What has been your biggest accomplishment? Your biggest failure?

There is a street in a suburb of London with rows of shoulder-to-shoulder brick houses just like you'd see on many similar streets.  Tiny front yards and fences blocking view of the backs.  Driveways and sidewalks and pavement keep it warm in the sun and keep the residents shoveling in the snow.  Some houses have newly replaced roofs or windows.  Some will need them replaced soon.  Some are well past their ideal replacement date.  Attempts have been made by most residents to not only keep their homes neat, but also to provide a little "curb appeal", usually with a colorful door or some potted flowers.

One home, however, has an additional feature, added some months before: a knot of reporters and paparazzi with frayed ends of oglers, opportunists, curious and angry.

Two years after having a baby, you discover that, through a hospital error, you were given the wrong child. What would you do?

When I turned ten, my parents asked me to the living room for a family meeting.  I thought they had found out it was me who covered the boy's room ceiling at school with hundreds of wet wads of paper towels.  Thrown forcefully underhand, they stick with a satisfying "thwack" and surprising longevity.  "Longevity" is a word I inadvertently learned from my Word a Day calendar.  So was "inadvertently".  I didn't want to learn, but junk like that sticks to my grey matter.

Luckily, I knew not to confess without listening first.  Good news: they didn't know about my escapade (March 5th Word of the Day.)  Bad news: they weren't really my parents.

What’s the difference between religion and spirituality?

"Brother Carlyle," the monk cleared his throat and shifted in his bare, wooden chair, "lives alone."

The reporter was beginning to get annoyed, but tried not to show it.  "I understand that, but why did he choose to separate himself?"

"He didn't, Miss."  The monk was newer, that is, he became a member within the last ten years.  Most of the monks were quite old, but this one could still be considered young.  She arched one eyebrow and he continued in a whisper, "Brother Carlyle was sent away."

Now we're getting somewhere.  The other brothers, friars, monks, priests, or whatever they were, kept giving her the runaround, but eventually, Tia Teagarten always got her story.  She leaned in and matched the monk's volume, "Why was he sent away?"

If you could meet with President Obama for fifteen minutes, what would you discuss with him?

I wish the world would embrace peace.  It sounds like such a hippie thing to say.  Unfortunately, the hippie movement was undermined by resistance to change and drugs.  Those resistant to change pointed to the drugs as the reason why hippies shouldn't be listened to, and some hippies were more into "expanding their minds" than peace, but those undermining reasons never mattered.  Only peace mattered.  Only peace matters.

I have a secret.  It's huge.  I mean, it's unbelievable.  It has made me see how humans will never believe the message of peace.  It has made me see how humans will never relinquish their love of power and money, which is what made religion what it is today.  Religion is humans controlling humans, I see that now.  It's not peace and harmony.  Religion is the leading cause of death and suffering in the world, so how could it be peace and love and harmony and all that bull?  It's not, and I can prove it with my secret.

The Savior is here.  Don't dismiss me as a crazy!  Isn't this what everybody's been waiting for, so why is it so unbelievable?  I didn't believe it myself, at first.  But now I do, and...  I'd better begin at the beginning.

Pageant Question: Substance abuse is huge problem among teens. How do you stay drug free? What solutions do you propose to solve this problem?

Vic's house was the first split-level that she had ever seen, and she thought it looked like one of those cool, rich-person's multilevel apartments you might find in New York City.  It was also walking distance from the high school, which she also thought of as cool because she would have gone home every day for lunch.  Lora, however, lived in what had been a "show home" neighborhood back in the 1970s.  As a very fresh freshman, she was only just beginning to think outside her own world view, and it gave her a tingling feeling in the back of her mind that, perhaps, her family was rich, and everyone in Vic's neighborhood was not.

Lora was not Vic's girlfriend, but rather a friend who happened to be a girl.  Cheryl was Vic's girlfriend, and also one of Lora's best friends.  Vic, Chris, and Frankie were buddies.  Lora, Cheryl, Jenny and Barb were besties.  Freshman year was when they all discovered each other and found that boys and girls could mingle.  So far, it was working, and on the night of the Fall Dance, they met up at Vic's split-level to hang out before walking over.

Each of the friends had a secret none of the others knew.  Lora only knew hers: she had fallen for Vic.  Her fall was solidified that night when, in her mind, Vic saved them all from a gang of druggies.

