I don’t want to talk about the news today, or the spectacle of grown men vying for the presidential nomination who give the impression of never having really experienced anything, of having been incubated in some medium entirely devoid of pain. Usually, I’d be able to wring some grim amusement from it; today, all I feel is disgust. If you’ve spent a half century on this planet and been untouched by suffering (Kasich at least give the impression of having a heart), then you’

I was looking out the window at the melting snow on Prospect Street the other afternoon, dreaming of palm fronds rustling in a spice-scented wind, when my wife, who was doing the laundry, started to scream from the basement. I ran downstairs into a cold rain coming down from a twenty-foot pipe, soaking everything in sight. One of those good days. We got the buckets and basins in place, turned off the water, then called the plumber. The man I got on the phone, recommended b