Autumn’s been good. Short, mostly mild with a few stabs of serious crispness to remind us what real seasons were once like. Colourful. Big sweeps of wind to lift the leaves like birds and make them swarm and swirl and speckle the air. It has at least another week or two to go, according to the weather forecast, but I won’t be here for it.

Being a smoker drives you outside. So I saw the first snow in New York and the first snow in Berlin in consecutive years, just by dint of having to stand outside for half a cigarette, and I sit outside every morning and watch the sky inch around its seasonal clock. I’ve barely been anywhere this year, and find myself oddly sad that I won’t quite see autumn finish out and tick over into winter.

I’ve become a historical structure.

Even the rains are soft, this autumn. I stopped wearing a hat this year, and the rains I’ve been caught in have been little more than mist and spray.

Please, 2016. You’ve been weirdly kind to me with the weather. Please don’t add me to your body count. I’ve been good, I’ve been careful and quiet, and I’m really, really not done yet.