The daylights outta me.

Everyone here in New York considers summer over because the kids went back to school. They are aware that summer has officially has 17 more days, but they're thinking of closing the pools and getting the leaf and snow blowers ready for What Lies Ahead. 

My main concern is the lack of daylight. When we hit that first day of fall, the daylight and night darkness will--supposedly--even out. Half and half, Even Steven, Igual Pasquale. Actually, according to Time and Date's invaluable Sun Graph feature, I see that even on the first day of autumn we will have more daylight than darkness, not even counting the twilight. But that won't last long, and soon it will be months of depressing darkness again. Seasonal affective disorder? Moi? Yeah, maybe. 

You can get a good idea of what daylight hours in southern New York look like thanks to the Time and Date sun graph:

It's like a snake that swallowed a big meal in January and is digesting it between May and August. The static bit is of course the daylight savings interruptions in spring and fall. 

Now, let's compare this to the sun graph for a Quito, Ecuador, the Middle of the World City, the city that boasts a monument showing where the Equator runs, and you can stand with one foot in either hemisphere. 

Just as you'd expect -- pretty much straight stripes, the days never getting longer or shorter. I had a friend who lived there for a while, who said he got bored with the perfect weather all the time. I say: Try me.

For the complete opposite, and for alarming comparison purposes, here is the yearly sun graph for the Amundsen-Scott station in Antarctica: 

Isn't that nuts? They say that down there, as at the North Pole, the sun goes down one day and doesn't show up again for six months. This graph shows what a weird thing that is. Look at those huge gray vertical bands--those are sunset and sunrise!

So I see my best options as Quito or running back and forth between the Poles twice a year. Or maybe I should just turn on more lights starting in October. That might be good.