When you have a baby around, the baby is the movie. We occupy an entire entertaining hour just on drool, nonnarrative drool.

On the other hand, there are few creepier moments in cultural tourism than when a site tries to rewrite its past.

The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories.

I was such a young fogy that growing up involved becoming less mature.

California is about the good life. So a bad life there seems so much worse than a bad life anywhere else. Quality is an obsession there— good food, good wine, good movies, music, weather, cars. Those sound like the right things to shoot for, but the never-ending quality quest is a lot of pressure when you’re uncertain and disorganized and, not least, broker than broke. Some afternoons a person just wants to rent Die Hard, close the curtains, and have Cheerios for lunch.