OZY Daily Dose

"You come to New York for your birthday and I'll give you a present you'll never forget."The speaker? An ex, but as casual of an ex as we had been partners - meaning we'd have sex with each other if there was no one else to have sex with. A year ahead of me in school, she had already shifted into her postcollege career strivings.

EUGENE, SIR: My man wants to ejaculate on my face. Fine. When I ask him why, I get no answer. When I’m asking, I’m not angry or upset, just curious. His inability to answer has made me suspicious, so I’m asking you since you seem to know so much.

It wasn't like we were star-crossed lovers or anything melodramatic like that. I mean, I was 9, and he was 10. Nonetheless we were forbidden to be together. There were actual laws prohibiting girls and boys to be in close proximity without a chaperone. We lived in post-revolution Iran, where, in a matter of months, women lost their right to ride a bicycle or sing in public.At age 6, my life, like that of all women there, took a plunge in value to half the worth of a man.

Wrigley Field was already lifeless by mid-May 1997. After the beloved Cubbies started the season 0-14, fans up and vanished. But on May 18, slammin' Sammy Sosa launched two dingers as Chicago beat the Giants before the first sellout crowd of the season. Thing is, much of the crowd couldn't have cared less about home runs or breaking that damned billy goat's curse. Apparently, a blue Beanie Baby named Cubbie the Bear was more than worth the price of admission.

Jordan Berry still remembers the faces of drivers as they crept down the road, puzzled by what was going on in their neighborhood park. You see, American football is an uncommon sight in Melbourne, Australia. But thanks to Berry - and other trailblazers - Down Under is coming up with promising punters."I'd suit up in full pads and let it fly," says Berry, recalling the start of his punting obsession. "After each kick I'd have to chase down the ball, punt it back the other way.

It had been an unusually good year. For me, I mean. It was 1989, and everything was popping.And by "everything," I mean the store I had opened, the only music, video, music apparel, book, tattoo and gun store in, well, maybe existence, was making money.

The woods are lovely, bright and deep. In my mind, I am in early 20th century New England, and Robert Frost's steps are mine. Walk past the birches his daughter would swing on in the summers. Hear birds chirping and imagine them to be the wood thrushes of his letters. There, a mending wall: There, Hyla Brook. Then, two roads that diverge. I came to see and feel what Frost, the four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work embodied New England lore and nature, may have seen and felt.

EUGENE, SIR: My husband and I are healthy, happy and in our 30s, without kids. My husband is great and has taken our sex life by small steps into places I had not expected to go, but am glad to have gone. But it’s like swimming, and when I talk to friends I can see we’ve gotten pretty far from their shore and have started to worry that we’re sensation addicts, and addictions never seem to end anyplace good.

The ghosts and witches have flown. Your belly aches of candy. And everywhere - on your trick-or-treater-less front steps, leaf-strewn porch or even nestled among empty beer cans on your kitchen table - are pumpkins. What will you do with these bulbous, orange beasts? Turns out, much good, my friend.Make pumpkin picklesFirst check that your pumpkins aren't sullied by candle wax or other foreign debris. Then chuck your grandma's pie recipes, and try something exciting and fresh: pumpkin pickles.

I watched him walk to the cage. Skinny Black kid from New York. It was Jan. 31, 2009, when he was a mixed martial arts fighter with some local junior college juice trying to make a name for himself. And he was going to try to do it fighting Stephan Bonnar, more affectionately known as "the American Psycho" for vibing like Christian Bale's impossibly clean-cut lunatic from the film of the same name.I was shooting the shit at a sports bar while watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship 94.