For years when I took the #1 train with the bucket seats designed for children, I stood for the whole ride, even when there were seats available. I read (reed and red) the Times in paper form, and even when I fold it down the middle lengthwise, I have shoulder discomfort when there are people in the seats on both…

This is interesting but why hasn’t there been more of an exegis of John Fogerty’s Bad Moon Rising and the line “There’s a bathroom on the right.” Were they doing coke in there? Was it reinforced against nasty weather? Is it better to face your end with an empty bladder?

I think I dated you. Take another little piece of my heart now, baby. You’re out on the streets lookin good, and baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right.

I just performed a scientific experiment on my desk chair, which has adjustable height. I started with the seat high, and my knees close together but relaxed. I lowered the chair and my knees naturally fell away from each other. When I pressed my knees together, I felt discomfort not in my perfectly normal private…

The crowning moment of any meal of restaurant Chinese food is when there is a small amount of each dish plus rice mixed together in a small exquisitely flavored mound waiting to be finished. They were always meant to be together at last.

Sometimes I feel desperate that I am running out of time to realize my talent (writing a novel no one will read about a goat and crow who travel across the country together — the naturalistic dialogue is a little monotonous) and then I think about Lindsay Lohan and feel even worse. Why, oh why can she not pull herself…

I spent most of 2015 reading “Bully Pulpit” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I hope that counts.

It’s 160 years later, and we live in a science fiction future unfathomable to Punch cartoonists. The sad thing is that it’s also unfathomable to some presidential aspirants.

The claim or allegation about Bill Clinton’s lying reminds me of an old joke: Washington could not tell a lie, Nixon could not tell the truth, Carter could not tell the difference. The conservative press actively tries to create a myth that Carter was and Clinton is a liar to delegitimize them. Or even worse, to…

Lamb is a new experience you should give yourself (assuming you’re not vegetarian). Like beef but different. Reminiscent of places like England and Ireland where it rains a fair bit. Satisfying in smaller portions. Eat it rare or medium rare. Don’t bother ordering it if you’re going to go medium well or well done;…

He has an excuse-me-but-I’m-concentrating look. June would have had to pry his claws from her shoulders if he hadn’t been up for a little paddle.

I don’t have my copy of Gravity’s Rainbow handy but there’s a riff about Slothrop getting candies from an old lady in London with flavors like cubeb. “Cubeb? Hadn’t he smoked that in college?” Something along those lines.

You may be thinking of the cardboard black olives sold in cans. Chocolate brown olives sold by the pound in a tub at a high end deli or food store are like butter has entered a new stage of existence.

Also, now that you’ve drawn attention to his pocket, is that a gun? or just a stapler he was holding before he had to go out to the podium?

I’m sincere! I use periods because I like to get to the point.

First you play the part of a teenager, then you play a college student and then you play an adult. At some point playing the part turns into being the part. Next step: playing a successful adult. I left out parenthood, but there, the baby teaches you how to be its parent.

The problem is 21-year-olds keep getting younger and younger.

I had a short but satisfying relationship with a homemade mince meat pie, that “Invention of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, an Hodge-Podge of Superstition, Popery, the Devil and all his Works,” two days after Thanksgiving, The bracing muscularity of its flavor had never struck me the same way before. Then it was gone.…

Related: people who wear socks on the beach with no shoes make me feel itchy.

You should reconsider the no long sleeves with shorts rule. In the spring and fall I take hikes wearing cargo shorts and a flannel shirt or sweater. And sometimes even in the summer the temperature can go up or down and a button-down oxford shirt over a teeshirt can come in handy to ward off the chill in the morning…