hit their thirties; you guess some people stop describing themselves to themselves at two in the morning, gathering adjectives and reflecting them back, but you probably never will. There is the babyish curl in the middle of the forehead, there are the brand new wrinkles, there is the nose that will not be ignored. You gaze and parse for minutes at a time, and why not: you have all night. It really rains here -- not the felted passive-aggressive barely-there drizzle of Seattle, not the brisk and businesslike windblown patter of Wellington. There's not only thunder but big scary lightning, here, and you wonder what the iguanas do when it gets like this. Hide under bushes, maybe, or can they climb trees? Tomorrow, if it keeps up like this, there will be big puddles in the manicured lawns and small white egrets will fish right up against the overlarge hotels. Tomorrow you'll take a walk, just to stretch your legs and for something to do, and you'll be sweating before you reach the end of the block. You'd like to think it's not too late, you'd like to believe the story you're telling hasn't come to its climax, that the plot has only begun to pick up its skirts and gather steam. You missed your chance to be a child prodigy and the expiration date for being a bright young thing has well and truly passed (maybe when you were in grad school or perhaps during all those afternoons you