it's funny you should say that ... because, in my experience, even when i strongly disagree with a gay person — specifically, an openly gay person — on a political issue, they a) can give a cogent, reasonable argument in support of their position, b) fucking listen when it's my turn, and c) are great at co-creating…

i never wanted a pony for christmas until i saw this commercial ... now i want a badass, shit-kicking pony ... pretty please, jolly ol' silver-haired a-hole

it's so funny how "pre-formed" kids are ... they like what they like, and you can only turn them from their destined path by crushing and twisting them

well, yeah ... i did tell her that she would become part of the trees and grass and then the animals that fed on them, and so on

hehe ... until he was thirty, he was defy-death dude ... now he is a hyper-successful upstanding citizen dude ... while i'm doing all the dumbass shit that he did when it was at least arguably age-appropriate

while i had no problem breastfeeding, pumping hurt like hell, and i just could not do it ... so, yeah, junior was attached to me 24/7

i had zero pain/problems breastfeeding, but i do distinctly remember barely hanging by a sleep-deprived, nutrition-challenged emotional thread for the first two months ... and if i had had problems with breast feeding, and someone forced me to soldier on, i might have stabbed them in the eye with a nose suction thingy

i grew up with death ... a series of family tragedies from age 3 until my parents died when i was 14 and 15 ... but i never really dealt with death until after 9/11, when i really understood the randomness of death and accepted its inevitability ... and i vowed to at least aim to live without regret by living an…

oh, man, the hardest thing i ever did was talk to my kid about death ... because the little bastards want details about what happens to their bodies after they are dead ... ugh

have you ever noticed that, when the deaths of black children in urban areas are considered, there's a chorus of parent blaming ... why would you have your kid out playing on her front steps on a hot, summer night? why would you as a parent not just pick up and move to a neighborhood where stray bullets don't go…

i cannot disagree ... especially since the young people must as a consequence register as sex offenders ... but, alas, we all know what happens to photos in the digital age ... you're 14 and you txt a snap of your boobs to your bf ... you break up ... he posts said boobs on reddit ... then pervs around the world show…

kids have been convicted of trafficking child pornography for sending others pics of themselves ... there is zero tolerance of child pornography, because the issue is not the age of the person conveying it, the issue is the age of the young people who can be harmed by its dissemination, because pervs use it to groom…

in your wild imaginings, have the u.n. troops defeated the united states armed forces? or has our military willingly joined forces with the u.n.?

ah, yes ... and i would be very sad if i'd never been able to give her the opportunities that her gifts demanded and that my own parents hadn't been able to afford for me ... and, to her credit, she has taken her training and run with it ... plays all kinds of instruments now

i know you are right about this ... my teeth, just like any singled-out body part, seem more important in the mirror

well, that was the weird thing ... i grew up with zero dental care, but i never had a cavity, so my grownup elaine, big city dentist said "don't worry" about how they look

there's a video artist, bill viola, who did just that ... pre-bieber, though ... with super slo-mo "portraits" of people ... you find yourself watching for 20 minutes, hoping that the subject will blink, and then you yourself blink, only to discover the subject's eyes are opening post-blink ... you missed the big…

man, i wish i'd had a video cam as a kid ... i could have just followed my bro around while he did stupid shit ... like the time i walked into the garage (i was 7, he was 5) just as he'd set fire to a coffee can lid full of gasoline ... the column of flames shot to the ceiling, and although i happened to be illicitly…

after 9/11, we didn't blame guns, we blamed liberty, specifically the freedom to travel without scrutiny by government officials ... which is why, despite our constitutional protections against searches and seizures without probable cause and/or a warrant, every plane passenger is subjected to invasive, warrantless…

aw ... i was 5'10" by the time i was 11, towering over my classmates and most of my teachers (and getting into r-rated movies and served in bars, ugh) ... then, in 6th grade, a 6'3" kid from south africa enrolled in my class ... that "big kid" was my hero