I’m not always the biggest fan of leaves. I mean, salad is objectively the worst, and I once had an unfortunate incident involving a bathing suit and poison ivy. But despite my general leaf apathy, I must confess that the recent foliage sitch in New Haven has gotten me relatively jazzed. Two reasons: First of all, I find that a warm color palette complements my complexion really nicely. Put me in a Barbour jacket next to a Gothic building and a pretty tree and I swear you’ll think you walked into a J. Crew catalogue. Secondly, fall foliage allows for the most ideal Instagram situations (#fallstagram). While fairly inactive on Instagram myself, I’m an active stalker of other people’s Instagrams, so let me break this down for you. Aesthetically pleasing landscape + seasonal timeliness + showcase of school pride + ironically ambivalent caption = Insta gold. You may not get as many likes as you did for that picture where you’re doing bunny ears on Stephen Colbert, but you’ll at least reach Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie levels. Pretty good for what is essentially a picture of a plant with the caption, “Not bad.”
D: Campaigns
In the movies, when a mysterious guy knocks on the door and asks “Is (your name) home?” the main character is about to either fall in love or get axe-murdered. And by the time the 12th canvasser banged on my dorm room door and asked me who I was voting for in this year’s Ward 1 alder race, I would have gladly settled for either of those options. It’s not that I don’t care about elections in general—fulfilling civic duties is my bread and butter. I also realize that canvassing is an important part of election campaigning and can see why people do it. However, as much as I support canvassers as theoretical entities, I really hate actual canvassers when they interrupt me as I’m trying to learn how to fishtail braid my hair by watching instructional YouTube videos. If I decide to give up on having awesome hair in order to answer the door, then I’m at least hoping to be greeted by Chinese food that my roommate ordered.
F: Double standards for muffin tops
As Jenna Maroney once said, “everyone knows that the most delicious part of the muffin is the top.” Yet while muffin tops are undeniably desirable in the context of breakfast pastries, they are decidedly unsexy when considering the human body. This muffin/human double standard has become increasingly apparent now that we’ve arrived at the time of year when you start to carry a little extra blubber on your body to stave off the winter cold. I mean, buying a Canada Goose jacket is a lot more expensive than eating eight magic bars, and they both essentially serve the same purpose—provide insulation. However, when you finish a bag of half-priced Halloween candy in one sitting, your gain in outerwear money is balanced by a loss in sex appeal when you realize that you can no longer wear jeans without looking like a mushroom. Luckily, this problem can be solved by simply wearing leggings all the time because a) leggings make people think you’re sporty-chic and b) they allow you to drink full-fat pumpkin spice lattes while enjoying the comfort of an elastic waistband. It’s true that you might develop frostbite on the exposed area of skin between the bottom of your leggings and the top of your shoes, but until society affords human muffin tops the same glorified status as real-life muffin tops, it’s a price you’re going to have to pay.