In keeping with my vow not to visit my spot so late at night, I stepped outside at 10:30 pm, a whole ten minutes earlier than the night before.

I took a seat in one of our newly acquired adirondack chairs. They are dark green, plastic, and have matching ottomans. We had purchased them from the hardware store earlier in the day because they had been on sale and were in serious need of outdoor seats. (Other than the swing, there's the ground.)

The moon had lost its amber glow and was a brilliant fluorescent white. It had shifted another foot to the left (from my perspective) and seemed to be precisely 54.7% full.

Having experienced the previous night's chilliness, I was better prepared for the cold, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker. I also had socks on to keep my feet warm; thus ending my five-day streak of bare feet.

At night, the world feels larger, emptier. It also feels less real. It's hard to explain, but when I look at the houses and trees around me, they feel like life-sized models and not the genuine articles. High above, the night sky adopts a more ceiling-like quality and if I stare at it long enough, it begins to within the realm of possibility that the next vessel I see crossing the night sky won't be a plane, but a pirate ship. And because reality isn't altogether with it, certain laws and absolutes, like gravity and distance, lose their rigidity, and it's conceivable that one could reach up and grab ahold of a passing ship's railing and pull oneself aboard (if one were so inclined).