L. O., 65, was declared dead February 24, 2016. He was found by police in his rusted10-foot travel trailer which stank of mildew and stale cigarette smoke and was piled with trash, old newspaper clippings, and indecipherable notes written on the backs of Wal-mart receipts. In the absence of knowing what he wished done with his remains, L.'s family opted for the easiest and least expensive route of cremation. Pace-Stancil Funeral Home is handling arrangements, because they happened to be the mortuary on call that morning. Born on March 11, 1950, in greater Cleveland, L. was a graduate of high school and college, though he made no discernible use of his education. He was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force for which he flew large, angry planes over Vietnam. Throughout his adult life his chronic unemployment was interrupted by an intermittent series of jobs, each apparently less skilled than the one before, which resulted in his living in several states including Arkansas, Missouri, C...

A friend of mine, god bless her, had her second child a few days ago. She's home from the hospital now, where they kick you out 48 hours after you squeezed a miniature human out of your body (72 hours if doctors had to slice through your innards to retrieve the baby), and in the throes of the stage I like to call What The Hell Have I Done? In a recent email I congratulated her, and she wrote back -- under the mistaken belief that I have this motherhood thing figured out -- asking "How do I parent 2? How much wine is too much? Tell me everything." I replied: "The best advice I can give is to figure out who has the most pressing need and take care of that first. Sometimes it's you. And that's okay. It's hard. In about three months you'll come up for air, wondering what the hell happened. But you will have survived, and probably the baby and the toddler will too, and that's what's important. Hang in there. Also skip the wine and go stra...