You're doing great, so I'm sure you'll ignore what I'm about to say:

It's pretty sad that you can't be all that without being high. I'm guessing that in your natural state, you must be rather insipid. You might even feel like dying. No? If you quit completely for a year, I'll believe in your impressive self-control.

I just hope for the sake of your employer and your loved ones that your supply never runs out. Because then what would you do? And what if you got arrested? Placed on probation? Tested several times a week?

The "addict myth"... ain't a myth.

I'm teetering on the fence between good and bad in my opinion of your dependency. If you were to, say, devote some of your energy and confidence to socially constructive use, including charitable efforts to lift the underprivileged and downtrodden (those who can't afford to get high) so they can at least lead somewhat normal lives, your pot-smoking is obviously a good thing for the community.

You smoke pot to stop obsessing about our child president? You mean, you obsess about him when you're not high? That might suggest something else about your psychology.

All right, I'll admit it. I feel sorry for you. Despite your successes.

Cal Berkeley.

Mid-'90s.

Sucked.

I envy you all.

that the media's lack of coverage of this man's hypocritical looniness is simply due to the premeditation and careful preparation being put into what will become an onslaught of negative publicity.

A third of Hillary supporters vow to vote for McCain if she doesn't win the nomination? Seriously? McCain isn't the only loony toon out there.

the omnipresent racial tension in the Bay Area has got to be half-dead.

They hide it very well. Though sometimes they don't bother since we're already too beguiled to believe anyone in the Promised Land is socially backward.

And college kids will fight you to the death if you dare suggest it of them. That's probably why the draft age is 18.

Haha. Oh, wait--were you joking?

The Northeast was nothing compared to what I dealt with Out West. Navigating other people's emotional labyrinths takes way too much energy. Now I burn calories shoveling snow.

So that's what a worked-to-the-bone law student turns into?

LW, take note. That is your cue to not become like that.

And get help. Find a way to stay positive. Have you looked outside today? It's a beautiful day in the Cambridge area.

Females can bear children. All they need is one functional male.

Ten females can produce at least ten children within a year if all impregnated at once; some offspring will survive and can then produce their own offspring.

Ten males and one female... the guys will have to wait in line to sire the brood. By the time a viable female offspring reaches reproductive age, the males will have died from the famine. 'Cause men eat a lot and their mothers apparently do too.

before someone wrote this article.

But who's Duval Patrick? And where's Randolf?

Ah, Iraq. To give us perspective.

South Street Seaport. Rank. Almost keeled over from the stench.

Does it really mean anything? There's sushi in a LOT of American cities now.

When I was in California, my companions kept wanting to go out for sushi. I've had sushi many times; it's not my preferred cuisine. But they were relentless: sushi or Chinese food. My choice (not either) always got voted down.

Democracy exists in California!

--OR--

There are versions of conformity in California that have yet to be touched upon in this letters thread. My paltry example only scratches the surface.

It's all still wondrous to Mr. Keillor because he hasn't spent most of his life there.

Don't be ruffled, Californians. There's conformity everywhere.

Let the Wild West Love Fest continue.

It's because Obama is "uppity."

(courtesy Rep. Westmoreland)

"People stopped singing after 2001."

She agreed.

To no one in particular, in case there isn't a higher power willing to listen: Please, can Obama/Biden win this year? Just for four years, to see if it works? Please? So we can start singing again? At the least.

I, too, feel defeated. Because all that a quarter of the electorate needed was the slightest reason to vote for McCain, and they found that slight reason.

Lived in SF Bay Area. Got criticized by all sorts of people for not adhering to gender expectations, for not acting or looking the part. Was often assumed to be gay. People couldn't understand that I was what I was without being A, B, or K. Like they were saying, "You're free to be anything now! So go ahead and choose to follow your gender role."

Just one example.

Spent his youth stoned in the school boiler room. He just woke up last year, when he got that factory job and had to start getting up in the mornings for work. Probably read a few headlines on his way in.

He's of age to smoke, drink, gamble, shoot a gun, and vote!

Thank goodness he can't rent a car.

G-a-n-d-h-i. Gandhi.

I am not that poster, but I wonder, how does that 'h' jump three letters backwards so often? "Martin Luter King" would definitely earn some corrections from concerned posters.

Excuse the non sequitur.

But this idea is brilliant.

SkyDome.

Metrodome.

Totally gnarly.

As are sticks and towels, which brings to mind Neanderthals and damsels-in-distress. There are parks where the vast majority of fans use their larynges, hands, and feet, and where a mass wave of merchandise is a flash in the pan, usually a giveaway that day. The best is when the fans make their own creative signs and cardboard cutouts.

These things that make noise don't necessarily have any bearing on how the team fares in the playoffs.

You are just jealous of them.

Let the conflation begin.

No.

I'm having pie.

And bacon.