Back in those halcyon days when I was writing food columns for a protectively brilliant editor at the NYT magazine, a literary agent made an overture and I reluctantly agreed to go meet her in her office/apartment. It was like the worst kind of bad date: I thought she was interested in my unique voice; she thought I was in it for the Lotto. And I will never forget the rumpled legal pad she produced with all her brilliant ideas for books — she actually wanted me to write something off tired lists she had been flogging for years. I thought of her every time the Egotist came to town with his tattered yellow pages and pitched, yet again, a column on “shrimp shell stock.” We always said yeah, sure, and somehow it never materialized. Well, now that’s out of the way. And at least it seems a little fresher than the Juiceator. You know, that bullshit gadget Sunday Business hyped a year and a half ago?

In the middle of contemplating this, I went out to do errands and an elegant old woman stopped me on Columbus to ask timidly: “Is today Saturday, or Sunday?” I told her, then walked off thinking: Don’t feel bad, lady — you could be moving copy. (Ratafias, though? Convulsively better than shrubs.)