There's some muscle group around your shoulders that seizes up during the perfection dance and doesn't let go until you are asleep, or alone. Or maybe it never really lets go at all.

My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.

Now the baby boomers, i.e., us, are getting older, and were suddenly discovering that there are great things about getting older. You have time for your friendships and you appreciate them in ways that you didn't before.

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.

A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn't believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation.

Predictions that unit cohesion could not survive honesty about sexual orientation were simply wrong. What does threaten morale arethe prolonged investigations, the questioning of friends and co-workers, the searches of barracks for magazines and letters, the witch hunts.

Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.