The local gift economy is really something. I’ve lived in a lot of places, large and small, and nowhere is the tradition of handing off random stuff to your friends and neighbors so strong and vital.

The New York Times alerts us to a new trend: millennials buying property in the Catskills because it’s “filled with natural resources.” The piece makes for a satisfying rage-read.

Personal goodwill toward the marginalized people in your life does not absolve you of political callousness to their fate at the hands of authority.

For those who believe in the noble ideals underlying the brand called America, it’s tempting to think of Kavanaugh’s probable confirmation to the highest court in the land as a tumble from grace. But let’s be real: The courts have never done their job on rape. Right now, all over this country, children — boys as well as girls — are confronting their own mortality in bedrooms and back alleys, at the hands of people they can’t physically or socially escape. And SCOTUS will never hear them.

The news coming out of Florence country right now, especially the little neglected rural towns, is heartbreaking. It’s a wonder that people choose to live in some of these places at all. But even with climate change and communal fragility eroding the very ground out from under our feet, most of us are stubborn. We’re going to rebuild. I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of, but it’s what we’ve got.

Whatever happens this year, it’s a great comfort to me to feel like the school is on my daughter’s side. They don’t always get it, but that’s what every kid deserves.

The wickeder the world gets, the more militant I get about keeping the doors of my big old Victorian open. I am forever telling friends: please come, please stay. No, really, we mean it.

Trash, when fresh, is disgusting. But with the patina of a few decades on them, those old Moxie bottles and medicine tins begin to take on something of the dignity of old Pompeii.

Music lives in the ether now. We can have it anywhere. We need never lose anything again. Still, place matters. Being together, singing and dancing together, the same dirt on all our shoes — it matters. I’m sure Pete would agree.