’s look at my neighbors’ trees.

My neighbor next door has a tree in her backyard that’s one of my favorites because it changes color from the top down, usually starting in late September or early October. In years past, it’s done almost an ombre kind of thing, where it sort of ripples down from orange to yellow. It’s so pretty. I’m in love with that tree in the autumn. It typically holds onto its leaves for the most part -it’s usually still pretty vibrant through Halloween- but in the first part of November, it drops its leaves in a hurry. It feels like it goes from full to naked in a day. I’m sure my neighbor feels that way, too. After all, she’s the one raking it.

This year, it was only a couple of weeks out from Halloween before it started to change. It went through that ombre ripple in record time and dropped its leaves on schedule, around the end of the second full week of November.

My neighbor across the street has a huge tree that I’ve loved since I was a kid. It’s even shown up in a few of my short stories. It’s been marked by the city for removal because it’s technically theirs and it’s unfortunately sick beyond saving. Until then, it continues to go through the motions of the seasons.

In autumn, it’s usually one of the first trees to turn in about mid-September, going a golden-orange, and typically sheds its leaves before Halloween, which has always been kind of a bummer. It’s made to celebrate Halloween in colorful splendor (it did get toilet papered a lot when I was younger, so in a way, it kind of did celebrate).

This year, it didn’t start changing until the middle of October. It was in full, gorgeous color for Halloween this year. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened, or if it’s ever happened. Even better, the leaves held on after Halloween, too. It finally shed the majority of them in a couple of big winds earlier this week.

I am blessed to live in a place that has some gorgeous autumn colors painting my little town. And this year, I was able to enjoy them much later than I normally do.

Too bad it was probably because of climate change.