Pageant Question 19: Would you consider yourself to be an optimist, a pessimist or a realist?

It is not true that there is a finite amount of happiness a person can have.  When good comes to you, there is no reason why more good should not follow, and furthermore, there is no reason why the good should be interrupted for any reason in the future.  Often, people who find themselves benefiting from what they perceive as "good luck" will assume that it is a one-shot deal.  They may even believe that the good luck must be balanced by bad.

Untrue!

Good may follow good may follow good until you finally realize that none of the "good" is happening separately from any other part of life: it is life.  At this point, many happy people living a good life may feel a sense of guilt.  There is no reason for guilt because happiness is infinite.  Because you are happy doesn't mean anyone else will be unhappy.  Because you experience a good event doesn't mean it needs to be balanced with bad somewhere else.  You can be happy and experience good, and so can everyone else.  It is infinite.

Plus: it is always within you.

A person has a very small sphere of influence--it is only him or herself.  You control how you think and react.  Thoughts, however, can be habits, and you may need to re-groove paths in your brain to realize the happiness that lies within.  It will take work.  It will take patience with yourself.  You will have setbacks, but it will work.

Pageant Question 12: If you could go back in time and meet one person, who would it be, and why?

I was very good at going to school.  I had been doing it since I was three, so by the time I got to college, I knew how to sit and listen for hours, how to take pages and pages of notes from lectures, how to read dozens of books in a matter of months, and how to write so my professors were happy campers.  I was a vessel.  I was a programmable robot.  I was an excellent student.

What I wasn't good at was socializing (no surprise there) or noticing what was right in front of my face.  I had a real hard time with change.  I had gotten extremely comfortable in my uncomfortable life, and I didn't like to look ahead to the time when I would graduate, so I began actively researching graduate programs even back in my junior year.  It was the first semester of my senior year, however, that I looked up.  Literally.  I looked up during APY 377 (the awesomely titled "Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery"), and actually saw.

I mean, I would glance up during class to look at pictures on the overhead or what the professor might write on the whiteboard, sometimes another student would make a noise and I'd glance, or sometimes I would stare into space and think, but this time, I looked up, and I felt like I became disconnected from my body.  I observed the classroom: a lecture hall class with plastic bucket seats and swing-arm desks in funky 1960s colors.  I observed the cement floor covered with industrial carpeting in a neutral brown.  I observed the three giant whiteboards at the front of the room, the ghosts of notes past lingering in blues and blacks.  I observed the other students, not nearly as many today as would be during an exam, mostly surreptitiously on their phones and a few taking notes and a few more than that staring blindly into space.  I observed the professor, looming over the podium, gripping the sides and reading from his notes.  Probably the same notes he had used for decades.  I observed with a detachment that let me finally see the professor as a human being, and he looked like hell.  My sudden observation allowed me to dig back into my less-observant memory for images of the professor earlier in the semester, and I noted that he looked markedly worse today.  His clothes were dirty and wrinkled, and he looked like he hadn't showered or slept in at least a few days.  But his eyes--his eyes were bright sparks in the recesses of their darkened sockets.  He looked alive.

At the end of class, I noted that the professor was packing up in a hurry, stuffing papers into folders and jamming it all into his bag.  Rarely did anyone ever stop to speak to the professor in a lecture hall class, so I knew I'd have but a moment to stop him.

"Professor Stevens," I began, and he started as if I had caught him stealing.

340

I despise keeping the secrets of my ex-boyfriends.  Invariably, they have each confessed something to me, and I hold it in my memory, wishing I could tell someone, but feeling some sort of loyalty to the promise implied by love no longer felt; the promise that I would keep the secrets forever.

I suppose it bothers me because they promised to love me forever, and, clearly, that didn't work out.  To whom should I confess these secrets?  Certainly not a new boyfriend, if there even were one.  He would not understand.  These secrets are big, not in the scope of the world, but rather in terms of their intimacy.  How can I stand to keep their secrets?

