Sorry for making that obnoxious joke about the music you were listening to on your iPod.

Dear Mrs. Noonan,

Sorry if it seemed like I was trying to see you naked.

I wasn’t, I swear.

Dear Joel,

Sorry for stinking.

You were seven years old at the time, which was December 19th, 1991. I remember because I had just turned 21. The day before, as a matter of fact. You were in the first grade at a school for emotionally disturbed children in New Jersey, where I worked, as an assistant to your teacher, Suzanne.

Dear nightshift manager at the Sheridan Garage,

Sorry for taking the key out of the engine of my car after you'd jumped the battery.

Dear BMX bike rider,

I'm sorry for shunning you after you got up in front of everyone and cried at the personal growth workshop our parents sent us to in Philadelphia.

Dear Deb,

Sorry for making you take all those water-logged maxi pads and tampons off my car.

Dear owner of the white house at the corner of Northvale and Southvale Avenues in Little Silver, New Jersey,

I'm sorry for throwing rocks at your house.

Dear Jon Pack,

Sorry for using you as a moving target.

It happened pretty regularly for a while there that summer, 1981 or 1982, I’d think—when you were eight and I was ten, or you were nine and I was eleven. It was a game we invented, your older brother Chris and I.

Dear Davida,

Sorry for squeezing your hand so tightly at the Gravediggaz concert.

This would have been fall 1997. I was working at Vibe magazine. You had looked me up and given me a call after reading something I wrote—and I was flattered. We hadn’t spoken in a couple years, I don’t think. Not since we’d graduated college. We hadn’t spoken in any substantial way, really, since you’d broken up with me at the end of junior year. Which was okay. We’d only been together for a few months. A nice, easy-going relationship; never very emotional, never a huge big deal. But I was freshly single again when [...]

Dear woman who lived up on the hill near the lighthouse,

Sorry for stealing the head of that Greek statue from your lawn.

Dear Jen,

I'm sorry for telling you that your allergies were psychosomatic.

Dear Pam and David MacNeill,

Sorry for letting your children watch The Amityville Horror.

Dear Emily,

I'm sorry for wearing sweat pants to our first dinner date and for getting stoned before meeting your parents for the first time.

Dear Tubby.

I'm sorry I told you I was a banker.

Dear Jews who may have been sitting near me and my friends in Connecticut College’s Harris dining hall fall semester, 1989,

Sorry for making anti-Semitic slurs.

Dear Bon Jovi,

Sorry for throwing empty beer cans on your lawn.

Dear sales rep for a textbook distributor,

Sorry for lying to you on the phone.

Dear Todd and Chris,

Sorry for spilling grain punch all over the box of "Calvin and Hobbes" T-shirts you were hoping to sell.

Dear Mr. McCormack,

I'm sorry for rejoicing over the prospect of your hometown being destroyed.

Dear residents of Hudson Street between Morton and Barrow Streets,

I'm sorry for shouting out my window at that old lady who used to tie her dog up outside Famiglia's pizza shop. And for my lack of creativity.