Thinking Only Autumn Thoughts
Hello friends. Happy October.
Here's the thing. It's still getting into the 80s here, which makes it very difficult to feel the joy I want to feel during this month, and so what I'm going to do about that is write an October post and hope it inspires me. And you, too, of course, but mostly me.
I'm extra about October, and about fall, and about Halloween. I always have been. It's my favorite time of the year and I spend the other 11 months wishing for it to be October again. I love warm comfort food, soup and chili and apple crisp and various forms of pumpkin baked goods, and I love the fresh, biting chill of the air when it isn't 80+ degrees, and I love crunchy leaves and the smell of smoke. I love planning a Halloween costume that's a little too elaborate and searching for the pieces, because I refuse to wear store-bought costumes, and wearing it on Halloween night to hand out candy and go to dinner. I love watching horror movies, all year but I go especially hard during this month, and listening to my two Halloween playlists, which I split because I wanted to have 31 songs on each. See? Extra. I love wearing boots and sweaters and leggings and cold weather dresses, and maybe by the end of the month I'll be able to. Speaking of fall clothes, look at this cardigan! I would kill to own it, but I can't afford it. I love burning fall-scented candles and decorating with pumpkins and scarecrows and gourds and mums. I love my ridiculous Pennywise welcome mat.
Many people start feeling seasonal depression around this time, and I have so much empathy for that, but it's not when it hits me. I'm miserable throughout summer and this is when I feel myself coming back to life. Winter is rough, but we're not there yet and we don't have to worry about it right now. Right now, we just have to breathe deep, thank everything we believe in and some things we don't that we've made it this far, and head out to Spirit Halloween.
Can I talk to you about some good things to watch this month? I like Pyewacket for an autumnal woodsy vibe, and The Blair Witch Project, while not my favorite, fills a similar space. Recently I watched Dark Harvest for the first time, which has the benefit of being centered around Halloween, albeit in a pretty grim way, and I enjoyed it so much. It's small and human and very weird and sad, and it won't endear you to small towns. I'm resentful of Trick 'r Treat because it doesn't have audio description and I want to watch it, but it's another that's specifically Halloween-focused and people seem to really like it. Beetlejuice is a must-watch in October, and cable channels know it because it's on constantly all month long. It's my own personal little tradition to watch Urban Legend at some point every October, but I invite you to join me and make it yours too because while this is a very bad movie, it's so much silly fun. It also lacks audio description, and that's annoying, but I find it easy enough to watch without it.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is the absolute pinnacle of spooky fall shows. I'm saying this having never managed to fully finish it, currently on my fourth attempt to do so, but it's not for lack of enjoyment. It's the ADHD. I really do like it and find it very charming, despite my dislike of Kiernan Shipka. My other go-to is Gilmore Girls, and, I mean, I don't think I need to get into it. It's just so comforting, so mindless, so quick and quippy and sweet. Summer doesn't exist in their world. Every one of Rory's boyfriends is the worst human being to ever live and she and Paris should have just kissed already. The grandparents are dysfunctional monsters with so much money and I love them. I love the whole thing.
Nightlight is a podcast of short horror stories written and read by black people, with occasional music and sound effects and sometimes an author interview thrown in, and I recommend it for something a little different. I also recommend Tales From Beyond the Pale, which you used to have to pay for and now you can just listen to as a podcast for free. It's an audio drama where each episode is a different story, and the voice acting is often hilariously corny and it's a very good time curated and hosted by Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid. My favorites include Trawler, Food Chain, Dead Air, Sarah Minds the Dog, Man on the Ledge, Cannibals, Dead Man's Shoes, and Johnny Boy. I do not recommend British and Proud, a rare misstep.
May I also direct your attention to the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark collections, in any format but especially the audiobook narrated by George Irving. It's unhinged and campy and delightful. There are sound effects, reverb, dramatic music, and some of the most over the top narration I've ever heard. No notes. There's apparently a newer version read by famous actors, and I'm sure it's better quality, but this is the one I love. And lastly, Vincent Price reading A Hornbook for Witches,. I tried to get it on vinyl in an Ebay auction last year, but I was outbid at the very last minute, so this has to suffice for now. Vincent Price's voice is truly unparalleled. Even my least horror-inclined readers would be safe with these last couple of recommendations, so you see, something for everyone here.
I just think it's so nice that at the end of every year, when I feel worn down and exhausted and overwhelmed, when summer has sucked all the life out of me, October offers me this reprieve. I can be my full, over-enthusiastic self and indulge in all the things I love most and pretend, even if only for a month, that things are okay. I need it this year more than ever because I am terrified about politics and I'm not ready to deal with the upcoming election and what it might mean, so just for another few weeks, let me live in my candy-coated, blood-soaked, pumpkin-flavored escapist fever dream of a world where it's always the witching hour, always October, always the right time to curl up under a blanket with a hot drink and sink into horror that can't hurt me.
Things are good for me personally right now, despite how that last paragraph may sound. I found out today that I'm being nominated for Best of the Net 2025 by Lavender Review, where Unbuckling My Bible Belt was published last year, and that's tremendously exciting for me even if I don't make the cut. I have a new crush which isn't causing me undue amounts of distress, and while I don't want to talk about it here in specific, I do plan to write something soon about crushes in a broader sense. I also want to write about friendship and the ways the internet has facilitated it for me, because my friends are so amazing and I love them so much and they're all so far away, and about more media I've been loving because there's so much of it all the time, and about writing itself. Maybe I'll even write a new poem. Maybe submit some old poems. Who knows. It's October and I'm alive and the whole world is laid out glittering before me. I could do anything.