Writing, or at least good writing, is an outgrowth of that urge to use language to communicate complex ideas and experiences between people. And that's true whether you're reading Shakespeare or bad vampire fiction-reading is always an act of empathy. It's always an imagining of what it's like to be someone else.

High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.

You will not kill my girlfriend today, International Terrorists of Ambiguous Nationality!

I realize that they giggle and I actually laugh, that they show their cleavage and I have none to show, but just so you know, I am also a girl. I'm one of the three wise MEN. And it's gay to think that James Bond is hot.

Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.

But why Alaska?' I asked her. 'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means 'that which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be.

The marks humans leave are too often scars.