Archive | Etiquette Matters

The Radiance of Pain

Before Now After (Mama, Mummy and Mamma)--Njideka Akunyili Crosby“We’re all just walking each other home.” It’s a phrase that’s been ringing in my ears lately. I don’t remember who said it. I could Google the answer, but I like not knowing, as if the phrase were as common as “sly as a fox” or “out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

I wish it were.

What’s made me remember these words is the pain I’ve witnessed this year. I don’t normally discuss my clientele because I would not be a very trustworthy intuitive if I did. Some colleagues do, of course–usually when they count celebrities among them–but while I understand the impulse and hope everyone is being discussed with their consent, I feel I must adhere to very clear ethics because intuitive work is not regulated though it entails such fragile, precious material–namely, souls. Continue Reading →

Monday’s Lovely Lesson

906bc710-f2fa-4f57-a92a-aad12d974f41So a few months ago, a pair of fratty-bratty young guys moved in next door, replacing the quiet fellows who’d lived there for two years. I’d liked that couple because I neither heard nor saw them, a quality I deem ideal in neighbors. Continue Reading →

A Broad and Her Shoes: A Tale of Four Cobblers

swifty shoesI’m trying to figure out if it’s the shoe repair industry (which does entail chemicals that addle one’s brains) or Williamsblergh, but none of the four local cobblers I’ve used over the last five years have ever had my shoes ready when they’ve said they would, not even when I called ahead and they said over the phone that, Yes, of course they are ready, yes, miss, yes, come over now.

Today, upon learning once again that, no, my Rachel Comey oxfords were not ready, I got so frosty–green eyes glowing wickedly, double Ds thrust forward (this terrifies most men), lips pressed together with a Tony Soprano-wait-’em-out firmness–that my current shoe repair fellow nervously halved what I owed him.screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-2-41-04-pm (It was like that time Obi-Wan Kenobi hypnotized the storm trooper into ignoring C3PO and R2D2. Me: You will knock 50 percent off. Him: I will knock 50 percent off.) I’d feel bad except that I’m a big believer in “Whatever your job is, do it well.” Which is to say: “You snooze, I don’t pay full prize for my shoes.” I’m left wondering, though: How is this a good business practice for him? It’s noteworthy that these places go under with a suspicious regularity. Are they drug fronts? Mafia lairs? Whatever, man. I just want my kicks.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy