For years, I have been stalked by a bad reputation. Actually, I have been pursued by people who have regarded me as the 'Death and Dying' Lady. They believe that having spent more than three decades in research into death and life after death qualifi...
I was destined to work with dying patients. I had no choice when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I felt called to travel some 250,000 miles each year to hold workshops that helped people cope with the most painful aspects of life, death and the ...
The first thing I did was give up sweet tea because I drank so much. I'd start drinking at lunchtime and wouldn't set it down until I went to bed. When you calculate how much empty calories and how much sugar I was consuming, it was staggering. So I ...
I'm kind of like a middle mix between a warrior diet and a Paleo diet, so I only eat once a day and it's at night - so kind of like interval fasting. But I eat until I'm full, I eat as much as I want, and I really don't eat anything that you couldn't...
As you get older, you have to force yourself to have new dreams. For instance, I've been flying for 37 years, but now teaching others to fly is interesting for me. Sometimes you have to find new angles on life to keep you interested, like sharing suc...
The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was twenty-three and living on the edge of the city in a neighborhood that was on the verge of becoming a ghetto. I had just been fired from a good job as a cartographer in a design studio wher...
I got that experience through dating dozens of men for six years after college, getting an entry level magazine job at 21, working in the fiction department at Good Housekeeping and then working as a fashion editor there as well as writing many artic...
What I remember most about junior homecoming was my date getting sick afterwards. That kinda sucked. Then, senior year, someone got gum in her hair when we were dancing. She had to get one of the chaperones to take her to the office and cut up her ha...
I have been luckier than anyone I know or even heard of. I had a very happy childhood, a good education, I enjoyed working as a teacher, journalist and author. I have loved a wonderful man for over 33 years, and I believe he loves me, too.
My family didn't have time for me, so I decided to join the Suvorov military academy, which is in St. Petersburg. I spent two years there and studied general military science. At that point, once I graduated, I joined the Chernigov higher education p...
I'm a good son, a good father, a good husband - I've been married to the same woman for 30 years. I'm a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticize the kind of characters that I play on s...
The Obama years will be remembered as a cultural - and legal - tipping point for equality for all people who do not identify as strictly heterosexual, arguably the civil rights movement of our times. The president signed the bill repealing 'don't ask...
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-hu...
I don't want to give advice to people about their religious beliefs, but I do think that it's not smart to bet against the power of science to figure out the natural world. It used to be, a thousand years ago, that if you wanted to explain why the mo...
I know most Americans don't have this luxury, but we are in Los Angeles and are lucky enough to be able to grill outside almost all year long. It's my favorite way of preparation because it's so clean and it gives it such a great flavor. You need ver...
One of the main lessons I have learned during my five years as Secretary-General is that broad partnerships are the key to solving broad challenges. When governments, the United Nations, businesses, philanthropies and civil society work hand-in-hand,...
I grew up in a small town in Kansas, so I love meeting the fans. Those are the people who spend time out of their day to watch the things that I've done, and I've gotten to do some great supernatural stuff - 'Teen Wolf' and 'The Gates' before that - ...
The negative about acting is that you have to spend a great deal of time away from your friends and loved ones, but it's not like working a 9-5 job and only having two or three weeks off a year. I may not have seen my girlfriend for two or three mont...
I think it's wonderful when a love story begins with a great deal of romance and affection, passion and excitement, that's how it should be. But I don't necessarily know that it's the wisest thing in the world to expect that it ends there, or that it...
Acting is something I love. It's a great craft that I have a lot of respect for. But I don't think it's any greater challenge than teaching 8-year-olds or any other career. In my life, I try not to make it more important than it is and I just hope th...
More than 30 years ago, in Washington, D.C., I secured a copy of a single by a Los Angeles band called The Bags. The two-song 7-inch, released on Dangerhouse, had a girl on the cover who looked right at you with huge eyes. The songs, 'Survive' and 'B...
