Elana K. Arnold

Maybe they're not "real" orgasms, since they're always when I'm alone. It's like that question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Probably solo orgasms don't count if a boy isn't there to witness them. To cause them.

Perhaps that is where our choice lies -- in determining how we will meet the inevitable end of things, and how we will greet each new beginning.

As long as there have been women." Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women.

It's not new, our valuation of young female people for how they can serve, satisfy, and satiate. Our girls are both the platter and the meal, and we eat them up--we eat their meat, we lap up their sweetness, we covet and control and consume.

As long as there have been women," Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women.

I'll walk as fast as I want, and I will take breaks whenever I feel like it. There is no one to follow, no one to keep up with. There's just me and this one beautiful day, this one moment, right here, now.

That's who unconditional love is for - dogs and their masters, fools and their gods.

You can't make people love you. Love isn't something you earn, or something you deserve. Love just is. Or it isn't. Anyway, there are more important things than love. Like service. Being of service. With love, you're waiting around for someone to give it to you. But service, that's something you give. And you don't have to give it just to people you love. It doesn't matter who you serve. It's the serving that matters.

There is no such thing as unconditional love," my mother told me. "I could stop loving you at any time.