Thank you! It’s on my list!

Yes. :) I should have clarified that I meant downtown or within the area near my hotel, so an admittedly very small area, but until recently I always had a hard time getting fast, good coffee (not Starbucks) in the afternoons/evenings. Brew & Brew is my favorite now, though, and every year there are more options! 

Every year we go to an industry event in Texas that involves 5 days of listening to bands perform for 16 hours a day and running back and forth to different clubs across Austin to catch different performers. It’s not a situation where there is time or opportunity to get coffee throughout the day (Austin didn’t even…

Start with not eating meat, which is super easy, and makes a huge impact. You can always get rid of additional animal products later. 

And if you’re the workaholic boss, below are some suggestions for you — I’m in the middle of a big project at work right now, so my hours are a little crazy, and this is what I do with my team:

IMHO, asking to be paid hourly would be a huge red flag, because it’s such a strange demand that’s outside of the norm. Setting up hourly-pay tracking systems is also administratively difficult (if a company doesn’t have one in place) and creates other legal issues. You’d be much better off focusing on the big picture…

This all seems way more complicated than just getting a collapsible water bottle (I have a Vapur brand one that has lasted for years) and filling it after you get through security....

1) If I post something negative on Yelp, it’s to let other people know, not to get my grievance addressed personally. So sure, complain to the server/manager, but also let the rest of us know (via Yelp) so we have that info.

I was going to say LASIK, but the answer is really ANY type of elective surgery (for more information, watch the TV series “Botched”). I got my LASIK done 11 years ago by a doctor who specializes in it, is well-known, and had performed the surgery on multiple friends of mine, and I’m still very happy with the result.…

Re: The assertion that if you can’t “trust” someone not to reply-all to a huge list, maybe you should get new friends, I wonder if the author has parents or knows any elderly people? If I e-mail anything to a group that includes family members, 100% probability my mother or some other relative will reply-all, partly…

LOL, were you on my recent London to San Francisco flight? The woman next to me was doing a face mask thing and it was hilarious, she looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy. I’ve never seen anyone do that in public before!

Most airlines now have seat-back screens with a pretty good selection of current movies. I’m not much of a movie-watcher at home, but on a plane, a couple of mindless blockbusters or action movies make the time go really quickly. 

The point that grief doesn’t only happen in connection with a death is a really important one. When I got divorced, having a therapist talk me through the process of grieving the loss of my relationship, a large part of my identity, and the life I thought was ahead of me was really important to my healing. It also…

San Franciscans will be very familiar with “The Truffle Guy” at Dolores Park, who sells dark chocolate, weed-laced truffles that are extremely popular. When my partner and I started dating, he bought a few when we were at the park, and not yet being a dog person, didn’t appreciate his mistake in leaving the two he…

Honestly, is there ANYONE who wants to hear live music played at a restaurant? My partner and I are music nerds and go to see live music ON PURPOSE all the time, but if we’re at a restaurant, we’re there to eat and converse with our friends. Plus, like a lot of people my age, my hearing is starting to become most…

HELL YES. When I lived in an area where it got above 100 in the summer, and I had a backyard, I got the kind of inflatable pool that you can buy for $30 and Target sells as a “Swim Center Family Inflatable Pool” (just do a search, once you see what it is, you can find it lots of other places). It’s 120" x 72" x 22",…

In addition to the other Whole Foods benefits, you now get the same rebate using your Amazon Prime credit card to shop there as you do using it on Amazon (5% cash back). Assuming you use the credit card properly and pay off the full balance each month, that goes a long way towards paying for the Prime membership if…

Thank you for this! I wanted to keep my early-days account name (my first name) and was shocked to find I’d been posting to it since 2007! Took me about an hour, but I deleted all the old posts using this method. Thank you!!!

“Goodman’s test ignores several factors, like the local water supply”... uh, that’s... extremely important? We’re in a major drought. The environmental agency here in San Francisco advises on its website: “We like to say, “when in drought, get the majority of food out.” Meaning, don’t worry about rinsing those plastic…

It’s different for everyone, but I (1) regularly volunteer at an animal shelter, where I get to know people who do the same volunteer shift as I do, (2) am part of a book club where new members join and I get to know them, (3) befriend my co-workers, (4) form independent relationships with my friends’ friends when I…