My Aunt Audrey

A clear swimming pool.

A bloody mary.

Earnestly describing something as “just wonderful.”

A matching set.

Done hair.

Feeling more or less proud that your incorrect Jeopardy answer matched a contestant’s incorrect answer.

A life filled with beauty and love.

Open for Submissions

If I edited a weekly column featuring a new writer every week, these would be my submission guidelines:

1. True stories only.

2. Keep everything to 1,000 words or less. 500 is better. 250 is exceptional.

3. Only write about things that make you look bad (embarrassments, failures, disappointments, “opportunities for growth”). Success stories are for obituaries.

4. Full legal names of other characters is required and their salary information preferred.

5. Don’t go too heavy with the sensory details. We know what outside feels like.

6. Try to be as honest as you can.

7. The pettier the better.

Move In

September 1st approaching feels sweeter when it doesn’t also involve moving into a dorm room, doesn’t involve buy a Target store brand bath mat, doesn’t involve smiling at people you don’t know or sitting with ones you do know but aren’t sure you like, doesn’t involve syllabi or meal card scanning or internal outfit debates.

I’m sure others loved college, and I did, too. But there is nothing like having wood hangers, a bed larger than a twin, a kitchen of one’s own, and a life in which you wonder less about what’s to become of you and more about what you’re doing right now.

Postcard from Maine

It’s beautiful here, as always. Wake up with nothing to do, go to bed and it’s only half done.

Love,

Dan

Humor/Homer

Yesterday I attended a free humor writing class in Bryant Park. I learned:

• Truth + Distance = Humor

• 3 Main Techniquies:

  • Exaggeration

  • Juxtaposition

  • Surprise

The instructor had us focus on one truth that we found particularly odd or bothersome. Here are the one liners I wrote about getting to New Jersey from New York City:

When I heard there was a movie called “The Odyssey” in theaters, I figured it had to be about getting to New Jersey.

If you’re in New York, the only trip longer than to Australia is to New Jersey.

New Jersey and Ibiza have two things in common: great beaches and impossible to get to.

New Jersey is as accessible as Republican mens’ feelings of empathy.

Cape Codamagansett Tennis Club Bulletin

Dear Cape Codamagansetters,

As we approach August 1, the high season at our Club, we wanted to send this note to reinforce some of our shared practices and values as a community.

First, a reminder that nannies are not to exceed three drinks in one sitting nor leave the designated “Nanny Lounge.”

Second, please abide by the Tasteful Gay Friend Guideline. Upon multiple further investigations, we have discovered gay male guests who appear straight-acting or otherwise not stylish, and while we support all expressions of gender and sexuality from Members, we do insist upon guests upholding a certain regard for elegance.

Finally, please be advised that we will no longer be selling branded bathing suits for miniature dogs. They introduced a misguided assumption that said dogs are welcome in our saltwater pools, which are strictly human-only.

We look forward to welcoming you all soon!

Happy Summer,

The Cape Codamagansett Tennis Club Team

Before You go

Just a quick note to say I love you.

Writing

Writing is filling an abyss, endeavoring a jungle, carving a statue, digging a mine and throwing it out and shaving it down and shining it brighter and starting it again.

It’s making something that can exist forever but only have life when someone turns to it.

And when a reader talks about it with someone else, it can become immortal.

Writing is ideas made material, for now.

Definitive Ranking of A/C Temperatures

1. 68

2. 69

3. 67

4. 70

5. 71

6. 72

7. Off

Lemon Sorbet on a Bed of Ice

My dress shirt clung to my back sweat as I neared home on a city sidewalk. My headphones were blasting as I passed my favorite cocktail bar, one where they do everything right.

A nice European (by that I simply mean he was well dressed and not working) was sitting at one of the small tables outside, though he didn’t have a drink. My passing glance turned into an ogle as I saw what lay in front of him.

A small silver bowl, holding a miniature mountain of crushed ice, atop it sitting a chilled lemon, sliced open, overflowing with decadent frozen yellow slush. I took off my headphones.

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s a sorbet.”

“With booze?”

“No, that’s coming.”

Friendship

Friendship is having the same conversation in different iterations with the same inflection and new hilarities, year after year after year.

Life’s a Beach

Waving Flags

Tide Pools

Sand Dunes

Sunsets

The moments of summer that are fleeting and forever.

The Challenge of Being a Beautiful Person in the Summertime

This is the beginning of the high season for me and my friends, the beach days when all the time we spent in the depth of winter lifting heavy and eating lean finally pay off. Though it doesn’t come without its hardships.

First of all, there’s simply not enough time. From the rooftop pools to the private homes to the European fortnights, the fifteen weekends between Memorial and Labor mean that I unfortunately can’t accept every invite extended to me.

The other obvious challenge is the ubiquity of cocktails and charcuterie boards. If I have another Aperol spritz or prosciutto-mozzarella-tomato-basil mini skewer I think I’m going to turn into one or the other! You don’t need to take every martini just because it’s free.

