I celebrate your entire card catalog

From Late to This, where you’re not late, you’re right on time.

Listen. I celebrate the new. I know the drill of hype and excitement, everyone fighting over the last remaining crumbs of commerce in the attention economy.

You know what else I celebrate? Your friendship, as in the line from the movie “Team America”: “I celebrate your friendship.” I fact-checked myself and this isn’t the line. It’s “I treasure your friendship.” And that movie was a low point for one of its creators, this quick search tells me, but now I’m just gossiping. One human’s low point is another human’s oft-quoted (misquoted) line. I am 99 percent certain I’m mashing this up with “Office Space,” a highly-quotable movie we own on DVD and VHS: “I celebrate the guy’s entire catalog,” re: singer with long flowing hair, James…John…Michael! Bolton.

I also celebrate the less-new. I celebrate the worn-with-use thing from the library, the garage sale, my own basement. Coming in a week or two late to the big album release, getting to it when I get to it, in the car last night, in this case. Revisiting a song from decades ago. Rereading an essay collection, trying to get a handle on my own nonfiction project.

We’re right on time, friends, whenever we are.

Now reading: The Glimpse Traveler by Marianne Boruch, These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Toni Morrison. I’m on an essay bender that knows no bounds.