Hearing Black Friday commercials on French radio reminds me that I’m totally fine with the secularization of religious holidays and that the real problem is the commercialization of our holidays, whether always secular or originally religious.

Growing up, I was taught to graze at religious texts, focusing on anecdotes that supported what we already believed. One of the great pleasures of my adulthood has been learning to read them more critically: wrestling with their problems and learning deeper lessons.

I sometimes wonder how I’d react if I were put through a ‘Peggy Sue loop’: made to repeat an earlier part of my life with all my knowledge of how things turned out. I have major disagreements with my past self, but I also owe him a lot, so there would be difficult decisions.

‘Kiddo, I’m glad you’re a part of our family.’ ‘… the weirdest family?’ I will never tire of her developing sense of humor.

I’m a teetotaler, so some of my microbrewing grad school friends once declared that I would make a good “beer eunuch”—I could be trusted to hold onto a barrel (or whatever—I don’t know how this stuff works) without abusing that trust.