It's Fall! And Architects are Crazy.

It's fall! Guess how I know: It's not because the weather is cooler. It's not because all of my favorite stores keep sending me updates about sweater sales. It's not even because the main feature of my days is being reminded that school is in session.

I know, because in the last week, I have made 2 batches of pumpkin muffins and a batch of the most complicated (but also the most delicious) chicken pot pie recipe in the world (bon appetit, October 2011 issue - THANK YOU).

So. Much. Pumpkin.

I am also very excited for pumpkin beer, which is apparently going to happen in my kitchen this weekend. I couldn't really wait.. so I might have maybe, perhaps purchased some already...

Also, I would like to start a stereotype. After working in a law firm for 2 years, and in international disaster relief for 2 years, I can comfortably say that the stereotypes about those types of jobs are mostly true. Perhaps not in the greatest extremes that they are sometimes portrayed in, but lawyers do work extremely hard, almost always wear suits and are generally enslaved to the billable hour in some fashion or another. And international disaster relief attracts the rag-tag bunch of mostly cynical, insanely dedicated booze swilling nutcases that you might imagine.

However, the sterotypes about architects are not getting the story right. And as someone who has been deeply let down in the preparedness department by that missing cultural narrative, I would like to set the record straight. Architects are crazy. They. Work. So. Ridiculously. Hard. Do you remember those people were on campus who walked around like zombies who subsisted on panda express instead of human flesh and didn't sleep all semester? I always assumed they were law students or engineers or med students or homeless people who were trying to stay warm in the library. But no, they were future architects. 

They possess crazy of an artist with the attention to detail of an engineer and the work ethic of a junior lawyer at a Biglaw firm. I always imagined them walking around their buildings, wearing all black with a colorful scarf and saying things like "the columns are so very ethereal, don't you think, hmmmmm?". Instead it's more like my husband just slammed the door and face-planted in to bed with his clothes on a mere 20 minutes before my chicken pot pie that I spent six hours cooking him for dinner was done because he hasn't slept in 2 days. And then asks me if I'd like to attend an optional guest lecture with him the next day. 

And that's the last time we were ever awake in the same room  until the Grige graduated from school.
Photo: Summer Jean Photography

I'm sure I don't have to tell you other liberal arts flunkies the laundry list of things I would be doing instead of attending an optional guest lecture if I hadn't slept in 2 days, had barely seen my new wife in 8 weeks and could smell that amazing pie wafting from the kitchen. Duh.

But no, I married an architect. So here it is ladies - these dudes deserve the same warning stickers that lawyers, doctors and future presidents receive: Do not date unless you love spending time alone and being supportive in the face of the sheer madness that is expected of them at work.* 

*note - I aimed this at the ladies, or gentlemen, considering dating an architect instead of aspiring architects themselves, because I'm sure they already know how hard it will be. The rest of us need to catch up.