When you quit drinking you stop waiting.

The dog’s agenda is simple, fathomable, overt: I want. “I want to go out, come in, eat something, lie here, play with that, kiss you. There are no ulterior motives with a dog, no mind games, no second-guessing, no complicated negotiations or bargains, and no guilt trips or grudges if a request is denied.

The key, I suppose, has less to do with insight than with willingness, the former being relatively useless without the latter.

Solitude is a breeding ground for idiosyncrasy, and I relish that about it, the way it liberates whim.

When you quit drinking you stop waiting.

Before you open the lunch menu or order that cheeseburger or consider eating the cake with the frosting intact, haul out the psychic calculator and start tinkering with the budget.

Fall in love with a dog, and in many ways you enter a new orbit, a universe that features not just new colors but new rituals, new rules, a new way of experiencing attachment.