Cat's friends seemed like very sweet girls,' Dad says.'They were the bomb,' I say fervently, and he looks back at me with raised eyebrows.''The bomb' is a good thing? Like 'sick'?'Duh,' I reply, and Dad lets out a sigh.'Thirteen-year-olds should come with subtitles,' he says, turning onto our street.

Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.

Impatience may be a virtue if you have to write for today's generation.

Joining a gang is like sky diving without a parachute. Oh, at first it’s all fun, as you take on gravity in a thrilling and exhilarating free fall towards earth. The truth is, anything that is risky and dangerous always starts out as fun. But the odds are always stacked in gravity’s favor, for you will eventually come face to face with the earth, and mother earth always wins those battles. The same thing can be said about being in a gang.