Calculating limes on the Pacific Coast Highway.

“From the jungles of his dreaming he recognized why the Japanese voices had merged with Laguna voices, with Josiah’s and Rocky’s voice . . .”

Moving is brutal, but treasures last a lifetime.

“Edgar tried to think of a way to badmouth this immense son leaning over him like a large blaring building. But he couldn't think of anything. Thinking of anything was beyond him.”

Exploring the reasons behind the current running boom.

“‘You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave wherever I have to leave.’”

On getting older and why the aging process is becoming harder and harder to pin down.

Does Bobbins have secrets that even he doesn’t know?

Analyzing the pros and cons of merit pay.

“There was some pot on the scene and he was a little high. He was feeling great. And, during the last set, he came doubly alive because the saxophone player, who had been way out all night, took off on a terrific solo.”

A comprehensive guide to the greatest sitcom of all-time.

“And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy . . .”

Does Masha's grandmother actually know any secrets?

“‘It’s odd,’ Garp wrote, ‘that the family who would convince me of my own uniqueness was never close to my mother’s heart.”

How tech journalism zaps our senses.

Transforming a flaw into a gift.

“There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste. We were all dangerous characters then.”

Leaving the fiction workshop and entering the composition classroom.

“12 November. Sunday. Yesterday lecture by Richepin: ‘La Légende de Napoléon’ in the Rudlophinum. Pretty empty.”

First-time author Caroline Bock on YA, publishing her first novel, and the agent game.