As a child, the start of every month would mean I'd wake, gummy-eyed, and mutter softly to myself before saying good morning to anyone, Rabbit, Rabbit. Before the age of Google and despite having been rather a voracious young reader, I heard this on Nickelodeon, and latched on to it as I always had and would always be terribly superstitious. I had no notion of why I was doing it, only that if I didn't, I was cheating myself out of a very real opportunity to plot the course of the next thirty-odd days with a little more luck than I would have otherwise. And I felt - jinxing, horoscope-reading, avoiding stepping on cracks even when I was very, very angry with my mother child that I was - that I needed all of the luck that I could get. To earn better than a B on my math tests. To get picked to play the xylophone. To hold hands with a boy. To turn invisible when it was my turn to do a somersault in gym class (or dribble a basketball, or get picked for kickball, or climb the rope).

Now a new month just means I get paid and can, after paying my credit card bill, break my financial fast from iced coffee and frozen yogurt. I am especially guilty in the summer of finding very little to look forward to but autumn, each month one nearer to November - which is when it comes to Ohio, these days. There is nothing so wondrous or flexible as the faith I had as a child that something small I did could change the whole course of things, unless it's averting an argument with my husband by loading the dishwasher. How grim and dull adulthood is.

I think that's why I write.