It’s always difficult discovering how someone else really feels about you, but birthdays can do that. Even if you’d rather it didn’t. It did for me one year--gave me one of my firs....

The test of true gluttony is occurring at the beach in front of my home: a hot dog eating contest. Shoveling down tubesteaks for sport seems a crass American display of overconsumption, branding the....

For years now a debate has raged within the U.S. government concernin the use of military drones: unmanned, remote-controlled aerial vehicles with long-range missile capabilities. Opposing arguments..

The concept of home is a complicated one. Unlike the word "house," which connotes a structure, "home" carries with it a great deal of emotional baggage, both light and heavy. The lig....

Perhaps you’ve been there, too. Fly out the night before, or bite the bullet and take the 5 a.m.? For a recent trip, this girl bit. As I brewed my coffee at 3 a.m., the dog peered at me with ....

Some men perceive that the world is running out of chocolate and travel to remote places to engender more cultivation. Some men have found that singing is the surest way to their woman’s heart.....

Fifty cents. It may seem a pittance in an age when the news is filled with stories of AIG and Madoff and taxpayer-supported bank bailouts, all involving figures in the billions. It may seem insignif....

When we’re all dead and buried, what do we leave behind? Whether in the name of science that seeks an academic understanding or the gloating public that wants to rake through the garbage of peo...

This one goes out to all the college seniors out there. Congratulations--you made it! May senior year be all you ever dreamed of: it is truly a blessed, magical time. Leaping out of bed at the cra....

The party was a solid hit even before we pulled up the corpse. It was the summer between my junior and senior year, and my best friend Ali and I had holed up in an apartment I’d like to forget...