If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’ll know that there’s a solid 50% chance that I’ll have written this on a train, and a 10% chance that I’m going to use one of my favorite podcasts to make a point about real estate. Well, today’s no exception.
I actually only have three true favorite podcasts. I already wrote Acquired a month ago. The second is about the Murdaugh murders*, and I haven’t yet found a not-completely-inappropriate way to relate that topic to real estate. But the third one continues to deliver gems.
So the moment I listened to episode #2 of The Rest is History’s four-part series on Greek myths, this newsletter was bursting fully-formed like Athena from Zeus...
A couple weeks ago we talked about why people lose their ever-loving minds and try to Mortal Kombat us when we tell them they’re going to need more money to open their brick and mortar business.
So today we’re taking it one step farther and discussing one of the biggest reasons why it costs way more to get open than people often expect: brick and mortar businesses require certain up front expenditures that you absolutely, positively have to incur whether you want to or not.
It would seem that the amount of money you spend would be entirely within your control – that if you’re scrappy enough, you can always make something work within your budget. To some extent that’s true; bigge...
Today we’re going to talk about jean shorts. “Jorts,” if you like.
In my worldview, there are next to zero circumstances where jorts are okay. I think cutoffs can look cool on women in the right setting, like on a boat whilst holding a Coors Light, or if you’re a toddler, but jorts with a hem will always and forever be dorky. Come after me, Gen-Z!
And the worst, without a doubt, are hemmed jorts on men. Wait – scratch that – the absolute worst is cargo capri jorts on men, but my point stands.
So anyhow, with this context established, you can imagine the side-eyes that were thrown when my family and I recently boarded a ferry to Poland and saw a man in jorts. And moments later, another ma...
If at any point you’ve been in a romantic relationship that lasted, let’s say, a year or more, you are surely familiar with the idea that the head-spinning early days of infatuation don’t last forever. In fact, legit scientific studies have shown that this period of “omg he’s so cuuuute chewing with his mouth open” lasts about six months.
Thanks to very real things like brains and human evolution, none of us can outsmart the chemical reactions that happen inside of us when we’re staring down the promise of new, exciting, this-is-definitely-the-thing-
😑 But we all know how this story goes. After that first period of flooding dopamine, the drugs wear off, life beg...
While Abby hosted a houseful of family, I traveled across the pond to London which was, as advertised, unbelievable at Christmastime. We were very fortunate to have had perfect weather and only one mediocre meal, so all in all it was a smashing success.
On the day of our return flight home, I thought about how the actual travel part of taking a big trip is largely forgotten. In these days of mobile boarding passes, we rarely have the IAD to LHR ticket stubs to keep as mementos. So unless the “getting there” was particularly memorable (like the time my poor child vomited the entire way from Iceland to Paris), we forget about it pretty quickly upon arrival.
Can you guess what that ...
What did we all do before memes? How did we express ourselves so pointedly? I suppose we’ve always been doing this, and I have a vague recollection from Latin 2 that people were etching sick burns on columns in the Roman forum.
Anyhow, I saw a perfect small business meme the other day:
EBITDA: Earnings before insomnia, therapy, depression and anxiety.
Lollllll.
No shade if you don’t get the joke. EBITDA really stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and it’s basically a calculation of profitability before all the complicated tax and accounting finagling.
If you DO get the joke, it feels spot on.
When my restaurant closed in 20...
I was a cheerleader in middle school. Like many other eighth grade girls, I did it mostly for the outfits, but also because I don’t have much athletic ability, and if I didn’t pick a sport, I had to do P.E. instead of study hall.
Now this was the late 1900’s (as the kids say), and the current brand of seriously athletic cheerleading had not yet made it to
...Midway through my last year in college, I bought a six-pack of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I remember how it happened. I was at Sam’s Club with my roommates, and I must have been hungry, because I was seduced by the free sample. So salty. So warm. Of course I’ll buy the entire pack.
Then that same six-pack sat on my shelf of the shared pantry staring at me until I graduated. Every time I looked back at it, I was ashamed of how I’d been seduced by a product that is barely distinguishable from pet food. Occasionally, more motivated by guilt than desire, I’d pick up a can, read the sodium content, then promptly put it down, my face puffing from the number alone.
I freaking love beef stew. The...
