It’s getting dark a lot earlier these days, isn’t it? Well, it is in the northern hemisphere, which is the portion of the planet I call home. Not the whole hemisphere, but a little speck on it. That’s where I live, right there, where the sun seems to be going down in the middle of the afternoon lately.

I don’t like it. I didn’t get enough summer to get me through the winter. I was expecting to store up a few more warm days before the darkness took over, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. The way thing are right now, with the overcast lasting until almost noon, by the time the air gets warmed up the sun starts to disappear. Soon it will be bitter and bleak all day every day. I’m not ready.

Here’s my beef. It’s now starting to get dark at exactly the same time I’m knocking off work for the night. That means I can’t sit comfortably in my easy chair and thumb through the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly while watching my TiVo’d episode of General Hospital. I mean, I can’t read Proust while listening to Rachmaninov. That’s why I’m raging against the dying of the light.

I’m not sure anyone can read Proust while listening to Rachmaninov, but that’s another question altogether. I know I can’t do it in the dark, which was the point I was trying to make in the most obscure and circuitous way possible. Not that I would try it at solstice in Lapland either.