“People always laugh at me when I tell them I’m scared of pencils, because they can’t fathom why anyone would fear a puncture wound or lead poisoning from a pencil, especially now that it’s impossible to get lead poisoning since they don’t actually contain lead. But those fuckers are sharp, and I have nightmares about getting cornered in a room and repeatedly stabbed with one. Somehow knives don’t frighten me, even though they are the more obvious tool for both a real and imagined stabbing.”

“People always laugh at me when I tell them I’m scared of pencils, because they can’t fathom why anyone would fear a puncture wound or lead poisoning from a pencil, especially now that it’s impossible to get lead poisoning since they don’t actually contain lead. But those fuckers are sharp, and I have nightmares about getting cornered in a room and repeatedly stabbed with one. Somehow knives don’t frighten me, even though they are the more obvious tool for both a real and imagined stabbing.”

“The entire partying lifestyle was superficial in my experience, and most of my friendships were as deep as a shot glass and as short-lived as a pack of cigarettes.”

“The next day I received a phone call from Mr. Pride which began, “So, I heard you won Ho of the Year.” Well when you put it like that it didn’t sound like such an accomplishment.”

“To me, the words “food” and “guilt” didn’t belong in the same sentence unless, say, you were referring to how you felt about the starving children in Africa.”

“The Lush hadn’t driven in almost a decade - ever since she got in an accident that shook her so badly she refused to get behind the wheel. As you can imagine, someone nicknamed The Lush wouldn’t make a good DD anyway. I’d known her about a year before ever seeing her sober.”

“I thought of my sweet little girl and her chubby cheeks, big brown eyes and long brown hair with bangs that constantly needed trimming. She was all that really mattered in this world, and I could not keep moping over some guy who came in and out of my life faster than a season of American Idol.”

“Lesson learned: If you’re already resorting to writing shitty poetry (not the lovey-dovey kind) to get your guys attention within one month of meeting him, he is not the one.”

“In an attempt to help me move on from my failed marriage, my mom set me up with Jesus Freak. In fact, the stoner hadn’t even finished moving out when she told me not to worry, because she already had someone better lined up for me. I was just lonely and desperate enough to endure a four-month celibate long distance relationship with a guy who read 15 chapters of the Bible and prayed for two hours every day and expected me to follow suit. He wanted to give our hypothetical children Bible names and for us to move to Korea to become missionaries.”

“Lesson learned: Don’t ever put a guy up on a pedestal. It’s too easy for him to tip over and fall off.”