Eliana Osborn

How do you love someone who continually does things to hurt himself? I’ve been holding a phone with my stoned, sobbing brother on the other end for nearly 20 years. I keep picking up the pieces, keep having my heart break, because he’s my brother.

I’m not a fan of repeating things over and over so that they lose their meaning. "Pledge: a solemn promise or agreement." It is that extra level, the solemnity, that makes me uncomfortable with casual usage.

1. Write a damn letter.

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

The most important things my mother taught me included work from Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Wham! and Whitney Houston.

My Life on the Road (or MLR) is not what I expected...the idea of not waiting for experience to come to you permeates the book.

In this film, we got to walk backstage with the young Broadway actress currently playing Annie. She explained the rules for taking on the role: Once a girl started her period, she couldn’t be Annie.

I’ve got two tales of hideous male behavior — at the elementary school, somewhere typically full of good vibes and happiness and all that.

In Anchorage, Alaska, there are 5 hours, 27 minutes of daylight on December 21. The good news: The numbers only go up for the next six months. The bad news: December 22 has merely seconds more light.

Sometimes the nicest kids turn into whole new people when they come over to your house.