Call me basic, but there’s nothing more I love in the fall season than a good pumpkin spice coffee.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever got one – I was a freshman in high school, and I had just started using Twitter. I had followed one of those “Basic White Girl” humor accounts, and I started seeing a lot of mentions to the mythical pumpkin spice latte. At that time, I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker, but I liked it well enough, so, one day when I was out with my parents in early fall, hitting up some neighborhood yard sales, I decided to stop in Starbucks and give one a shot.

I even remember what I was wearing – an oversized knit sweater from Hollister, black leggings, and Uggs – that was how earth-shattering of an experience drinking this coffee was for me.

The thing is, I didn’t even like it that much. Like, it was good enough, but in terms of decadent Starbucks coffees, I still think their Christmastime salted caramel latte is 10 times better.

I think what was such a big deal to me, was that it was one of my first experiences buying into an image. I didn’t necessarily like the pumpkin spice lattes themselves, but I did like the image of a Starbucks-guzzling, PINK yoga pants-wearing, messy bun-sporting basic teenage girl. Maybe it had something to do with being a freshman in high school who was still enchanted with the concept of being in high school.

At any rate, pumpkin spice lattes have since become a staple in my fall lifestyle. I still don’t love them, but I like to have one or two before Thanksgiving rolls around.

Today, I had my first one of the season – though actually, it wasn’t a real latte…it was just a pumpkin spice-flavored black coffee from a café at Notre Dame called Waddick’s. It wasn’t quite as good as the legendary Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, but it it was half the price of  Starbucks, so it worked for me.

You know what else works for me? White backgrounds for photos. Seriously, I love them, so much so that I walked a whole extra 10 minutes after I got my coffee to the library so I could sit at a white table and take pictures of it. On the way, I picked some flower petals to add some color to my photos, and I had a nice little photoshoot right there in the library foyer. Call me extra.

Anyway, it’s probably time for me to get back to work now. We’ve got a home game tonight at five, which means that my entire evening is basically going to be consumed by football. You’d think my professors would let up on homework for football weekends, considering that this is a huge football school…but no.

Two weeks to fall break. I can do this.

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