Some people are just no good at being happy. And by some people I mean me. It was not that I was forlorn, not that there is anything wrong with being miserable, or that I wanted to be wretched or blue, but I was not really contented, whatever contented meant, means. That I was not satisfied in life was odd, as I fairly had much of what one would think would be happiness-making. I had a smart, lightsome partner whom, though I was not completely in love with her, I valued and with whom I was satisfied to share the daily, mundane business of life. I appreciated the fact that I should have loved her completely, but being the unhappy wretch I am … I had a beautiful child with whom I was completely in love, more every day. Still I had this palpable swath of melancholy that ran through me that I simply could not shake. Our house was warm, comfortable, and, if not big, it was big enough. I had a job studying what I had chosen to study, dry as it was, working with people who were more or less interesting and decent, dry as they were. I was proficient at my work, was recognized for it on occasion, couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And yet I would come home now and again, sit in my car in my driveway, and quietly contemplate, coldly measure that most selfish of acts, suicide. The guilt that these suicidal thoughts stirred in me was enough in itself to make me want to kill myself. Don’t cry for me, Argentina. The mornings after having these self-centered, idiotic, indolent thoughts were always extremely bright, or at least I was, or tried to be, wanting badly to mask any trace of my despair and self-loathing, a show for the family, for my daughter. I considered that I might have been clinically depressed and rationally understood that there was nothing to be ashamed of were it so, that it was a medical problem, a matter of brain chemistry, but I thought, finally, So what? So what if I was not happy? My happiness was overrated. My daughter was happy. My wife was unworried. But I moved through my life with caution, and caution in love is the most fatal to true happiness.

Teratornis merriami. Three specimens of this giant teratorn were discovered: a partial right humerus and two crania. The crania were obtained in the main room in the 25–50 cm stratum, which is late Pleistocene. After casts were made, the humerus was submitted to the Department of Geosciences at USC for radiocarbon dating. The age was approximately 14,000 BP.