This time of year, on crisp, chilly, wide-open nights, I like to wander off by myself, find a rock or a railroad tie or an equivalently nippy-on-my-ass-cheeks seat, and sit, and be quiet, and have a cigarette. Just one. I sit, and I just be, and I wait for that moment when the branches and the sky and the buildings get really 3-D, and I see things that I didn't see when I first sat down, and my legs get a little heavy, and I melt into the cold. About a third of the way through the cigarette is my favorite time; that's usually when the nicotine hits. (And after about halfway through, the smoke at the wrong end starts trying to get sucked up, and we can't have that.) I like packing a lighter and the little box of sticks in my pockets, and traipsing out among the leaves to find myself twenty minutes of quiet and rebellion and peace. I could never be a smoker; I like this little autumn novelty far too much.