For a year I lived with this girl. The following are things I picked up along the way. 1) There's no hanging up mid-fight when you sleep in the same bed.2) For every one pound of clothes you have, she has ten.3) Concerning said clothes, a woman's laundry is not something to be taken lightly,...  read more

After I graduated with a Masters in Computer Science instead of a Ph.D., my advisor hired me as a full-time research assistant with a salary and benefits.  My $28K salary was like a post-doc’s salary:  just enough to live on, and not commensurate with my expertise and abilities.&n...  read more

My new stepmother worked hard to win my love.  She was a therapist, so she probably thought that she had it all figured out.  But she’d already made the first mistake and lost my trust.  She started a project with me.  She’d gotten a big cloth map of the United Sta...  read more

My husband warned me the morning we were to leave for a two-week summer vacation that he was pessimistic about when he could be ready. He seemed to have a lot to do, although I didn't know what it could be, since most of the packing was already done. But I still had things to do so I was not w...  read more

It can be hard to forgive.  It is important that we try.  It took me decades to forgive my step-mom.  Last summer I finally forgave a neighbor for something she didn’t even know she had done. Back in 2002 we had just gotten a dog, a lovable, beautiful, rambunctious one-ye...  read more

My third visit with my bio-mom was my last visit (see first visit and second visit).  We had some good times.  We were more like sisters than mother-and-daughter.  It was the 4th of July and it was just the two of us.  Her husband Jack had gone back into the psychiatric war...  read more

I was in the Seattle Library when I noticed a black man in his early 50s gazing intently at a globe.  We began exploring the globe together.  Before long we were lost in conversation.  He was unemployed but knew about current events.  He was most interested in news about succe...  read more

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oh, jake.he and i went out a few times, maybe 3 or 4 at most. he was very bitter about his ex-wife, who i understood had recently divorced him, and talked about her constantly. what he neglected to mention is that he was dating someone pretty seriously at the time as well.that person, i found out...  read more

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