Well, I have this one other thing that's mine: my zine. I pay for it; I write it; I cut it and paste it and copy it and mail it. I save all the originals in a master file and look back at them and see where I've come from and where I'm going. I put a huge honking chunk of myself in it each time. It's mine, and the thing that's so great about it is, no matter how much anybody else dishes out to me, no matter what they try to take away from me, they can't take my zine because it's not theirs.

Or at least that's what I thought… In other news, something to chew on: if your dad has a predilection for telling your brother's off-colour jokes at work, you might want to drag him over to the dictionary and point out the wee paragraph on 'karma'. And while you're there, maybe you should have a look at it, too. Seriously, you'll be glad you did.

Recently, one of these smaller secrets got me into a load of trouble with one of my best friends and gave me a sneaky glance at my inner workings. What is it about me that makes me deny the very thing I want the most? What is it about me that struggles for independence while frantically searching for someone to lean on? What is it about me that makes me scared to say what something really is to the people who are sure to understand it the most? And on a different topic, what in the world possessed me to obediently eat my father's "special recipe gut-busting chili" while my mother lay upstairs under her depression duvet in a red wine coma and Ethan followed his own dreams straight into the toilet? Huh? What's with that?

Like remember when you were learning to tie your shoes? And sometimes you'd get up and just not feel like doing it. So you'd shove your shoe at your mom and claim you couldn't remember how to do it yourself. And she'd smile at you and tie it for you.

Yeah, well, I said good-bye to all that recently. So did Ross, actually, but things worked out a little better for him. I guess because he was dealing with loving grandparents, and I was dealing with an evil ex-boyfriend that makes that invisible pig in the Amityville Horror look like a swell pal. I just want to yell at Malachi - look at that Amityville pig! Look at his red glowing eyes, the way he locks babysitters in the closet until they're hysterical and thumps around being a complete ass all the time. Why can't you be more like him? IT'D SURE BE AN IMPROVEMENT!

Mary-E took karate when she was little, and the master used to say to them at the end of class, when you skip rope, skip rope. When you do your homework, do your homework. When you eat dinner with your family, eat dinner with your family. We used to think he was just a little off. I mean, he kinda was, really (as evidenced by his haircut). But now I think I know what he meant. If you're going to live, live. Don't be somewhere else, wishing you were doing something else, worrying about what you're about to do, concentrating on the fact that the way your dad eats spaghetti just makes you want to murder someone. Choose to do the things you do. Don't resign yourself to them or try to avoid them.

Just like Dorothy found out: life isn't just around the corner. It's right here, right now. So embrace it all, experience it completely, be in the moment, go with it.