Starshine Roshell

Sunday night resolution: Procure a sleeker silhouette, a bikini-ready bod, through sheer self-control. I begin today.

My urban-bred brain wonders if there's something missing from the soul of children who don't know how to hop a subway turnstile or sleep through the blare of constant, distant sirens. Are they too content? Too … untested?

It's not that I'm above cleaning, or that I'm too smart, skilled or snobbish for the task. It's that I'm bad at it.

What I definitely don't do is ask people why they don't have children. My nonparent friends say they get asked this question all the time — sometimes by relative strangers.

Schools from elementary to high school are now putting students through "lockdown drills" to rehearse what to do if someone starts shooting up the campus.

This month the nation mourned the death of Pauline Friedman Phillips, the author of Dear Abby. For 40 years, Phillips dispensed thoughtful, compassionate, and occasionally wry advice in more than 1,400 newspapers. She received up to 10,000 letters per week.

I don’t know what “natural beauty” is, but if I ever had it, it’s been long since smothered by the increasing mess of products I use to remain presentable as I age: Tooth whiteners, lip plumpy-ups ...

This is an important public service announcement for everyone out there named Starshine. (And for the rest of you, who think it's unlikely there are others named Starshine, I would argue it's just as unlikely that I'm able to spell ...

The moment had come. She stood there pretty as a picture, and he was nervous as could be. Could he pull it off? Would she say yes? "I pulled out a rose, got down on one knee and popped the ...

Men are supposed to be the logical ones. The more rational sex. And to the extent that they'll fetch a tool or phone a repairman when something breaks — as opposed to weeping, repenting to the callous gods of karma, ...

Never mind the baby books. Forget the motherhood magazines. Everything I needed to know about parenting I learned from other parents. Wiser parents. Parents who went before me, hacking through the murky jungles of momhood with the Machete of Courageous ...

Do you know what I love about mammograms? Neither do I, but I'm open to suggestions. Because my current feelings on the procedure are unaffectionate.

Frequently am I confounded by the stickers I see on the back of cars: The grenade silhouette. The TRUTH fish eating the DARWIN fish. The Calvin-esque little boy who pees on things.