I can't.  I will confess two of them now from from the worst boyfriend I ever had.  He was abusive, and I barely escaped him with my self intact.  I was in high school and he was only my second boyfriend ever, so I hope you can forgive me for my idiocy.  We'll call him Peter.  Peter, I can see now, was a sociopath.  He lied, and lied and lied to everyone, and especially to me.  He lied to his mother, he lied to his step-father, and he lied to himself.  He was stupid, but oh, so clever.  He could manipulate.  He had no emotions of his own, but he could twist yours into knots.  He was without remorse, but he could make you feel bad about anything.  He was without conscience and would drag anyone down into the darkness with him because you couldn't believe anyone could be so evil.  He would hold me down when I said no and he'd do it anyway.  He would hit me in the leg, though I wished and wished he'd hit me in the face so I'd have a "valid" excuse to escape.  He followed me and questioned me and lied to the police and stole and lied and separated me from my friends and family.  You can see why I don't feel bad revealing Peter's secrets.

Peter has two related secrets.  One: he once reached into the toilet to squash his own poop with his hands to make it look like diarrhea, so he could get out of going to work at Burger King.  Two: he faked abdominal pain to get out of going to school, but he faked it hard and couldn't back down, so his mother, a nurse, took him to the hospital.  He doubled down on his lie and kept faking for the doctors who performed a needless appendectomy.  Peter was a committed liar.  Pity the poor high school girl, so innocent and desperate to please and be liked.  Pity her carrying the sociopath's secrets and her own hidden hurts.

336

What is holding you back from the lifestyle you desire?  Money?  Health?  Job?  Family?  No matter your current situation, you CAN achieve your dreams, in less time than you think!  By making small, easily sustainable changes in your life, you will smoothly transition into the person you always knew you could be, with the money, health, job and family of which you've always dreamed.

How?

Your first step is VISUALIZATION.  You need to picture yourself where you've always wanted to be.  Make a list of your desires, and even add pictures.  Post it where you will see it every morning when you awake, and look at it before you leave your bed.  Visualize your ideal life for five minutes every morning.  Now you're well on your way!

327

It was Barbara's compulsion to lick the final set of silverware she set for the morning's breakfast before closing down the hotel dining room for the evening.  It was her secret and her control over someone's life, and it made her feel powerful and naughty.  She had been doing it for nearly a year when she was called to fill in for Sasha.  "I'm sorry to wake you, Barbara.  It's Millie, at Hilton.  Sasha called in and with the convention this weekend, we really need someone to fill in this morning.  I can give you the evening off.  I wouldn't ask, but it's an emergency."

That morning, Barbara finally got to see someone receive her secret.

302

My upstairs neighbor whispers into his floor vents.  I don't think he knows that anyone can hear him, but he does it every day and when I'm home, I sit and listen to his secrets.

His name is Jerome Stahl, which I got from the mailboxes in the lobby, but the rest of his life I've been getting from him.  When Jerome feels bad, he describes why and wishes for help to feel better.  When Jerome feels guilty, he agonizes over his failure and begs forgiveness.  When Jerome feels overwhelmed, he lists his undone to-dos and pleads for strength.  When Jerome wallows in self-pity, when people are rude to him, when he was embarrassed, I hear it all, whispered into the vent that opens into my living room.  When Jerome has naughty thoughts, I get those, too, but I try not to listen, even though he uses euphemisms a seven year old might use.  Recently, I've been getting worried for him.

297

There was no warning.  The front door exploded inside with the force of the battering ram held by the two police officers on the front stoop.  A stream of black-clad officers flowed into the house, spilling into every room.  Amber had been drawing upstairs when she heard the splintering boom and felt the house shake.  As the men were shouting directions and updates to one another, Amber scrambled into her closet, pushing aside clothes and climbing the shelves like a monkey.  She shimmed up the last bit, bare feet pressing one side of the closet, her back bracing on the other, as she shoved the attic hatch open with her head and fingertips.  Amber climbed inside and slid the wood square back into place.  Wasting no time, she scuttled on her hands and knees across the loose plywood over the floor joists, past the tubs of Christmas decorations, the boxes of old tax documents, and the black plastic bags with baby clothes and forgotten linens.  She could hear the men shouting on the second floor now, and she kept pushing further back to the far corner where she knew there was a hidden door behind more boxes, even older than the rest.

293

Their teacher's biggest secret was that she hated people.  She hated having to teach because she had to interact with people.  She hated smiling at people.  She hated thinking of other people.  She hating having to worry about other people.  Miss Declan hated people, but her students never knew it.  Even when she told them, they didn't believe her because she'd smile and help them get their work done, and they improved over the semester.  They would write her good reviews and say how much she cared for them, but secretly: she hated people.

