Getting older. It’s inevitable. Each year I notice some new change in my behavior or attitude that I can attribute to nothing other than getting older.

Housing prices in Massachusetts being what they are, I find myself living in a pleasant condo unit. It’s a nice place. The entire building was gut-renovated prior to my moving in, and it still has that new building feeling. The building, originally a large Victorian, has now been converted into 9 condo units. When I originally moved in, I loved the idea of having so many close neighbors. If anything, it was considerably more private than the arrangements I had during college and much of medical school. Even during the several years prior to moving in, I occupied a unit in a large apartment complex.

And it was fine. At least for the first couple years. But now the movie noises that seep through the floor from the unit upstairs are getting old. Really old. I would say “like, John McCain old” but let’s keep politics out of this. Anyway, if it’s not the booming from what sounds like war movies upstairs, it’s the neighbor’s smoke alarm going off for the 15th time this month. Or the occasional party down the hall. I’m sure the feelings are mutual, too. The neighbors probably get tired of hearing me wail “Stop and Staaaare” while fumbling with guitar chords but I they can no more blame me for that than I can blame them. There’s a need for space that comes with age. And I need it. Soon.

It’s enough to drive me to the suburbs.

I remember seeing a guy on TV a couple years back who was complaining about noise from car stereos. He was a middle-aged, moderately overweight fellow and seemed to take himself too seriously. He was part of an organization called Noise Free America and provided my wife and I with a several good laughs.

But I’m not laughing now, no sireee. I’m filling out the membership form.

Growing up, I was occasionally drawn to the “deep dish” options in various pizzerias, only to find them relatively dull and not all that different from the traditional fare. At one point, Pizza Hut started advertising something called “Priazzo Italian Pie” which looked a lot more interesting, but at the time Pizza Huts were almost non-existant in Massachusetts. It looked so good on TV…one day I would have to try it. At last, on a family vacation, I convinced my parents to stop for lunch at the Hut. There it was, on the menu…at last the Priazzo would be mine. When the waitress arrived, I proudly declared my selection, only to have my hopes dashed when I was told it was no longer being offered.

Fast forward to early June, 2008 on a brief trip to Chicago. Having attended a wedding here 12 years earlier, I remembered watching the hotel information channel and hearing about a place called “Gino’s East” which served deep dish pizza that looked much like my beloved Priazzo. Somehow I managed to convince my wife to stop there for dinner. And by stop I mean wait for the nearly 45 minutes it took to prepare the deep dish classic. Note to self: never go to a place where you have to wait the better part of an hour for the food to be cooked when you’ve got a hungry, irritable 17-month old who is ready to terrorize the restaurant. Luckily there wasn’t a line when we arrived. The pizza looked impressive and was really served in a deep dish (or what looks like a small cake pan). We had ordered a medium but barely managed to devour half of it even after taking turns taking our son for walks to maintain some semblance of order at our table. My impression? If you like cheese, you’ll love this pizza. It must have taken mountains of mozzarella to to make this thing. The crust itself was quite thick and buttery - almost biscuit-like. Even though we had only managed to reduce the pizza to half its size, it was still followed by the requisite reclining on the hotel bed proclaiming “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!”

Yet only two days later I built up enough courage to try again. This time, I learned lessons from my prior mistakes: get take out, order a small. We hit up Giordano’s a local favorite many seemed to prefer to Gino’s. The take out made managing the little one a lot easier, but the pizza was also better. Unlike Gino’s which is basically a cylindrical bowl filled with cheese, sauce, and the occasional additional item (they’re not really “toppings”), Giordano’s covers the top of their pizza with a second crust, making it much more like a pie. The crust is a seems a bit thinner and lighter than Gino’s, so the net impression is about the same amount of bread. Still, there’s not the overwhelming mass of cheese that the Gino’s experience bring with it, and overall Giordano offers a better experience (yes, it is an experience). Despite ordering the size targeted at “1-2 people”, we weren’t able to do much better than we had with Gino’s. Still, it was worth it. Not something to eat every day, but definitely worth a taste if you are in the windy city.

I think I feel like some pizza tonight.

About 3 months after my son was born, I realized the degree to which my life had changed. One thing was clear: there was no more time for TV. Cable was soon cancelled and my TV watching was reduced to a bare minimum. Even though I was cable-less, I was able to occasionally tune in using my computer and downloading shows from iTunes. Still, I had to be frugal with my time, and there were only two shows which I made it a point to watch every week (albeit usually on my iPhone and often as audio only): 60 Minutes and Meet the Press.

Toward the end of Meet the Press. Tim Russert would say “we’ll be right back,” but the show was basically over. He’d just return briefly to close the show. It always seemed to come too soon and made me feel kind of cheated, but at least I could look forward to the next week.

Today, I feel kind of cheated, but I don’t think there’ll be any relief next Sunday.

Tim Russert, probably the best political journalist today, has died of a heart attack.