It all starts on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. "Au revoir, Jerome! Au'voir, Stefanie! Sois gentille, Laura!" Mme. Calvel waves to the yellow bus as it warms up outside the French preschool CLTl on Claremont Mesa Boulevard, …

“I’ve known [San Diego's] Oakley for going on 30 years. One thing he taught me was how to conduct myself as a writer. which is to say, ’Never to be jealous, never to be envious, never to be spiteful.'"

AA has been swamped by people sent to the program by courts: people arrest for drunk driving or other alcohol-related crimes.

Plaza de Los Marichis is a small fork in the road at Avenida Articulo 123 and Commercio in Tijuana. It is walking distance from Revolucíon and the border. Busy streets run in a Y around …

"We use more discriminating intelligence when we buy a used car than when we buy a religion,” says philosophy professor and cult-buster David Christopher Lane. “Buying a used car you at least look underneath the …

Dear Matthew Alice: What does the term O.K. stand for? We’ve all used it as long as we could talk, I’ll bet 90 percent of us haven’t a clue as to what it means. For …

Ten minutes later my guest arrives, John Cale, never my favorite member of the Velvet Underground, always struck me as a method actor, ugh, though some people thought of him as a progenitor of punk.

Dear Matthew Alice: How does the ABS system work on my ex-girlfriend's new Mercedes? And when she has to mash down on the brake pedal if, say, someone were to pull out in front of …

“To have your hand in someone’s belly, helping surgically correct something that will allow them to live or palliate their pain, it’s an...experience. Especially if you know the person. Your eyes, your hands, all your senses are involved.”

As one who roams the backcountry quite a bit for this column and for other projects, I was shocked, saddened, and a little unnerved to learn of last December’s fatal mountain lion attack on birdwatcher …

Eric Show died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. He was buried in a green coffin, with a cross around his neck. Also in the coffin were his guitar, his baseball glove, and a ball.

“On one visit, Milosz came off the plane and wanted to tell me about The Maverick Poets, published by Gorilla Press in San Diego. He recited from ‘Notice’ by Steve Kowit, who edited the book.

Dear Mr. Alice: I was wondering, if a set of identical twins married another set of identical twins of the opposite sex, and each couple had a child, would the two children look alike? — …

Dear Matthew Alice: Of all contemporary U.S. coins, it seems rather curious that the Lincoln penny profile is the only one facing right. Does this have any political significance? Is Lincoln the only one representing …

As time goes on, my garden becomes more defined. I like flowering trees and bushes, and climbing roses, for example, more than annuals, or herbaceous boarders. I’m sorry, I don’t like much color; I’d rather …

No sleep comes, even after Mom’s sour-milk kisses goodnight. My sister, buried beneath a Day-Glo paisley bedspread matching mine, quiets or whispers to the cat. Mom-breath lingers on my upper lip, both comfort and disquieting …

There is a room in La Jolla office building that is so banal yet so significant that it merits a pilgrimage. The building is at the bottom of the hill crowned by the VA Hospital, …

Dear Matt: I posed this question to a TV meteorologist (not in California), and all I got was a lot of gobbledygook that didn’t answer my question, which follows. Relative to the sun, our earth …

Longtime followers of the Union-Tribune and its predecessor, the Evening Tribune, are familiar with the gentle musings of ex-Trib editor Neil Morgan, and the way he pulls his punches for what he calls the “friends” …

Why does my tube of toothpaste say not to swallow any, and what would happen if I ate a whole tube? — Mr. Chuck Jones, P.B. Smear it on toast, add a shot of Scope …

Suggest to a 20-year-old that she might be naive, and you’re likely to get your head chewed off. Ask Jewel Kilcher how she got signed to a major label and she answers, “I think angels, …

The Roses “are really having so much fun” with the Horton Grand, said Dori Rose, as she tends to details like finding enough soup spoons for the once-depleted kitchen or bringing in new bedspreads for worn ones.

The English press follows Amis like Roseanne. Londoners know that Martin’s brother endures stunning depression, that his sister is a drunk, that Sir Kingsley can’t be left alone a minute.

Dear Matthew: In his novel Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut describes the dining habits of the iguanas in the region. Basically, he says they make their way down the rocky cliffs to the sea, where they eat …

Dear Matthew Alice: Is there a legal minimum that the fine print in documents, etc., must be? — Mimi Labrucherie, USD Mr. Master of Great Wisdom & Knowledge: You’re always told to read the “fine …

I have quoted to myself enough passages from Dante, Othello, The Changeling, The Dunciad, Swift and Yeats, skip-rope rhymes, Lord Byron, Burma-Shave jingles, “Lycidas,” Proust, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Great Expectations to have tried to make them mine.