A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.

We wondered why when a child laughed, he belonged to Daddy, and when he had a sagging diaper that smelled like a landfill, 'He wants his mother.'

If I had my life to live over I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.

Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.