How to tell if you're in a relationship

Dear Hannah,

Since it might seem suspicious if you keep hearing about the good things I dream but none of the bad things I do, I've decided to throw in a confession every now and then so you can know you're dealing with a real person.  So here's my confession.

Why papa is vain

Dear Hannah,

One of the great difficulties of publishing my thoughts has been that some people have called me arrogant.  I actually had two people say I was full of myself within the same week -- for which I consider it a horrible week.  It's always good to hear someone call you out on your faults, especially when there might be an inkling of truth to it.  It's better than going your whole life being an ass and everyone thinking it except yourself.  Sometimes we learn more from our enemies than our friends.  Sometimes they'll tell us things our friends won't, because an enemy's happiness doesn't usually rely on ours.  Even if an insult is unfair, sometimes it allows us some good reflection, which may result in our improvement.  I advise most everyone to listen to their enemies.  They may do you more good than you realize.

A toast to Bill Clinton

Dear Hannah,

I know it sounds strange to say -- and maybe we should keep this a secret from your grandpa -- but one of the presidents I'm happy to think about is Bill Clinton.  To be completely honest, I don't know much about anything he did as president, because I was too young to understand much of it.  What does make me happy is that he proves to me, on some level, that mankind has evolved significantly in our ideas about women.

God's orphan

Dear Hannah,

In the world of compliments, I've found you can screw things up in one of two ways.  The first is by giving a compliment that's not good enough; and the second is to give a compliment that's so good it embarrasses the recipient to get it.