In January of 2019, I was looking for a challenge I could knock out at the beginning of the new year — something that would make me feel healthier, happier, and, if possible, help me lose a few pounds. I wanted what so many of us are looking for as a new year dawns: a reset.

When I learned about Whole30, I knew I’d found the challenge I’d been craving — the quick win that would also give me the full-body reset I thought I needed. …

In his Tinder profile picture, Terry was balanced on a unicycle — with a parrot perched on his shoulder. Of course I swiped right; this was a guy who looked like he had an interesting story. I was tired of the same old “Let’s get drinks and talk about bland topics” dates. I wanted something different.

Terry was definitely different.

We met at Piedmont Park, where Terry had suggested we could ride bikes. That sounded like fun to me, so I put on a cute outfit and arrived early, in the off-chance that parking would be an issue.

I was standing under the shade of a large tree when I first spotted Terry. Really, there was no mistaking the boy. …

I’ve had a long, arduous, but ultimately quite successful tooth journey that started around the age of 10. It was sometime around then when my pediatric dentist told me that I had no adult tooth to the right of my top front tooth. The baby tooth currently in that spot would have to come out, and when it did, I would start the years-long process of preparing my mouth for an implant.

Not long after, when I’d lost all of my baby teeth, my dentist then told me that the tooth to the left of my top front tooth was too small. …

Blaze — which was, according to him, his actual legal name given to him by his parents — was a kindergarten teacher, of all things. If pressed, after seeing his profile of leather jacket-clad photos with his motorcycle in the background, I would have guessed he was a musician, or a professional wrestler, or a bodyguard. Something like that.

Definitely not a kindergarten teacher.

When we met at an ice cream parlor in Midtown, I was taken aback by the disconnect between his appearance and his career once again, even though I was prepared for it. He was tall, at least 6'5", and wearing rough-looking jeans, steel-toed boots, a black t-shirt, and a heavy black motorcycle jacket. …

Even though I now write every day, I still struggle with motivation. If I’m tired, drained, or feeling just plain uninspired, almost anything feels more tempting than sitting down at my keyboard. As Dorothy Parker famously said, “I hate writing, I love having written.”

I think most writers can relate to Dorothy’s words. As we write, we may feel irritated, bored, and uncomfortable just as often as we feel elated, intelligent, and powerful. Either way, the feeling that comes after a writing session is often a deep, uniquely intoxicating satisfaction.

We all want that satisfied feeling, but first, we need to write. …

Nicholas and I matched on Tinder just before Thanksgiving. Even though he was my age, he had prematurely graying hair, a color which extended to his close-cropped, stylish beard. We bantered back and forth for awhile before he asked me out for a Thursday night in December, which I heartily accepted.

It wasn’t until a few days before the date that I checked his Tinder profile again. I wanted to show my roommate the cute new guy I would be seeing that week.

Oh, how things had changed.

Nicholas’s profile picture no longer showed a fit, silver fox young man smiling demurely into the camera. Now, his picture revealed a guy with a much longer, whiter beard, a Santa hat tipped at a jaunty angle, and a red, fur-trimmed suit left open suggestively, showing a patch of white chest hair. …

I’d been living in Atlanta for over a year, and I was really missing my dogs back home in Michigan. I mentioned this to John as we spoke via Tinder, just to make conversation, and he ran with it.

“How about we go to a petting zoo?” he typed, inviting me finally, after nearly two days of messaging, on a date.

I accepted immediately, more excited about getting to pet some animals than going on a date with John, who, despite being fairly cute, had explained to me that he was a professional ventriloquist.

So, when I met him outside the gates of the Farm Friends Petting Zoo on a beautiful warm day, I expected him to be strange at the very least. …

Walking along the brick paths torn apart by weeds, Arlo can almost hear the ringing of children’s laughter. Back then, there was his little brother Andy, his older sister Stacy, and Jim, his best friend. During the summers, when school seemed like the furthest thing away and the grass had long since turned brown from the heat and the swimming hole at the quarry had dried up, the four of them would come to Family Funland nearly every day. …