It’s another year around the sun. Another opportunity to be the best of you. More chances to smile and work head-on. It’s a new moment in the universe. It’s another call for you to go all in. Editor: Erynn Crittenden

Creativity can be a curse. The perfect ideas come at the worst time. Like while showering, and the closest place to capture the brilliance is in the next room. The common solution suggests writing whatever ideas stay in the mind when the opportunity to commit them to paper arises. This may be an effective technique ...

May-Linda woke up to empty garbage dumpsters being dropped at the waste station at the end of the road. It was Sunday, and trash pickup for the week. She propped herself on her elbows. The smell of dew seeped through the separations in the window frame. Soon, the heat would suck the dewdrops from the ...

Hazeltina and Gareth went to the dump every Saturday afternoon. They referred to it as “shopping at the mall,” which meant perusing through discarded items on weathered shelves a step away from the dumpster bins. May-Linda had gone with them before but had been embarrassed by their childish glee over an unwanted vacuum cleaner, recipe ...

Two days passed as I remained at home, eagerly anticipating the publication of the article at the week’s end. In my free time, I threw Louis’ gifts away and watched television. On Thursday, to my surprise, Louis called. The urge to confront him about the incident at the nail salon and Bouncing Boba grew. With ...

Later that day, I returned to the newspaper’s office; we agreed to meet in person to discuss my story. The other employees had the rest of the week off, and despite how suspicious it seemed, they jumped at the chance to relax. I sat at the conference room desk and waited for Miss Billings. All ...

After crying for an hour, I calmed down to pay the technicians and drove home. My heart still ached the rest of the afternoon and into the night, and only a pint of chocolate ice cream comforted me until I fell asleep. It wasn’t a restful sleep. I found myself in a nightmare of a ...

When I left the office, I spent the day driving and shopping around my Los Angeles neighborhood to forget everything Miss Billings told me. I couldn’t shake the mental picture of Louis with that other woman, no matter how hard I tried. When it hit seven o’clock it became unbearable. To satisfy my curiosity, I ...

Many of us were encouraged to have fun and explore our imaginations in our early years. We scribbled, finger-painted, and sculpted Play-Doh. Our imaginative powers were used to construct make-believe worlds only we could see. However, fine arts and music were often considered extracurricular activities during school. But a lifelong pursuit of artistic endeavors is ...

My husband, John is horrified and is bombarding Juji (my sister) with too many questions. All  because she is pregnant. What is she doing? Does she not comprehend they enter their teenage years? Crave cars and demolish them? Drive you bonkers? We have lived through raising three children. John was not a happy camper during ...