It also seemed appropriate because at the end of this week, this year, the neighborhood bar and grill where my critique group has met for the last three years is closing. The Pearl Street Grill is being shuttered so the owners can refashion it into what I'm sure they hope will be a more profitable venture--an upscale restaurant situated smack between Sushi Den and India's Pearl. So gone will be the comfortable, atmospheric, friendly place with a great staff and great food. And now comes the bitterest cut of all--having to start all over again to find a spot that will let us sit in a corner for two or three hours, eating, drinking and talking about things not often spoken of in public--how to dispose of a body, how to kill vampires and werewolves, how best to write a sex scene, how many ways the word "fuck" can be used in a sentence. (I think I won that one--if you've seen Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth has a t-shirt that reads: Fuck off you fucking fuck.)

So, I guess the moral is, the tide bringeth and the tide taketh away.