Talking Shrimp
copywriting. jumbo style.
The barista at my corner coffee shop hesitated when he saw me today. He had the large plastic cup in his hand, but before filling it with my usual order (all the way to the top with ice, then cold-brew coffee with about an inch of room for milk, please, and charge me for a medium […]
KEEP READINGExcuse me while I gag on this sentence: I’ve been meditating. I did it today. I did it yesterday. I’ve done it most workdays for the last two months. I wasn’t going to. Everyone does it now, and everyone says to do it, but I have an overactive filter for new-age-garbage-sounding anything. I dismiss it whether […]
KEEP READINGI stood on the high diving board, looking down. Nope, nope, nope. I was 10 years old, at the pool at Twin Lakes Tennis & Swim Club. That’s where my family went on hot days from our weekend house in Stamford, Ct. The usual suburban club: Moms with deeply freckled chests. Tennis whites. Cheeseburgers, defrosted crinkle-cut fries, ketchup […]
KEEP READINGYesterday was a good day for people yelling in public. I don’t mean they were having a good day. Judging from the yelling, two out of three were not. But it was a good day for spotting them. There was the lady, trim, groomed, late 50s, designer bag, skinny jeans — the picture of a middle-aged, upper middle […]
KEEP READINGSteven, my husband, has party anxiety. I should say, pre-party anxiety, because he’s always fine once he gets to the party. Like the one last night. The minute we got there, I looked at him like, “See? Aren’t you glad we came?” And he looked back at me like, “OK, this ain’t so bad,” because we’d […]
KEEP READING“Excuse me. You can’t have dogs in here.” That’s what everyone with a dog was told at the Silverlake Farmer’s Market in LA when I was visiting last year. Not by a cop. By my 4-year-old nephew, Samson. It’s not that he worries about food safety or crowd control. He just likes rules. They’re very important […]
KEEP READINGPART ONE The feet thing might be my fault. I hoard a certain model of Nike sneaker. It came out a couple of years ago, and I should’ve bought a million pairs. I should’ve known they’d be discontinued, because every sneaker and bra I love gets discontinued. I wear both into the ground. Till the […]
KEEP READING“Who escalated first? WHO ESCALATED FIRST?” “You obviously think I escalated first.” “When you said that penises make immoral decisions, that was incredibly offensive.” “Your anger impinged upon me, bitch. I’m not apologizing because you still haven’t apologized to me!” “This stuff is not spoken, but it is so felt by me.” “You keep calling […]
KEEP READINGLast week, I wrote a post on Facebook that I immediately wanted to delete. It was a clever little finger wag about grammar. I hate clever. I love dumb, I love funny, but clever is yuck. Clever is “Get it? Get it?” It’s a pursed-lip giggle with fanned fingers touched to pearls, in an “Oh […]
KEEP READINGThis summer, two convicted murderers broke out of prison in Upstate New York. You probably know about them. Richard Matt and David Sweat. There was a thing in the NY Times yesterday about the female prison employee who helped them escape. She did it because they flirted with her and got her to crush on them. Especially Richard Matt, […]
KEEP READINGJuly 4th weekend always brings back my childhood fear of going blind. Before I started worrying about nuclear war and cancer (which I thought I’d get because I ate Reddi Whip right from the spray can), I freaked out about losing my eyesight. There were 3 influences: 1) Little House on the Prairie. Nothing scared me like […]
KEEP READINGThis summer, I’m a restaurant widow. My husband, Steven, kicked off the season by opening a new restaurant in Soho right after Memorial Day. (Sessanta in the SIXTY Soho hotel. Tell them I sent you!) When your spouse has just opened a restaurant, you don’t see them much. I know, “restaurant widow” is not at all a […]
KEEP READINGThe one thing nobody tells you about being an entrepreneur is, your inbox will be full of emails every single day telling you “The One Thing Nobody Tells You About Being An Entrepreneur.” And you will click each one of those open, even though you know it’s only going to say some version of this: […]
KEEP READING“I feel so in my body,” says the dancer in leg warmers. She’s stretching them, and her pointed toes, straight out in front of her — smack in the middle of the narrow hallway outside Studio 2, where I’ve just come out of my House dance class. Sweat from my drenched t-shirt drips on her, which is fair because she […]
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