The cold nights have forced me to compromise my deeply held conviction that the less worn to bed the more comfortably I'll sleep. Because there is no comfort in shivering all night. Even the electric blanket does little more than take the edge off. So for the last two nights I've gone to bed wearing sweatpants and sweatshirt, a far cry from my standard minimalist attire. And last night — incredibly — socks!

This radical upheaval of such a significant part of my belief system makes me wonder how well I truly know myself, but circumstances compel me to surrender the high road. After all, I enjoyed seven hours of deep, dreamless sleep last night. Seven hours! That's just about double my abysmal nightly average, and I did it without sleeping away the whole of a sunny but brisk Sunday morning.

So I've apparently crossed over to the Dark Side. I can't afford to uphold principle when bending the rules affords such pleasure.

Halfway through the football season, I'm getting over the idea that I have to spend my entire Sunday watching thirteen games just because I'm paying for them. It's warmer up in the loft, where I have my lounge chair, originally purchased for a patio at a place where I no longer reside.

Watching football from the loft is not an option, because I can't really see the TV, unless I stand on a box and lean over the balcony rail.

There's no patio here at the Fortress, not even much of a porch — at least, not one large enough to accommodate the lounge chair, which has never, in any case, been left outside. I continue to use it as I always have, as a retreat from work and worry and a place to lose myself, either in a novel or in thoughts of my own making.

On this Sunday, I spent enough time downstairs flipping through channels to keep track of how I was doing in the football pool (quite well, actually) and more time lounging in the loft reading Goodnight, Nebraska, by Tom McNeal. I'm grateful for the cordless phone that allows me to go anywhere in the house without missing a call. Grateful because the Company paid for it. Not that it rang today anyway.

The early sunsets of mid autumn force me to leave the warmth of the loft before I'm ready. By five o'clock, nature's dimmer switch had been engaged, and soon after I was downstairs looking for a sweatshirt and the late scores, along with any news from Florida (if you know what I mean).