A chainsaw's bloodthirsty, horror-film roar takes over the pleasant quiet of a sunny Sunday morning. It could be the sound of a hedge trimmer or a leaf blower; they all have a similar menacing scream, don't they? But since the new owners of the house next door came to live outside my office window, I know it can only be a chainsaw. And I know they're continuing, with greater muscle and gumption than ever, to massacre the fig tree I once loved. I assure you I'm no hippie nature-girl defender of trees. It's just this one tree I loved, a three-armed sentinel of summer and bringer of delicious, sweet goodies which it delivered with grace directly into my open arms. Only a year after I fell in lo
"Dear Abby, I am 17. My boyfriend of 2 1/2 years recently broke up with me... he's no longer in love with me and wants to date others. I can't eat, sleep, or concentrate, and the thought of seeing him with another girl makes me physically sick. Help me, please. Signed, Brokenhearted Teen." Abby replies, "...it hurts only for a while. Chalk it up to experience and a part of growing up." Abby's response is exactly what I needed to hear at that age too. If only I'd known that the life I was living as a teen was "only a part of growing up," and not an end unto itself. At sixteen, I had a new "date" of some sort pretty much every other week, and many of those were actually of no interest to me as
