Now that I'm 50 and respectably settled in New England and markedly happier and more contented than I was in my youth, I modestly hope there's time to realize some of my youthful goals before I croak, but I'll take what I can get.

I grew up in an all-female family - two sisters and a mostly single mother - and we often bonded, in part, by disparaging men and feeling superior to them.

The male muse is an unaccountably rare thing in art. Where does that leave female artists looking for inspiration?

Chan Marshall has one of the most haunting, wrenching voices of any current singer, male or female.

My own experience with trains dates to long-ago childhood trips with my family in Mississippi to see my grandmother off at the station in Jackson, bound for Memphis.

No more bare bodies in film scenes for me. For my children's sake, I must stop. The other kids at school keep throwing it up to my children, and they are not kind.

The thing is, I don't take anything for granted anymore - my family, my music, you name it.

But my mother and father were married when my mom was 20 and my dad was 24.