Dear Professor Feingold: I hope this letter finds you well and that you are enjoying your retirement.  You aren’t going to remember me, but I was in one of your English literature classes in 1998.  Yes, I know that was a long time ago, and I was an unimpressive student at the time.  As I [...]

I was born in Pennsylvania, a place where potato chips are a food group of their own.  We could count on just about any store worth its salt carrying chips; some where thick-cut, some were darkly fried, some were fried in pork fat, others in cottonseed oil.  I had my favorites, but I ate them [...]

I grew up on the East Coast, so I grew up eating steamed crabs.  Blue crabs in particular (which turn orange when steamed) are the best crabs there are…but it can be difficult to convince foreigners of this fact.  It’s difficult because foreigners aren’t usually around long enough to learn how to eat them.  A [...]

This year, I learned to make love.  I realize that’s an odd thing to hear from the owner of a website devoted to all things sexy and romantic, so I’ll allay your fears by telling you that I’ve known how to fuck since I first did it at age 18.  I’m a rather passionate fucker, [...]

When it comes to jeans, everyone has fit issues…or so I discovered in a highly unscientific pool of people I know.  My size 0 personal trainer revealed that most jeans cut across her “fat place” (I think it’s called skin), and my adorable client groaned about his 30-inch inseam that forces him to shorten every [...]

Truth and tact is a tricky one.  I’m not a fan of telling everything I know.  However, there are those amongst us who live for prying open Pandora’s Box with a tire iron and will do whatever it takes to get at the juicy goods.  This is where proper upbringing is at its most impressive.  [...]

It took me almost 25 years to go visit my grandfather’s grave.  Being neither religiously inclined nor a cemetery visitor, I say goodbye to people I love and remember them in my heart.   But I felt I needed to make this trip for one reason:  to make sure the gravesite was receiving perpetual care. [...]

I got out and walked back toward the sleek mass of metal and money.  The problem was obvious soon enough—the left rear tire was flat.  Actually, it was nearly shredded.  You get that sometimes; sharp bits of junk fall from the trucks hauling on the freeways.  Sometimes they take a tire, sometimes not.  They took [...]

I had a boyfriend once whose mother, when she was charmed by his bad behavior, would roll her eyes and tell me how patient I was.  But he was not my boyfriend for very long, because she was wrong.  Patience is a virtue, but it’s not one of mine.  I aspire to be more patient.  [...]

First, you have to be interested enough to spend the time.  This is true if any endeavor that pays back joy for discipline:  drawing, playing guitar, taking pictures, dancing, singing, tennis, gardening.  It has to engage you.  Everyone has something that sometimes feels as though you’re pushing a rock up a hill but still makes [...]