I was a lesbian for a semester at Wesleyan - it was a graduation requirement.

I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.

The capacity for extravagant emotion that my husband finds so attractive in me can be exhausting, especially to a child. My moods are mercurial, and this can be terrifying. I know, because I was a daughter of a mother with a changeable temperament.

I just don't have a lick of optimism left in me.

The legalization of drugs, a proliferation of a public health approach to drug use and drug addition, a compassionate mental health system. And can we just say gender equality and the end of mass incarceration and the final shedding of the vestiges of a slave-based nation? Can we have that, too? Can I have it all?

If only shame were a reliable engine for behavior modification. All it does is make me feel bad, which inspires me to bust open a bag of cheese popcorn, which then makes me feel crappy about my weight.

I really think we were charting a course to having a more sane response to mass incarceration, to drug use, and to understanding that the war on drugs has resulted only in the empowerment of vast criminal enterprises and the destruction of democracies around the world. And all that is coming to a miserable, horrific halt.