“I want to tell a different story, the more common yet strangely hidden one, which is that I don’t feel guilty and tortured about my abortion. Or rather, my abortions. There, I said it.”

A digressive consideration of the popular new show.

“I am having a moment, but I only want more. I need more. I cannot merely be good enough because I am chased by the pernicious whispers that I might only be ‘good enough for a black woman.’”

On a book of photographs shot by Leni Riefenstahl in the 1950s and 1960s depicting an African tribe.

An essay on Derek Jeter.

The author, age 96, on the end.

An argument for ordering in, among other things.

“When I woke up hours later, I really believed I had been in those mountains hiking — that it was not a dream. And I really had lost my voice. I had lost my words. I was unable to say, ‘I am trapped in my brain’ or, ‘My memories are mixing with imagination.’”

Understanding genius.

What to do about climate change.

On Daphne du Maurier and her novel, Rebecca.

At the bedside when a pregnancy ends.

The rebirth of the World Trade Center.

Looking for answers while camping with an abusive father.

Marital advice columns from the past.

On fathers, mothers, and doctors.

An essay on motivation.

On learning a new language, a new culture, and why “it must never be concluded that an urge toward the cosmopolitan, toward true education, will make people stop hitting you.”

On being black in an all-white Swiss village.

On PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the experience of covering AIDS in Africa.

“I write this with a baseball bat by the bed.”

On the palm trees of Los Angeles.

Contemplating plastic surgery.

A turn in the orgy dome, half a hit of German-engineered acid and more adventures on the Playa.

In the aftermath of rape, a transition from prey to predator.