Two things that don't suck

There are things that make me feel so unpleasantly lightheaded that some days I worry my cranium might float away like a helium balloon. Like baby animals generated by AI that I can no longer distinguish from real ones. Skin care for tweens. Headlines about American politics that read like headlines about Turkmenistan. The music of Charli XCX.

- BY ALEX HALBERSTADT

And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I'm not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive imperceptibly, and not just the physical frailties. Chief among them is the way one's time on earth begins to feel unsettling and sometimes poignant in its suddenly tangible brevity. Now, when I speak to people in their early 20s, I find myself amazed by their belief that life is brimming with endless possibility and lasts nearly forever. I suppose I might envy them, but I remember being their age and wouldn't relish being that person again.

Fortunately, there's more to middle age than bewilderment at cottagecore and one's worsening nocturia. Personal highlights include being less appalled by my many shortcomings, knowing how to dress better, and giving way fewer f*cks about people's opinions. Also: Needing less sleep. Finding it easier to laugh at myself. And having more access to patience and, on occasion, kindness. Perhaps some readers can relate.

Like me, McIntosh amplifiers from the classic tube era occupy the category of old things that may still have something to offer. A few decades ago, I tagged along with a friend on a long drive upstate; he was going to pick up a restored McIntosh MC240. After we reached the audio shop, which had a whole slew of old Macs for sale, I bought an MC275 pretty much on a whim. I was beguiled by its chrome-and-black panache—it looked like Roy Orbison had turned into an amplifier—and reputation as a mafia-level luxury product of its time. If I'm being completely honest, a part of me enjoyed upstaging my friend by buying a bigger and more expensive amplifier. It wasn't my proudest moment.