A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were enjoying a fine summer evening on the porch of our new house (light breeze in the air, streetlights just coming on, a little red left in the western sky, neighborhood quiet and content), when my wife said, “Your columns haven’t been so great lately.”

I don’t like clutter. I can’t always avoid it, but I try my best to be as clutter-free as possible. This means keeping things organized on my desk and keeping junk off places it doesn’t belong, like my bed.

Seinfeld was a show about nothing. But what made it so successful is that “nothing” really is “something.” Moreover, I think everyone has, at times in their lives, experienced a “Seinfeldian” moment, where a trip to the grocery store turns into an epic, daylong fiasco of little slips and mishaps that would be nothing on their own but turn into quite something to talk about and remember forever and yada-yada-yada.