Cancer is the original sin of diseases. Like the Terminator, it does not rest. It will not ever be killed. Getting cancer means falling into a state of eternal sin. If we slice out tumor, or radiate it or chemo it into submission or send it into hiding, we remain under watch. Has it found a new home elsewhere in the body? The medical team, the medical community, becomes a dystopian Santa Claus, watching us and testing us day and night to see if we’re good or bad.

In the zoo, the lions are denied the fundamental essence of their being, their chance to hunt prey, and bring it down and kill it, and to teach their cubs the skills they in turn will need to master. At meal time, they are thrown generous hunks of raw meat. But there is no hunt, no thrill, no skill, no challenge, no chance to be a real lion.

I'm sometimes accused of being cynical or negative in my thinking. But I want to assure you from the outset that this story has a happy ending. George dies.

If this movie had had so much as a hint of anti-Muslim elements (not historically possible, of course), President Bush, the Wall Street Journal (which has written admiringly about the movie) and other heavy hitters would have been weighing in against stereotyping and intolerance. But hey, it’s only the Jews.

It’s hardly an accident that our art and literature, our operas and our country western songs, are filled with tales of cheating, forbidden love, and jealous rages.

When Barbie wonders, “Are they shtupping?,” “shtupping” is not likely to be a word that Barbie would’ve picked up from the family parties at Esther’s parents’ home

I know there is a constant mantra that “violence is not the solution.” Call me somewhat undecided on that.

Early spring is the best time to hunt for unicorns – in early April, they are just emerging from their cocoons and are still slow and tentative – the best option is to try to find a young weeping willow tree where multiple cocoons have been attached.

Then he went on, “And, sadly, there are budget constraints. As a Muslim, you would normally be eligible for up to four wives, but they only allow me the budget for one. You understand, at times like these, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices.”

“A few of the crew ended up heading out again on other ships as fast as they could. They couldn’t handle the idea of being back, so they became space rats instead. I almost did too. It might have been better for me if I had."

An additional episode (stand-alone) for my short story "The Jump"

“Go home, and take off that damned suit. You can’t handle it. You’re probably a good guy, and that’s why you can’t handle it. The ones who can handle it are pretty much psychos. The ones who are good at it are the very ones who should never be around children at all.”

He was trying to think, but he was also severely distracted by the sight of Victoria’s skirt riding still further above the top of her stockings and now revealing the garters holding them up. Earlier, he had been fixated on her red hair and blue eyes; now all he could look at was her legs.

“For you, if you get the flu, you know you’re going to feel like total shit for a week. Then maybe another week, and you feel like crap. But after that, you forget all about it. It’s gone. You’re bouncing around like it never even happened. But suppose the worst day with the flu, when you couldn’t even get the fuck out of bed, was the best you were ever going to feel for the rest of your life? Then you’d start to fucking understand.

In the end, “trans” leaves out some crucial information – specifically, how trans they are (or what kind of trans they are). It’s a term without nuance, that we are expected to accept without question.

The respondents looked shocked, and even stunned. “Ach, nein! Surely it cannot be so!” cried out one respondent when she began finally to recover. “Why would Mr. BP, the most respected energy company in the entire world, champion of green, leader of innovation, want to have a relationship with our poor little Aral?” “Yes,” chimed in another, “we love our little Aral, she is like our little child, but she is so, how do you say it, frumplich? Frumpy?”

You are about to head home with them, but then they tell you, as full disclosure, that they used to be the opposite sex. They have fully transitioned, top and bottom, and enjoy sex. Would this be a deal breaker for you?

For me, the program ended up being pretty much a one-step program: Letting go. The shoulder being torn from the socket, lots of blood, lots of pain, nothing I ever want to go through again. But I needed it, and it worked. There are a lot of sayings in program, but the one that worked best for me was : "Take what you want and leave the rest." Listening to so many different people telling so many different stories at so many different meetings, I took what worked for me and

We’re talking the sale of the century (the millenium probably). Forget Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Princess Di’s gowns are a mere footnote by comparison. Jackie O who? Monica, we’re talking E-bay, with the whole world watching.

The European “problem” arises from the vast portion of immigrants who come from Muslim countries. Unlike Hispanic immigrants in the US, and Eastern European immigrants in Western Europe, whose religion and cultural values overlap with American/European Western values, Muslim immigrants, especially recent Muslim immigrants, bring with them a completely different set of cultural values and religious ideas. The ideals of religious freedom and tolerance are completely alien to th