I have come to regard November as the older, harder man's October. I appreciate the early darkness and cooler temperatures. It puts my mind in a different place than October. It is a month for a quieter, slightly more subdued celebration of summer's death as winter tightens its grip.
People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
Whenever I am not traveling during the winter, I am pushing hard in the gym. Even when I am traveling, I try to fit a workout in at the hotel. And if the hotel doesn't have a gym? You can get a good workout in your room with an exercise band and some imagination.
When all the world appears to be in a tumult, and nature itself is feeling the assault of climate change, the seasons retain their essential rhythm. Yes, fall gives us a premonition of winter, but then, winter, will be forced to relent, once again, to the new beginnings of soft greens, longer light, and the sweet air of spring.
As winter approaches - bringing cold weather and family drama - we crave page-turners, books made for long nights and tryptophan-induced sloth.
There are only two seasons - winter and Baseball.
I think the Winter Olympics are definitely on a smaller scale than the summer games, but with the inclusion of cool new sports like slope style skiing and snowboarding, it is going to breathe new life into them and attract a whole new crowd.
One of the best gifts you can give to an animal is a donation of a blanket to your local animal shelter during the winter months.
What, I sometimes wonder, would it be like if I lived in a country where winter is a matter of a few chilly days and a few weeks' rain; where the sun is never far away, and the flowers bloom all year long?
I think it was lucky that during most of the work on the Odyssey I lived on Homer's sea in houses that were, in one case, shaken by the impact of the Mediterranean winter storms on the rocks below.