And I’ve been pulled out of the aether by a date.

I have to post today, if for no other reason than to electronically shout, “September 9, 2009 — 09/09/09!?” and giggle. When the year 2000 came upon me, it was something of an amusing idea that the next twelve years would be filled with one day a year of “02/02/02″ and other such dates of default awesome. Once we have 12/12/12, though, that’s it for a century. I used to think that meant I was living in special, auspicious times. Perhaps numerically, that’s still true.

Today was another significant day around the neighborhood, though it mostly passed me by. Dozens of school children were on the neighborhood streets today. It was the first day today for most of them, which always makes me feel old now a days. I get nostalgic, too; I actually glanced at kids’ sneakers and backpacks today and yes, they were all brilliantly un-scuffed and hardly worn. As a kid, that was always my favorite aspect of going back to school — the new stuff. New clothes, new shoes. For years I’d had to get a new pair of school sneakers (had to have them for gym class) every year and retire the old ones, which always struck me as both a fun rite of passage but also something of a sad one. I have fond memories of some of those shoes. One pair I’d worn mostly to pieces; years later I found sand and grit still embedded in the blue canvas fiber, leftover from all the times I’d gone sloshing in summer mud with them.

In other update-type news, I’ve been busy. I’ve been rereading some stuff and writing — writing a lot and often — which has been both successful and marvelous, but I do admit, part of me wishes I had both the time and the inclination to read as many new books as I did months ago. In 2007 and 2008, for instance, I devoured book after book on a weekly, if not occasionally daily, basis. But I think my college-starved voracity has stabilized.

(I didn’t read for pleasure in college — at all — until some time during my senior year, which left me feeling quite vaguely bereft until I got my New York Public Library card and its attendant addictive benefits. Studying abroad was probably what ignited the passion for reading once more; turns out when you don’t have a TV in your dorm room in a country where the TV is also not in your native language, but you discover their bookstores carry English language books… well. The rest is chronicled in back entries of this blog.)

I’ve actually been buying books lately, too. For a writer, I don’t really own as many books as I’ve read, which has always struck me as practical (I love my library and my library card!) but also a bit strange. I actually started acquiring new additions to my permanent collection for the simple reason that I wanted to reread them and well, that’s usually my only criteria for a bookstore run. If I’m going to read a book more than once, I will own it, otherwise it’s wasted shelf space. I suppose this means my permanent collection is very well-distilled, by default — only what I consider “good” or those books I’ve gotten as gifts usually end up there. The bookshelf it’s currently piled on (a Billy bookshelf from IKEA, a classic) has shelves stacked two rows deep. We should probably invest in a second bookshelf — well, technically the collection has spilled onto other shelves, but I’m not going to count those — but meh. I know where all of my books are, even if the 800+ page ones are stuffed in the back behind the 300 page ones. (Spine-reading efficiency, you understand; my entire bookshelf is categorized by sizes and shapes, then author and genre. Aesthetics come first on the bookshelf.)

September is probably my month of nostalgia. I do feel it, a little, in May and December (May for school, December for holidays and the new year), but in September that feeling is compounded by my love of learning. I do miss school, the regimented feel of it, the focus and definition it gave me, though strangely I really have no particular desire to go back there now. I just miss the first day of eighth grade. The first day of second grade. Those first days when the binders were too new to have broken rings, when you could make promises to yourself you’d end up breaking  (“I’ll do my homework this year the moment I get home. I won’t procrastinate.”) and you could at least try to reinvent yourself. I have no desire for any of those things now a days, not really, but there’s no real “first day” for me anymore, not in the same way. January 1st is just cold. I think I’m finally starting to understand why parents make such a big deal out of the first day of school for their kids. Maybe the importance of the ritual, the time of year, the newness and excitement of it all isn’t just for their kids.