What we think of as Halloween is really the product of media barons, city mayors, and candy-makers. You know, before the 1920s, Halloween was really a terrible, terrible night.

In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.

At the last minute, I couldn't wear the Hitler mustache because Tiger Stripe ate it; and then I didn't want to take my kitty and risk his coughing up some big Nazi hairball on someone's front stoop.

It's funny how the beauty of art has so much more to do with the frame than the artwork itself.

When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people.

What kind of dining set defines me as a person?

No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away.