The other day, while we were waiting for a train, an older man walked up and said, “Look at those clouds! They’re really moving fast.” Indeed they were, little white puffs scooting across the blue as if on speeded-up film.

“Wow, do you think that means anything?” I asked, half humoring him and half wondering if he thought it was perhaps portentous of a storm or a particular victory in the upcoming elections.

“Wind,” he said.

We then discussed the odd weather from the day before: lightning and hail one minute, bright sun and a rainbow the next. The man mentioned that they had received a sermon on god’s pact with Noah and the significance of rainbows in their church or synagogue or whatever, and having one appear just as the service ended had delighted the children.

At that point, the train pulled up, and I fully expected him to push me in its path.

I had a Eureka! moment last night. After wondering for weeks why my mind seemed to be returning to the paranoid and obsessive state I was in before going on medication over a year ago, I read a health article about how supplementing with folic acid had been discovered to boost the effectiveness of certain antidepressants. I stopped taking folic acid at the beginning of October, and I suspect I’m effectively suffering from withdrawal symptoms from something I’m still consuming.

Or I could just be reacting to spending a night in the Algonquin and seeing something on the menu called the “Dorothy Parker Burger.” If Dorothy Parker were alive, she’d roll over in her grave. If Noah were alive, I’m not at all sure what he’d do.