When You Were a Young and Callow Fellow

I had coffee today with a baby editor. And by that I mean he has acquired and published exactly one book. I’m guessing he’s 25. I’m 62. You know how you walk around for most of you life and feel like you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing? Not today at coffee. I felt like a life wizard, I felt like I had a hundred years of solitude. I remember when I first started taking agents to lunch when I was a baby editor. God it was painful. They were such assholes. I remember one agent dressing down a waiter and I didn’t have the gumption to say something. I had lunch with a guy who had four bloody mary’s and talked about the one big hit he had twenty years ago. It was always an ordeal. I think I’m nicer. More approachable. Less braggy. Less of a showboat. But who knows? I will say I was glad to be at the end of the road instead of the beginning.

Where are you in your life?