Personal essays share the author's adventures after buying a vacation house on the Carolina coast and his reflections on middle age and mortality.

"Mike Birbiglia never wanted to be a father. In fact, there are seven very specific reasons he never wanted a kid, including his aversion to sticky surfaces and his less-than-ideal genes: he's had Lyme Disease, a bladder tumor, diabetes, and dangerous sleepwalking, to name a few. Not to mention the fact that Mike generally doesn't think people (including himself) are really all that great. Then Mike's wife, poet Jen Hope Stein, becomes infected with...