Donna Peterson

So the next time you flippantly describe someone’s behavior as “bipolar,” the next time you say you wish you could “catch” anorexia before bikini season, the next time you describe yourself as OCD because you like your DVD collection alphabetized, please stop and think a minute.

Do not give an utterly unpronounceable spelling to a well-known name.

Everyone deserves the chance to make their dreams come true. The opportunity to shine is not the privilege or the province of the wealthy or the cosmopolitan; it is the birthright of the human person.

Men, as a general precept, are exponentially less likely to ask for affirmation or demand it, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to hear it.

The inevitable princess phase must be counterbalanced by a lineup of well-rounded flesh-and-blood female role models in both their daily lives and in their media consumption, lest they come to idolize Cinderella for snagging Prince Charming and Ariel for her killer abs and preternaturally small waist.

It was because I finally found the one human being who fills my heart with joy and whom I couldn’t possibly go another day without lest I shrink to something small and mean and soulless.

Too often, we view pain and suffering and mess like the early Victorians viewed pregnancy: an unpleasant yet necessary evil, meant to be slogged through but certainly not spoken of. Instead, consider this: what if this is the good stuff?

I look back on the last, oh, quarter-of-a-century, and I think, like Whitman, that I no doubt deserve my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserve my friends.

On any given production she has banged her leading man, the director, the music director, and the entire pit orchestra with the exception of the second strings. She has never once broken a nail at a set build, the words “supporting role” are not in her vocabulary, and God help the lighting designer who fails to spot her properly.

If, in the end, Lewis is right — that there are no safe investments — wouldn’t it be easier, less painful, less gut-wrenchingly traumatic in the long run to not invest at all? Wouldn’t it be more conducive to one’s all-around emotional and psychological well-being?

Intimacy isn’t easy, it isn’t immediately gratifying, and most of the time it’s a bit squidgy around the edges. Moreover, intimacy is — call me a cynic — something that, given enough time, love, and effort, you can cultivate with just about anyone.

It occurred to me (a bit reluctantly, it must be admitted) that for every sorrow in my life there has been a commensurate blessing, that every great joy of my life has been necessarily preceded by some unspeakable suffering; that only when, as Augustine puts it, as in human utterances, one syllable is completed can the next come to be.

The ultimate purpose of language is not destructive but creative, and it is this very power of language which is a fundamental reality upon which any civilized society pivots. It is this reality, so self-evident and yet so fraught with implications, which attracted many of us to the study of words in the first place.

There is absolutely no excuse for ignorance, apathy, insensitivity, and callousness about women who struggle with body image; eating disorders are an issue that affects us all.

Recently it occurred to me to ask myself — what is underlying this paranoia? Will the universe really grind to a screeching halt on its axis if I have a dot of ink one micrometer in diameter on my dress?

Do anything for 11 years and then attempt to quit cold-turkey; the very act of stopping is more difficult than mapping the human genome on a Commodore 64, becomes a brutal and death-defying act of the will all its own.

We admitted we were powerless over [insert drug of choice here], that our lives had become unmanageable, reads the first step of all 12-Step programs. But what is powerless? We quibble.

How many times have you decimated several forests’ worth of Kleenex because a man used you for sex, strung you along, couldn’t make up his mind about you, dumped you for no good reason, caught you in the cross-fire of his own quest for self-actualization, or committed any number of similar offenses which should in fairness get a guy’s man-card revoked for life?