I grew up in a bad neighborhood, but I was lucky. My best friend lived one block away from the house I shared with my parents and my older brother. So I was rarely alone.

Because it was a bad neighborhood, there were often police cars crawling up and down the block. Drunk men hung outside bars on nearly every corner, and drug dealers waited beside payphones with their pagers on their hips.

When I was a child, I had to rely on my parents or my brother to walk me to my friend’s house. …

I was waiting at the bus stop with my boyfriend on a sunny afternoon after school when a stranger approached. My boyfriend and I were sitting side by side on the wooden bench with our backs pressed against the plexiglass wall of the bus stop as we watched the stranger make a beeline toward us.

The woman was casually dressed and wore a friendly smile. “You look like you’re an item,” she said. “Are you an item?”

I nodded my head, but I was embarrassed. As a teen, I was boy-crazy but shy. Talking to a stranger at the bus stop didn’t appeal to me unless that stranger happened to be a boy I was interested in. That wasn’t the case here. …

I bought a typewriter today. To be more specific, I ordered a typewriter today. After all, it’s 2021. One does not simply walk into a store and walk out with a typewriter. Instead, one finds one online, discovers it’s back-ordered until at least spring and places the order anyhow.

At least, that’s what I did.

Speaking of the 21st century, this isn’t your grandfather’s typewriter. This is a WiFi-enabled postmodern typewriter that substitutes internet connectivity and a “send” button for ink and paper, but it isn’t what it does that’s important.

It’s what it doesn’t do.

The Astrohaus Freewrite bills itself as the world’s first smart typewriter, and while I can’t review it since I haven’t received it yet, I do think it’s worth checking out if you are easily distracted. …

Don’t use your real name nor any form of it. Don’t use your real picture. Don’t tell anyone what you write or where you write it. Don’t do any of these things unless you’re prepared for someone you know to read what you’ve written.

If you think there’s any chance that you might write anything that necessitates anonymity, then cloak yourself in anonymity right from the very beginning. That’s not what I did, and it didn’t take long for me to regret it.

Now, the problem isn’t that several of my friends and acquaintances have read what I’ve written, or that I’m ashamed that I’ve written it. The problem is that I’ve allowed my fear to prevent me from continuing to write with the unfiltered reckless abandon I once wrote. …

JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was born on August 6, 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia to parents John and Patsy Ramsey. She died on December 25, 1996 in Boulder, Colorado.

On the day JonBenét Ramsey was born, the number one song in the United States was Vision of Love by Mariah Carey. On the day she died, the number one song in the United States was Un-Break My Heart by Toni Braxton.

The San Francisco 49ers won the Super Bowl the year JonBenét was born, beating the Denver Broncos 55–10 under the leadership of rookie head coach George Seifert. …

We love our dogs. What’s not to love?

Dogs are the living, breathing personification of love. Just about the only drawback of owning a dog is they sometimes harbor fleas. Fleas are bad.

My first experience with fleas didn’t involve a dog at all.

It involved a cat, and her name was Mittens.

When I was a little girl, my parents decided to allow me to adopt a kitten. There was a woman in the neighborhood whose cat had recently delivered a litter of kits, and rumor had it that she was willing to give them to good homes.

My mother brought me to the lady’s house where I discovered she wasn’t just a lady. …

On my first day of kindergarten, a little boy who was just as nicely rounded as I was bullied me for being fat. At least, that was the reason he gave me for trapping between a row of bushes and the wall of our elementary school during recess. He was brandishing a stick, and that gave him the upper hand.

I don’t think his bullying had its roots in his home life. My parents knew his parents, and by all accounts, they were a perfectly nice couple. …

I was bullied a lot as a child.

The majority of the bullying took place in my elementary school.

It happened in the classroom. It happened in the cafeteria at lunch. It happened in the courtyard at recess. I was even bullied in the girls’ restroom, the hallway outside of class, and the water fountain when all I wanted was a cool drink of overchlorinated tapwater.

When the 2:15 p.m. school bell rang to dismiss us every afternoon, I scurried outside to my waiting mother as fast as my chubby legs could carry me. The end of the school day meant safety. At least that’s what it was supposed to mean.

Unfortunately, I managed to acquire a new, more insidious bully. This was a neighborhood bully. …