Miss Declan wished for nothing more than to go home and be quiet.  Talking all day made her hate the sound of her own voice.  She worried about her students all the time, and it made her ill.  She hated her own brain for making her think of them.  What Miss Declan wanted was a job where she didn't have to talk to, or plan for, or care about other people.

292

She yearned to go dancing.  Not the kind of dancing most men would think, but the kind of dancing where you mostly get to jump and fling your hair and scream.  The kind of dancing where you shove your fellow dancers and bond by bruising your shoulders.  The kind of dancing where you're sweaty and your clothes come loose and your makeup runs and you need to drink, but you don't notice because you're freaking dancing.

Dee couldn't think of a way to tell him, and her insides did a slow burn that dimmed and dimmed, but never quite went out.

236

The impossible is possible.  Famous people are more boring than you'd think.  Every living thing with a brain has doubts.  Shay curled, shivering, under her blanket and thought about all she'd learned the past few months.  Death is always near.  Most people are just going through the motions.  The impossible is possible.  She kept going back to the most uplifting and frightening revelation.  The grate began to vibrate.  Shay held her blanket down on all corners to keep in the warm gust that always followed when a train was coming into the station below.  The impossible is possible.  The impossible is possible.

132

Shakur experienced great glee when pulling one over on the unsuspecting populace. When his false stories, sounding so very authoritative, were picked up by "real" news sources and used as sources and passed from reporter to citizen to coffee shop argument, Shakur would smile his secret smile and feel as if he controlled the world.

131

Observation is the first step towards enlightenment, but you'll never do it correctly. You will observe only through the filter of your body's feelings and your mind's memories. Your experience colors your perceptions and there is nothing upon which you may look that isn't referenced from your own viewpoint.

So forget enlightenment. I'd recommend you try for inner peace, but that is also impossible given the turbulence of the mind.

110

He was the Superman to my Lois Lane. Or was it Lana? Anyway, he was Superman, and he had it all. Everybody loved him; except his arch enemies, but that kind of jealousy was to be expected. He was invincible. He could do no wrong. He was desperately needed, especially by me. My knight in shining spandex, the savior of all.

We were married, and, yeah, being the object of jealousy was great; I finally knew the thrill Superman got from Lex Luthor's envy. It's because we were married that I found out Luthor's envy was misplaced. No one would be jealous if they knew what I knew: Superman was a royal bastard.

95

The outdoor concert smelled like beer, sweat, perfume, and cigarettes. Occasionally someone steeped in weed wandered by, but the security cracked down on that hard, so it wasn't much of a problem for Julia who was surrounded by bodies. Slowly but surely she was moving closer to the stage.

It was a small city, but they had managed to get some formerly big names to do their Friday night concerts. Everyone came out, though for different reasons. Most came out no matter who was performing. Julia knew anyone under the age of thirty attending this concert was here to find their friends and to be seen. A great many came just to drink and ogle the teen girls. Around the outskirts were the very old and the infirm, bobbing their heads and being grateful they weren't indoors on such a nice night.

Julia, and most of the people down in front, were actually here to see the band. A fifty-something lady dressed head to toe in jeans was screaming the words and swaying, hands in the air, her eyes locked on the lead singer. Whenever he appeared to look her way, the lady would wave two thumbs up, hoping she had been seen. Julia stepped around the woman into the red light bathing the first fifteen feet of the crowd.

Even after more than twenty years since this band had filled any auditorium, it was still a dream of most of the older women, and a great many of the men, in this audience to be noticed. To be tapped on the shoulders and have a backstage pass pressed into their hands. To be asked to stay after the concert because the lead singer wanted to see you, personally.

Julia swung around a grey-haired man with a goatee who was boogieing down despite his ample beer belly. The band was just crashing through the final chords of one of their best remembered classics. The singer conducted the drummer's crashes, pumping his fist again, again and again before spinning to face audience, triumphant and beaming. The crowd screamed and hooted and waved. Julia pictured the fifty-something woman, her red-rimmed mouth open and thumbs thrusting to the sky.

The singer grabbed his microphone with his left hand and looked out, then down. His wide smile faltered as his eyes caught those of Julia, surrounded yet somehow alone, bathed in light from the stage.