#ladyguide

LadyGuide: How to Make Friends

[Original publication date: March 29, 2012]

Mouth-breather I am not. I’m socially adept, I have a quick wit, and I can flit around a party with the most social of butterflies. I have online dated, been to meetups, and taken classes. And you know what I’ve learned? Making friends is difficult. Post-college, post-breakup, post-new city, making friends is sometimes way harder than finding someone…

Ladyguide: The Only Way To Drink Whiskey Is Neat

So Selena laid the smackdown on all you vodka martini drinkers. It hurt, I know, but learning sometimes involves painful realities. (more…)

Who wants to see behind the curtain into the Persephone Treehouse? 

Mouth-breather I am not. I'm socially adept, I have a quick wit, and I can flit around a party with the most social of butterflies. I have online dated, been to meetups, and taken classes. And you know what I've learned? Making friends is difficult. Post-college, post-breakup, post-new city, making friends is sometimes way harder than finding someone with whom to make out. So how do you make friends, anyway?

From the article:

As important as it is to be firm on what kind of club you want, it’s just as important to be clear on what kinds of books your group will want to read. It’s often easiest to start with what they absolutely don’t want on their slate. When I started with my current club, they already had one unmovable rule in place: they didn’t want to read any Oprah titles. This included not only any novels the Oprah Book Club had actually selected (and rebranded), but any Oprah-like books. At the time that category generally meant "books where the kids die."

As a professed lover of sports and real-life lady, I am here to write the Ladyguide to the Super Bowl (insert ominous music somewhere around here). I am aware that there might be individuals out there not as interested in this annual event as I am (read: it normally dominates my life at this time of year and is ESPECIALLY owning it now that the Patriots are in) -  I’m hoping that my one attempt to sway you into the World of Football will succeed. Let's begin!

From the article:

Before that meeting, I had never thought of myself as a book club person. Book clubs were actually all the rage at the time, popularized by Oprah and then a slew of talk show copy-cats. But book clubs were all middle-aged women reading horrible novels that made them cry and pine for the lives they never had. Right? Well, no. I have found the group to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my adult life, getting me to interact with the local community, introducing me to novels I’d have never read otherwise and a diverse group of people bound together by their love of reading.

We're traveling from San Francisco to Seattle and back this year for the holidays, and we have a 1-year-old rescue dog with us. We felt weird about sedating her and flying, so we've chosen to drive the whole way. Here are a few pointers for long car trips and travel with pets.