Finally, it’s important to remember that while everyone is beautiful, there’s a real difference between inner and outer beauty. When you’re beautiful on the outside, people look. The work lies in redirecting that energy back to them. Yes, you have entered public space, and that is special. But there is nothing more special than making the uglies feel seen, too.

Luxury Apartment Prospectus

Introducing: The Median. The first-of-its-kind residence in the heart of mid-downtown, where breathtaking views and everyday amenities combine to redefine the potentiality of apartment living.

The lobby is enveloped with cost-effective metallic wallpaper that evokes the idea of luxury without any of the burdensome overhead. Our maintenance staff is always scheduled at half-time, minimizing disruption to residents and ensuring that public spaces throughout the building retain that lived-in feeling. And no dog or cat limits means that you are always bound to run into a slobbery friend.

Mid-downtown is the city’s newest oldest neighborhood: where factories that once produced the protective cover on safety pins are now home to the world’s most elite gyms, pet groomers, and oddly expensive espresso bars that are called such because they do not actually offer regular, drip coffee.

You work hard to live where you thrive. That’s exactly what we offer at The Median: a space to call your own, for a set term of 12 months, until you decide it’s really time to get it together.

Before I Share

“Before I share what I wrote, I just want to say that this is part of a larger book project that I’ve been working on. It’s not fully done yet, and I’m still working out many of the details. I know we only had twenty minutes in class today to write but I’ve been working on it for quite a while. I would say maybe even two years. It could be three, actually, if you count the first time I ever sat down and began to really think about it. But this feels like its own thing. Or at least the seed of another thing, which I'm hoping will take shape as I write more. The ending is still unknown, even to me, which I think is important because I want to surprise myself because that way I feel like I’ll also surprise the reader. I’m not in love with the last line, or my opener, but you’ll see that the middle has a certain structure to it, which I’m open to changing. I really want it to feel organic, like you’re my head, or this character’s head, rather. Sorry it’s a bit long. Anyway, here goes…”

The Living is Becoming Easier

Summertime is the best season by any measure. No school, less work, more travel, more sun, better food, happy people, sunscreen and swimming.

There’s an interesting tension in the United States around summer, a time when no one really wants to work (or if they do, certainly not hard) but yet we agree that the European custom of taking a true extended holiday is out of the question.

In my neighborhood I have noticed many French people on vacation. I know this because they’re in groups, carrying backpacks, and speaking French. They have been doing this since March: visiting New York.

Memorial Day Weekend is the only start to summer we can all agree on, and one that provides a small taste of America’s rarest luxury: time.

The Writing Life

Last night I went to a talk about how to get your book published. If I were one of the panelists, my advice would be:

1. Give away all your work for free on your personal website; don’t be tempted to sell to publications with large readerships

2. Keep the length short. Everything shorter.

3. Don’t tell too many people you’d like to write a book because then they may ask you how the book writing is going

4. Know that once your book is published, you will become very, very rich and also famous so enjoy middle-class anonymity while you can

5. Revision is for the weak; write everything once and never look back

Spring Commencement

Good morning, graduates. It is an honor to be here at Morningwood University, where I have learned that weed is not only legal, it’s mandatory.

As I sat down to write this speech, I realized didn’t have my favorite pen with me. And that got me thinking: What do we do when life doesn’t go the way we planned?

I know that in my life, it was a leap of faith when I took over my dad’s thriving business. Who was I to manage the global supply chain of plastics? But that’s when I realized something I’ve carried with me every day: Everything you’re meant for, you’re prepared for.

I hope my presence at this podium if proof that whatever your parents did, you can also do. And if you ever find yourself sitting at the head of that boardroom table, the seat still warm from your dad’s butt, remember this: You can always make a difference, no matter which pen is in front of you.

Assigned Seating

There should be a word for one’s instant feeling of allegiance to a seat after sitting down. Whether on a train, in a waiting room, at a restaurant, or on a park bench, making the choice of where to sit frees you up for everything else.

Meryl Streep said that life begins when you make a commitment. Or at least that’s what Anne Hathaway said she said during a recent The Devil Wears Prada 2 interview.

It takes a lot to move: a particularly disruptive neighbor, an unavoidable odor, a natural disaster. Baring such disturbances, we are all too happy to stay in place. Not because it’s special, but because we chose it first.

Work

Yesterday I did a good job at my job. Which made me think about the difference between jobs and work: jobs come and go, while work never leaves.

My dance professor introduced me to Corita Kent’s Ten Rules for Students and Teachers, which was posted on her office door. My favorite is, “The only rule is work.”

To keep taking care of yourself and your home, to keep getting dressed and figuring out your travel, to keep your stomach full and your body hydrated, to keep your mind and your heart open; these are the only rules.

It can be so satisfying when hard work for one’s profession pays off in day that goes well. It’s another thing altogether when one can look at the all ways they fill their days, see the trodden paths they carve, and continue on them with pride.