“All people over 80 have uninteresting lives.”
“Young black men who play music loud in cars only listen to rap music.”
“All gay men are artistic and fastidious.”

These are just three of several biases (“inflexible beliefs about particular categories of people”) of which I have become aware in the last several years. This awareness came to me [...]

Have you ever had one of those days when things just don’t go right? You leave the house only to realize you left your cell phone by the bed and have to drive all the way home to pick it up. After starting off again, you learn, while listening to the radio, that the concert [...]

When I was growing up, both my parents smoked. I also spent my most formative years breathing the smog-choked air of Los Angeles County. Come to think of it, I had a boyfriend or two who was addicted to nicotine in the days when most people didn’t think much of it.

On the other hand, I [...]

Most of you are probably too young to remember the days when radio stations had “Guess this Sound” contests. This is how it worked. The station would play a sound and listeners won prizes if they were able to guess where the sound came from. There’d be things like the noise made by a zipper [...]

It’s amazing no one drowned in the torrent of water that splashed from the pool. As I think back, it must have been amusing to watch this scrawny adolescent plow across that watery expanse in frenzy, arms flailing. No wonder the other swimmers dog paddled madly toward the edge for safety.

That adolescent was I and [...]