When I first started working for myself, I was like: OH HEY I HAVE ALL THESE HOURS! LOOK AT THEM IN ALL THEIR GLOWY DELIGHT! If the idea was to “be boed,” then great—I would be motherfau boed. (Get it? It’s the faux fuck, and it’s coming to a screen near you.) The surprise, of course, was that getting the work wasn’t the hard part: it was planning out the work. What I didn’t realize, then, is that time is

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“Can I you a drink? How about a meatball sandwich? Here, just have some cheese and crackers. What about turkey? Do you like turkey? We could always order a pizza…” This was my mother’s way of inviting everyone into our home. From friends of mine, to boyfriends of mine, to the man who came with the propane truck once a month to fill up the tank out back. And mind you, my mother was shy. Like, painfully shy. But the

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When I first started writing my business memoir, there was one thing I was terrible at: SCENE. Not because I didn’t understand the importance, but because it was holy fucking hard to remember what actually happened the eve of, say, April 17th, 1992, while so-and-so played a harmonica and Lucy Loo showed the boys her undies. WERE WE ALL WEARING BLUE? DID THE AIR SMELL OF DAISIES? HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO REMEMBER THIS AND WHY DO I FEEL LIKE

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There’s an AWESOME new creative cocktail lounge in New York City called Coup. All of the profits are being donated to organizations being threatened or defunded by the current administration. Tips are donated, too. Guest bartenders are flying in from all over the world, no charge, to donate their services. And guess what? There are s out the door every night. Political statement or not, there’s something to be said about taking a stand. If your business is suffering, it might be

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I watched the movie AWOL last night, and the truth is, it was just an average movie. But I was fascinated by it. I was fascinated by it because the movie is set in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, and everything from the trailer to working at the ice cream stand was the spitting image of a life I once knew so intimately. It was like stepping back in time—the junk yard pick up truck; the boozy men; the

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STOP WAITING. You don’t need to wait for someone else to “give you” the dream job, any. That one where you travel the world, sourcing big, funky oversized silver jewelry and re-selling it in your shop. That one where you photograph every luxury boutique hotel in the city and create your own guide. That one where you design your own of handbags, and start selling them in pop ups all over the United States. The one where you create

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There’s a conflict between authority and earnestness. You want to be viewed as an expert…but you also want to be down-to-earth. You want people to respect you…but you also want to be relatable. You want to command high fees…but you also want to be accessible. Most people flip flop back and forth between these two extremes. They’re either all business—but missing any real connection—or they’re all earnestness—but missing the respect. But this isn’t a zero sum game. You don’t need

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When your idea isn’t clear, you know what you do? Cover it up with blabber. Adjectives. Flowery words that try to compensate for the fact that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about (yetttt). But good ideas stand on their own. If you’re having trouble writing about it, your writing may not be the problem. Go back to the idea, and start there. Because if you can’t say it in one sentence, you’ll never be able to say it

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