New York City, October 31, 2013

★★★ In the dark, humid morning, what must have been a mosquito — a mosquito, on the last day of October — had raised a welt on one shoulder. It was warm enough not to worry about layering thick coats over costume tops, so warm that there was no excuse or argument worth making in favor of costume pants. By the time the fleecy dinosaur had been dropped among the other creatures and personages at the preschool, an adult could walk back in short sleeves. A thin, dampening rain fell for a while after lunchtime. The hallways and stairwells were comfortable for a cowboy to roam in; the dinosaur, tail streaming behind him as he tore around corners, had to shed the saurian top of his head, horns and eyeballs sliding back from sweat-matted hair. After bedtime, the thick outside air glowed with trapped light, shining around and through the shade, as insistent against sleep as a giant nightlight or veins full of sugar.