The other morning I sat in the pre-dawn darkness on my porch, wrapped up against the cold, staring at the stars with their piercing, distant magnificence. I listened to invisible raccoons running through the trees, saw the inky outline of the branches bending under their weight. I heard the soft clopping of deer hooves, and then the owl’s resonant, echoing call in the middle distance.

One of the more interesting phenomena of middle age is the recognition of just how very stupid and arrogant you have been up to wherever you find yourself near the halfway point.

I was out with a friend last night, enjoying a real manhattan in a real bar (at night no less, and mid-week! The stars must be in some rare alignment) and in the course of conversation my friend said in a rather Eeyorish way—combining wit, humor and severe cynicism—that he could see his future, and what he saw looked a lot like a trailer park.