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CORRECTION APPENDED THE event reminder on Melissa Weinblatt's iPhone buzzed: 15 minutes till her shrink appointment. She mixed herself a mojito, added a sprig of mint, put on her sunglasses and headed outside to her friend's pool. Settling into a lounge chair, she tapped the Skype app on her phone. Hundreds of miles away, her face popped up on her therapist's computer monitor; he smiled back on her phone's screen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IT is occasionally true that the spark that ignites one's grand, all-consuming work is struck early in life -- even by happenstance. Niobe Way was a teenager when her younger brother Lucan had a terrible falling out with his best friend. John lived just across the street; the two boys were inseparable. One day her mother caught the boys cutting up a treasured childhood rag doll. She read both of them the riot act and then some. John slunk off. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

''I DON'T need family-dinner studies to guilt-trip me,'' said Shannon Rubio, a mother of three teenage boys from Spring, Tex. ''I do it to myself.'' But just in case, Mrs. Rubio, here is the latest, from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University: [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CONSIDER the erotic potential between blogger and commenters. The blogger is boss, a salon host with wit and whip. Certainly a blogger thrives on commenters -- who wants to declaim to an empty e-room? But let's be clear: blogger, sovereign; commenters, courtiers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN the hallway of Hostos-Lincoln Academy in the Bronx this week, two ninth-grade girls discussed the pop singer Chris Brown, 19, who faces two felony charges for allegedly beating his girlfriend, the pop singer Rihanna, 21. At first, neither girl had believed Mr. Brown, an endearing crooner, could have done such a thing. ''I thought she was lying, or that the tabloids were making it up,'' one girl said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SITTING in the back seat of his mother's van as she drives through Atlanta suburbs, Jonathan Krohn is about to sign off with a conservative radio talk show host in Florida. In the 40 minutes he's been on the air, with the help of his mother's cellphone, this hyper-articulate Georgia eighth grader has attacked the stimulus bill, identified leaders he thinks will salvage the Republican Party's image, and assessed the legitimacy of Barack Obama's birth certificate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CAROLINE HALL was supposed to sign the contract a month ago guaranteeing a kindergarten spot for her son at an Upper East Side private school. He had already spent two happy years attending its early-childhood program. But Ms. Hall, a corporate counsel, began ducking the school's calls. Where was her deposit toward the $22,000 tuition? The school had an eager waiting list. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TO a passer-by, the chic clothing store on Mott Street in Manhattan looked like a tumult of activity. On a recent weekday afternoon, Carolyn Bailey, a supervisor, was fussing with the window displays of women's clothing, shifting piles of perfectly folded sweaters, spacing hangers a finger-width apart, debating avidly on the phone with a higher-up about coordinating outfits. Though she appeared occupied, intently so, she was creating an illusion of busyness. The NoLIta shop was empty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A FEW weeks ago, Ethan Bloom's mother wanted to take him to a Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn for a special dinner. Ethan, 10, had a request. Could he take ''Diary of a Wimpy Kid''? His mother, Naomi Weinstein, was floored. ''He reads fine, but he doesn't love reading,'' she said. ''He was smitten by this book.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JEFF KINNEY had always been a doodler whose ambition was to be a cartoonist. The problem was, his work looked too juvenile to newspaper editors. ''If I could write or draw better,'' said Mr. Kinney, the writer and illustrator of the ''Diary of a Wimpy Kid'' books, ''I could have done a 'Diary of a College Kid,' but middle school is as high as I can go.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THIS Tuesday night, as history of one sort or another is being made, where will you be watching election returns? If you happen to be in Alaska, know that the doors of the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex will be flung open at 3 p.m. for food, beer, wine and -- in between updates on giant televisions -- dancing to a new local rock band, Sarah and the Pit Bulls. Although this Civic Festival is ostensibly nonpartisan, it is billed on the Web as a ''victory celebration.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]