For the first couple decades of my middle age I thought the one great advantage of getting old was no longer having to question every little thing every little day. I felt that I finally knew who I was and what I liked, so I didn't have to constantly reconsider pizza toppings and political parties like a 3rd-grader updating his friend-or-enemy list after each recess. More

Tomorrow I'm meeting an old friend for lunch and I couldn't be more excited or less excited. I am exactly the right amount of excited: very extremely to be seeing one of my favorite people for the first time in at least five and perhaps as many as 100 years; and not-at-all-god-please-why to be going to Border Café in Harvard Square. More

Maybe it's because I've turned old and wise and maybe it's because I'm six months away from marrying into some primo health insurance, but for whatever reason I've become a long-view, big picture kind of guy who will gladly trade April showers for August tomatoes. I've also become a saver of sorts: I didn't drink beer on either of the rainy days, which means I get triple beer on the next sunny day. I have many things to live for. More

I tend to select my friends more for their entertainment value than their utility. When I filled out the "Meet the Will" questionnaire a couple months ago, the only question that stumped me was the one about which friend I rely on for restaurant recommendations. I had to invent a person, because I generally avoid counting on my friends for anything more taxing than drinking all my beer and over-hugging my fiancé. More

Bottom Shelf research director Emily and I share a very small and happy home, which I clean. The weekly chemical-bathing of the apartment isn't my job in a strictly defined sense, but our chore patterns have evolved in such a way that it makes sense for me to knock off work a little early on Fridays to get things tidied up for her return home from a week of actual work-work (as distinguished from my various housebound cons). In return, she washes the towels and manages the electronics; sometimes I make meatballs. It's a good system. More

Draft beer and variety are two of my favorite things, but I generally avoid bars with too many taps, because I don't trust that the turnover's high enough to keep all the kegs fresh, and the sad fact is that a clean Miller Lite tastes better than a dirty anything. More

I don't know much about you beautiful beasts, but I do know you read certain parts of the Internet because that's how we became friends in the first place. So I trust you've heard that "This American Life" had to apologize for faking parts of a story about how awful working conditions are at Apple-affiliated factories in China. More

Bottom Shelf research director Emily and I recently decided to re-sign our apartment lease, with mixed emotions. Our building is OK but we could do better for the money; there are all sorts of fancy amenities that don't interest us, such as underground parking and unintimidating neighbors. I'd rather trade in the meek empty-nesters—who, to their credit, never make noise and rarely steal my FedEx packages—for an extra bedroom or better dive bar proximity. More

Welcome to a Very Special Episode of Drinking the Bottom Shelf. Today I will be working off a gambling debt to Serious Eats Overlord Ed Levine, and we will all be learning valuable lessons about kale juice, mortality fears, and betting against a man with the words Serious and Overlord in his job title. More

Bottom Shelf research director Emily came down with a sore throat Monday afternoon, which gave me a rare and welcome opportunity to play heroic caregiver. I don't get a lot of chances to nurse Emily back to health, because she's fairly sturdy, plus she works with a bunch of doctors and also believes a little too strongly in the healing powers of Advil and detective shows. More