I've made the trek from Danny's back home so many times now, it's old hat. The path back is down a bunch of neighborhood streets that are lit, but only dimly so. The streets are all off the main roads, and I'll usually see one or two cars actually drive by.

It's a solitary walk, and I often find myself getting super contemplative and sad on the walk back. Partly I think it's the lighting and the lateness of the evening. Mostly, I'm guessing it's the scotch.

Tonight, walking home, I was looking into the houses along the way. From the sidewalks, I could see the outlines of curtains, the lights left on above the stairwells, dark kitchens, the flickering of a movie on the TV. Houses are, in my mind, inexorably tied to couples, to relationships. Seeing those houses along the way made me think I'm falling behind somehow, that I should be farther along on the way to getting married, or buying a house.

Perhaps it's not the houses. Maybe it's all the signs I saw of the people inside the houses that was making me a bit sad. The porch lights left on. The coffee cups still on the countertops. And me walking back, knowing full well that at the end of my journey there was no one there waiting for me when I got home.

This was the one cool thing I spotted on the way back. Seeing this sort of shook me out of my reverie, and actually made me smile.