You know who you are. I’m not going to ‘out’ you but you NEED to cut it out! — I WROTE THIS PIECE A YEAR AGO AND YOU CONTINUE TO MUTILATE OTHER WRITERS’ WORK TO THE POINT THAT iT iS DIFFICULT TO READ, EVEN UNREADABLE. YOU ARE NOT BEING FAIR TO ALL WHO WRITE ON MEDIUM! Dear Compulsive Highlighter: Genuine praise from you and other readers is desirable and very welcome indeed. Snarky comments come with the territory, along with being ignored or garnering very few reads, followers, and/or claps, and making little or no money.

Enough already—who are we trying to kid? Plus, it could kill us — This piece is not about the poisonous killer makeup of the past: the ones containing mercury, lead, arsenic; nor about the cruelty of false eyelashes sewn onto women’s upper lids or the torture of corsets, hoop skirts, girdles, and stiletto heels. But it is telling to note (and I am…

But what if you’re too scared? — Last week I witnessed what looked like excessive police force against a person of color; in this case, a Black youth: teen or pre-teen. I did not see his face as it was turned away from the street while he was being frisked. I was on my way to Whole Foods (where all us Karens shop) to return something useless I bought the day before, from boredom. The most succinct definition I have found…

Thinking of rounding up expenses and rounding down income? You might want to think again. Take a tip from one who’s cried. — Before Woody Allen’s fall from grace, he famously opined that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. This piece is about an experience that was both, and even worse: self-inflicted. The return address of the Internal Revenue Service on the window envelope gave me the willies. …

I know ’cause I’ve had ‘em all! — After giving birth to my second child — via natural childbirth (thank you very much) — though I must admit (shamefully) this was not by choice since I am both a wimp and a coward. My spine had been fused some years before in the exact place where an epidural…

Though he would have preferred Wagner’s Götterdämmerung — My dad was Ukrainian, born in 1925. In Canada, where he ended up (snow being no problem for people from Ukraine) my school friends laughed at his accent. Was he a vampire? LOL. Sure sounded like Bela Lugosi! My vampire-like dad never shied from anything macabre — perhaps because he’d…

An intended, or unintended, consequence of fame? — Meghan Markle retired from her acting career when she married Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and became the Duchess of Sussex. Much better than continuing to play paralegal, Rachel Zane, (why not a full-fledged lawyer? I have often wondered) on the now-defunct American televsion series Suits. …

They said it couldn’t be done—not by me or anyone like me — A foreign-trained (Canadian) lawyer pushing sixty? Don’t make us laugh, Grandma. And don’t waste your money; we need every seat for those who might have a ghost of a chance of passing, and that ain’t you, Babe. In California—which, along with New York, is reputed to have the toughest Bar…