[Let me try this again.]

Christian, what skin is it off your nose if people study, apply and greatly benefit from serious astrological principles? The world is plenty big enough for all of us. Really, what's it to you?

Christian, I didn't answer your questions. That was rude. Wonder Woman did a bang-up job so maybe I don't have to. But you didn't answer mine either. You dismissed it with condescension, which still makes me wonder, what's the big deal? What so gets your goat on this subject? What's the worst-case scenario if astrology did become more popular and seriously utilized?

The bottom line: astrologists don't have to prove anything. It appears, for the most part, they're not interested in jumping through the Amazing Randi's flaming hoops. To think that they would be or should be is completely missing the point. If you're not interested in the teachings of Jung, Joseph Campbell, and mystics too numerous to name, you'll never get astrology's value.

Re the rulership of Scorpio: I laughed when I read astrologer Lynn Hayes' reaction on hearing of Pluto's demotion: "They don't know who they're dealing with."

I'm really into astrology, and I have no reason to doubt that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Hold those two thoughts in your mind at the same time.

Astrology is like a gun. Used wrongly by stupid people, it can do a lot of damage. The charlatans make the serious practitioners look bad.

Come on! Is this really a good time to stick out our tongues at Rove & Co.? Save the smug righteousness till after the elections and see if it's warranted then.

Meantime, could we please have some stories about how the Dems will do things differently?

...sourpusses, or those little vertical wrinkles are going to etch themselves into your sanctimoniously pursed (but, yes, thin) lips.

Life is a banquet, and you poor fools are starving to death.

When I am an old lady, I shall wear black and olive, with a hat that looks really cool on me...

Since I started listening to a transistor radio in 1968, I have longed for the iPod - I just didn't know it.

I am such a music freak. I'm just wired to get a absolute rush when I hear something that moves me. But I'm not necessarily into the artist - I'm into the song. Certainly with some artists I'll like everything they do, but for nearly 30 years I'd have to buy an album just to get to one song, and some rarities continually eluded me.

When I started using the web at work in the mid-90s, I almost immediately knew that someone was going to make it so that we could download one song at a time and do away with all those expensive, superfluous tracks. I couldn't wait. And lo and behold, along came iTunes. I blissfully started building my own personal radio station.

When I decided this year that I absolutely had to get serious about exercise, I "invested" in a 1GB iPod Shuffle. And without hyperbole, I say it has changed my life. It is the perfect combination of a personal music collection and radio - random, but you know you'll always hear something you love.

I used to have to force myself - and not always successfully - to get out and walk for half an hour. Now I'm out there at least an hour every day, and sometimes I can't resist - can't resist! - going even longer.

So yes, meeting a decades-old longing and solving a persistent and detrimental motivation problem - I would say the iPod is perfect. Yay, Apple!

Maybe King isn't sure he can write a gripping story without horror elements. I believe he can.

Come on, Steve, you're already set for life. Who cares if your horror fans follow you or not? Write your Great American Novel, already.

Why doesn't someone tell HIM to shut up and sing?

Do you even have an inkling who you actually are? And I don't mean in the "Do you know who I AM?" sense. Hell, no.

Not a single sentence of your responses in this interview carried an original thought. You sound like every other worn out wannabe out there. And we have a nation full of them. All reflexive, compulsive posing and grasping at anything to distract from the shriveled self within.

Get yourself to an ashram, for Christ's sake. Or a therapist's office, at least.

Do you all hear yourselves? Your exhortations to Exercise! Get on Zoloft! Stay off Zoloft! Snag a younger man! Eat right! Keep a positive attitude! are just as exhausting as More's propaganda any day.

Christ, this gal has enough to endure without more oh-so-well-meaning harpies jumping on her case. I suspect that this article would very likely never have been written but for one thing -- the author being the middle-aged mother of two very young children.

Debra, I'll be damned if I'll give you any advice, especially when it appears you just needed to vent. I'll just say, may you give yourself a big break and successfully avoid sentences containing imperatives.

Oh, and I still fill out the EZ some years, too. And I just turned 50.