When I was a graduate student at Rutgers eons ago I had an ephiphany about academia that can be readily and accurately applied to journalism: living so much after the fact.

It was during a class on Milton given by the affable John Shawcross that he revealed he had counted every word in Paradise Lost and discovered the middle word was ascension. Mon Dieu!

Journalists and writers also life the life of others....no use thinking of a maligning simile...... columnists in New York think they are in the "in" crowd because they can write well known names. Well guys you are not! The cesium second you no longer have the column or wordspace you are niente!

For a decade or two I did not miss a black tie in Chicago and was lauded and welcomed everywhere --in the great houses in Kenilworth and on Astor and North State and 1500 LSD--until the day the words were no more--and VOILA!--neither was I.