Last night we went to a movie and then out for a few drinks afterward. We got home around one in the morning. We talked up the babysitter a bit.

I was mostly being polite to her. She's such a sweet girl, and I almost think of her as a kind of surrogate daughter. But apparently she didn't understand the way the evening was supposed to go. The Bunny and I go out, we have a few drinks, and then we come home and do things that require the babysitter to be somewhere else.

After what felt like six and a half years, she was finally ready to leave. I drove her home, paid her, and drove back to our house. At home, I stood outside the back door having one last cigarette before I went inside for the night. Bunny saw me watching her through the patio door and did her best to give me every reason to go back in the house.

That was my favorite moment of the evening. It was better than the movie, the drinks with friends, and everything that came later. I loved that moment. It was serene, peaceful. It was a moment of stillness before the passion and the inevitable afterglow. I loved the calm I felt inside as I stood on my deck, smoking and watching her through the glass with the year's first snow melting in my hair.