That thing about "the night waltzing in"

1. Are there self-help books on how to cure an addiction to self-help books? 2. At a dinner party about 8 months ago we were talking about how no one really goes out these days and everyone has coupled off and settled down and I said “No one’s really doing the whole friends thing anymore” and my friend Greg said “Friends are so analog.” 3. You know you have really jumped the shark when you’re having a drink in a bar and you look for seats that are far away from the speakers.

4. Please do not make the mistake I always make of telling people you don’t know well absurdly personal stuff to keep up the momentum of a conversation. 5. At B&N they always claimed they wanted “fresh”, creative ideas but what they wanted were more books on guns, dogs and Ireland. When I told Jen’s boyfriend this today at Hill Country he said “How about Dogs Invade Ireland?” 6. There are lots of things about my old boss that if I told you, you’d think I was ripping off episodes of The Office but I’m totally not and all these things really happened. For example, once for Christmas he got a huge FedEx delivery of Omaha Steaks from a vendor and went around the office asking people if they had any ice packs so he could keep it frozen but no one did. He ended up having to leave early and take a cab home to Long Island so he could get the steaks into the freezer right away. 7. Are you happy? 8. My friend Margaret went around the table with her Flip camera asking people that question at a high school reunion type thing over Thanksgiving and it got awkward and really quiet and everyone stopped chomping on Doritos when Sarah admitted she really was not happy at all. 9. Are you baking cranberry bread and does your house have that cozy feel with music playing and candles lit and people laughing and drinking wine while chopping onions in the kitchen that you pictured it would have? 10. Whenever someone says about a neighbor down the street “He seems nice and keeps to himself” run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. 11. Are you surprised by new insights on a daily basis? 12. Is love that stomach drop, shout-from-the-roof, can’t-breathe-without-you elevated feeling or the functional life together where you’ve figured out ways to stop arguing over money or whose turn it is to take down the recycling? (Obviously neither and of course that is a ridiculously naïve and simplistic divide.) 13. You should be flattered to know that I still have your letters, your frantic post cards from every place on earth other than the place where I kept not meaning to end up. 14. People are always happy for “Indian Summer” (politically incorrect) but by that time I am always anxious for the fall to start, to get on with things, to get over the loss of it and accept it and move along and stop that long, drawn out hot haunted requiem.

15. Once in a while people ask me,

“Whatever happened to that novel you were working on?” and someone gave me the advice to just throw the whole damn thing out and start again which I think is really good advice. (Not that I've taken it.) 16. It can’t all be grand stuff. That stuff is exhausting. People don’t think like that. At least I don't think they do.

17. Does that thing still happen to you where you are absolutely dying to have one quiet night at home by yourself and then the second the house is quiet and you are home by yourself you start frantically checking email and facebook and going through your phone contact list and texting everyone you know? 18. I always wished he was a bit more poetic but then I really liked when we were walking up 9th avenue after dinner and it was only just then starting to get dark (this was earlier in the year, way before “Indian Summer”) and he said that thing about “the night waltzing in.”