As a kid, I was curious but not remotely adventurous, if that makes sense.

I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quiet, observant kids. Besides being a delight to your parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up. So many people...

The reason I pull Irish exits is not because I think I'm too busy and cool to be bothered with pleasantries. It's that when there is a gathering of more than thirty people I don't want to waste your...

When I played the "I don't feel comfortable" card, he knew it was over. "I don't feel comfortable" is the classic manipulative girl get-my-way line. It's right up there with "I don't feel entirely...

If you look closely, you can see this woman's ribs through the dress she's wearing- that's how skinny she is, this cheesecake-loving cow.

Our Klutz clangs into Stop signs while riding a bike, and knocks over giant displays of expensive fine china. Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk...

Bennifer was so big it was as though two people had never been in love before, and they had discovered it.

So it was surprising that I killed it as a babysitter. Er, maybe "killed it" is a wrong and potentially troubling way to express what I'm trying to say.

And when I say the Fashion Police, of course I'm speaking of the small group of screeching gay guys and fashion "experts" on that E! show led by the reanimated corpse of Joan Rivers.

As it is, I guess I find "Jack & Diane" a little disgusting.As a child of immigrant professionals, I can't help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their...

However, you should know I disagree with a lot of traditional advice. For instance, they say the best revenge is living well. I say it's acid in the face-who will love them now?

Mom was impressed but didn't want me to go overboard, which was impossible, because I was still eating a lot. I just had taken a break from eating like a professional football player.

No pasta. I'm serious. I will climb out of my coffin if anyone brings a baked ziti.

When I was twenty-five, I went on exactly four dates with a much older guy whom I'll call Peter Parker. I'm calling him Peter Parker because the actual guy's name was also alliterative, and because,...

And the stairs. Oh, the stairs. The staircase in our third-floor walk-up was the steepest, hardest, metal-est staircase I have ever encountered in my life. It was a staircase for killing someone and...

Unfortunately, I can't be Tina, because it's very difficult to lure her into a – type situation where we could switch bodies, even though in the movies they make it look so easy. Believe me, I've...

I find it extremely impossible not to cry when I hear Stevie Nicks's "Landslide," especially the lyric: "I've been afraid of changing, because I've built my life around you." I think a good test to...

I will employ the gentle, vague expression "I'm not crazy about that on you," which should mean to you, "Holy shit, take that off, that looks terrible!" I owe it to you to give feedback like a cattle...

...stay in school and be a respectful and hardworking wallflower, and go to an accredited non-online university

I liked hanging out with my family! Later, when you're grown up, you realize you never get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and...

So, with my zit throbbing like a nightclub, I went to the interview.

Even though Mavis was my secret friend, she is the only one I hope I see again. She's the only one I wonder about. I hope she wonders about me too.

It's one of those songs- like Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven"- that everyone knows all the words to without ever having chosen to learn them.

When we graduated high school, she went to the Cooper Union in Manhattan to pursue her love of set design, and I went to Dartmouth to pursue my love of white people and North Face parkas.

I had placed a lot of faith in Woody Allen's belief that 80 percent of success is just showing up. I said to myself: Sure, I can just Here I am, New York! Give me a job!

Bren was the kind of best friend I dreamed about having when I was a little kid. I never knew you could have someone in your life who was pretty much on the same page about essentially everything.

Be like Allan Pearl. Sit next to the class clown and study him. Then grow up, take everything you learned, and get paid to be a real-life clown, unlike whatever unexciting thing the actual high school...

It's sort of my go-to stock image of my childhood, actually. I think it has something to do with knowing I'll never be able to go back to that time that makes me cry every time I listen to it.

Don't be closer to twice a friend's weight than to her actual weight, I told myself. This little mantra has helped me stave off obesity for more than two decades.

IF OUR PHONE CONVERSATION GETS DISCONNECTED, THERE'S NO NEED TO CALL BACK I get it. You get it. We take forever getting off the phone anyway. This was a blessing.