Giving up or going forward would require all hands. And there was one additional problem: among his crew was an incapable infant me. So my father did what any good crew member would: He put me in my car seat, tied the car seat to the mast below deck, with a bungee cord as my baby sitter, and finished the race. My attachment to boats, wild and innate, grew from that day forward.

Smarties - Mateus Rosé. Both are slightly fizzy on the tongue and a Rosé won't overpower the Red Dye No.3.

York Peppermint Patty/Junior Mints - A Castilla y León that you can buy at a gas station.

Dum Dums - An Old Fashioned. Skip the garnish and use the lollipop as a stirrer. You're the fun

I’m sitting alone in Girvan, Scotland, on one of the longest days of the year, looking at the late sun and thinking about the women who all of a sudden caught fire. There were a good number of them. Enough, in the 1700s, to constitute a chapter in the medical literature. The most-quoted British case is Grace Pitt, a 60ish female whose charred corpse was discovered one morning in 1744—like “a log of…

“Do people think it’s weird you’re not drinking?” a 27-year-old I had just met asked me at a recent Christmas party. “I mean, like, do you drink even a little bit? There has to be something in your cup.” (Ed. note -- Obligatory John Mulaney reference: "I know you don't drink.") The company party which I attended as a plus-one boasted an open bar, including some bootleg moonshine (it was in Florida). Most of the…