So, there you see Your Working Boy and M.Z. Hemingway of The Federalist, celebrating the coming Apocalypse by eating as many Duxbury oysters as we possibly could stand tonight at Marliave, in Boston. How many could we stand? Well might you ask. Between the two of us, we ate fifty-four of them. I don’t think I have ever eaten raw oysters with anyone who loves them as much as I do. We drank a bottle of cold Sancerre too. It was bliss, ah tells you. No, really: these are the best raw oysters I have ever had in this country. Our waiter, as it turns out, is from Baton Rouge, and we commiserated over how our Louisiana oysters are just nothing compared to these beauties, so briny and sweet.

Please, oyster lovers among my readership, come to Boston. It is the Promised Land. Marliave has half-price oysters from 4-6 and from 9-10 daily. How do you think Mollie and I afforded so many?

Before we met for dinner, I spent a wonderful hour in a nearby Starbucks with Andrew Sullivan. I love that guy. I honestly do. I have never, ever seen him looking so well. He’s in shape, he looks happy, he looks serene. It’s all because he quit the Internet. I have deeply regretted his absence from online, but after talking with him and hearing his story, I encouraged him never, ever to return to the Internet. He’s glowing with health and happiness, and I’m genuinely thrilled for him. No kidding, I couldn’t get over how good he looked, and how centered. What a pleasure to see him flourishing, but what a pity to realize that it took him withdrawing from public life to achieve such a state of bliss. I am so happy for him, and understand to the marrow how and why he is so happy. It happened again for me here in Boston: people who have been reading me for years meet me, and are startled that I’m so laid back in person, and chipper. Because, they say, I don’t come across that way online. [Insert Marge Simpson grumbling sound here.]

Maybe if I had more Duxbury oysters in my life…