Well, the world may be going to hell, as I think it is. But last night I went to my friend Sui-Ling's 40th birthday party. It was a banquet in a Chinatown restaurant. Fabulous food (Peking duck; stewed vegetables with rice noodles; battered shrimp; orange chicken; beef with asparagus; a birthday cake made from mango, red bean and lychee ice creams...) and 40 cheerful, noisy, friendly people, about half a dozen of them kids, about half of them related to Sui-Ling: brother, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. Some people had driven up from Pennsylvania to celebrate with her. She'd gotten a new haircut and was all dressed up, looked about 25. Everyone seemed interested in everyone else, even people like me whom they hadn't met, and everyone seemed to believe the future was not particularly bleak. Maybe that's the effect of kids, even if they're not your own, as long as you're around them a lot. Anyway, it was a terrific antidote to my recent gloomy moods.