I work for myself as an editorial jack-of-all-trades. I LOVE clients like this, because the client will go to a company at 4:45 on a summer Friday afternoon with all sorts of insane rewriting and worse, and the company will contact me in a panic, and I will calmly assure them that everything they need will be wrapped…

Speaking of Mother, in that old photo someone on his staff retrieved from a shoebox somewhere, she definitely looks like she submitted to some 1950s-style electro-shock therapy, like any good Christian woman would. Or maybe a little trepanning, for the truly devout.

Just as a public service announcement, this incident took place at Socialista, which is still open. I would imagine reservations would be a little easier to come by obtain right now.

A few years ago I was in Central America (purposely vague) that was partly business-related and got in touch with an old friend. I hadn’t seen him in years, and I said, “Look, let’s get together, bring the wife, it’s on the corporate dime. You pick the restaurant. We can go anywhere. Sky’s the limit.” I was hoping for…

Why is he wearing a tuxedo jacket over a T-shirt? One of my friend’s fathers had early onset dementia and he used to make some interesting fashion choices, until his wife gently pulled him back from the brink and dressed him a little more conventionally.

Just the opposite. He said the black prosecutors (“they”) think that of the Hispanic population (“we”), of which he is a member.

Also, Columbus didn’t sail in hopes of discovering a New World, he sailed in the hopes of finding a more direct way for the Spanish to get to India and China (which was known) without having to go east, enduring arduous land/sea treks, which was how all the other Europeans did it. That is why the indigenous were…

Don’t forget the subway tile and stainless steel GE appliances. Did the developer buy all this stuff in 2004 and hold it in storage? “Virtual doorman” = glorified buzzer. Enjoy the soothing sounds of the MetroNorth trains pulling in and out of the elevated 125th St. station 24/7. Plus there’s no such thing as a condo…

That’s interesting about U of M. I’ve met quite a few people from Montana and I think all of them brought up that Missoula is so great and groovy and what Montana should be, open and tolerant and fun and so beautiful & etc. None of them were PoC, several of them came from military families, and none of them chose to…

At least he got rid of the bow ties:

He must make an awful lot of bad bets at the Kentucky Derby every year.

I sometimes make super-mayonnaise-y tuna salad (with albacore tuna) and when it’s chilled and on toasted bread there is nothing better. Have you ever tried mixing the darker tuna with a vinaigrette (like in a salade Nicoise) or adding a little mustard to the oil that it comes in? That’s also really good, but that you…

You could work in marketing at a pharma giant! Drug names are made up to sound vaguely medical sciency (most) or catchy and easy to remember (like Viagra.) But they’re not. They don’t describe what they do (Viagra could be called Endurerect) or what they’re composed of (hydroden sulfate describes its makeup;…

He’s 85. I suppose in Arizona that’s “85 years young!” but really.  

You’ve never been around Episcopalians. Although they get plastered in quieter settings, like every night at dinner, not in corner bars and large sporting events.

“Please get the help you need.”

I am all for your Starbucks Number-Not-Name program, but for an opposite reason: I have a very common man’s name and inevitably there is another one of us waiting down the end. I (like you) go for the simplest drinks they offer, so mine are usually up first, but since the other guy with my name was there first he…

I’m old. Really old compared to most of the Root writers and commenters.

I am a white guy living with my Black husband in a predominantly Black neighborhood. We’ve lived here for about a decade. It’s all good, I’m a good neighbor and have made lots of friends, and our building was built on a lot that was vacant for decades so it’s not like we tossed a few families out of a brownstone or…

My inlaws had a Green Book that we found when we cleaned out the house after my MIL died. My husband had no idea what it was, but I went through it and it was clear from the notes that they took a driving honeymoon in the 1950s to see their many and widely dispersed siblings who couldn’t make the ceremony. If I’m…