I vote because it's what small-d democracy is about. Because there are places where people fight for generations and stand for hours to cast a ballot knowing what we ought to remember: that it makes a difference. Not always a big difference. Not always an immediate difference. But a difference.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage.

If women can sleep their way to the top, how come they aren't there?

women who once aspired to the image of superwoman now worry about becoming superdrudge. Those who wanted to have it all now ask whether they have to do it all.

What advertisers call brand loyalty is merely the consumer's defense against the need to waste energy differentiating among things that barely differ.

Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.