The After-Party Party
The two-for-one philosophy of hosting
As most savvy New York hosts know, when you throw a large cocktail party, you can expect approximately 60 percent of the invitees to attend. Of the 40 percent who don’t come, most have a scheduling conflict or illness and are truly sorry to be missing the affair. So, what if you immediately offered these people an alternative—a kind of make-up party? Read more
What’s Your Sign?
How to Attract Your Peers Among the Masses
By Jeanne Martinet
I don’t usually travel on the subway with a white plastic Venetian face mask, but that’s what I was doing last Monday night.
I wasn’t wearing the mask, I was merely holding it in my lap. And yet, almost immediately after the train left the station at 23rd Street, a cute guy with super-chic eyeglasses got up from where he was sitting across from me and approached. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you,” he smiled, “but didn’t you just LOVE it?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a conspiratorial fashion, nodding at the mask. Read more
Holiday Store Social
Rediscovering the benefits of shopping solo
At first, I was shaking in my boots. I had been about to plunge into my usual last-minute holiday shopping when the friend I was going with bailed on me. Who wants to negotiate the teeming hordes alone or try to make quick decisions on items without another eye to help? It’s like running a marathon all by yourself. But then I reminded myself that solo shopping can also be the best shopping.
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The Myth of the Lift
Is getting a ride all it’s cracked up to be?
It seemed like a no-brainer at the time. I mean, if you have to go to a funeral in New Jersey and you’re faced with a choice between public transportation (in this case, a bus from Port Authority followed by either a long walk or a short cab ride) and a ride in a friend-of-a-friend’s car, you choose the ride, right? Read more
The Overachieving Overnighter
Is there such a thing as being too great a guest?
Recently, friends from Montreal, a married couple, came to stay with me for one night on their way to see relatives in Virginia. When they called to let me know they were running late due to a delayed flight, I said to them, as firmly as I know how, “Now, listen guys, I have gin in the freezer. Your martini glasses are chilled and waiting, so don’t stop for anything. Don’t buy me anything. Just come directly here.” I said this because they visit me often, and I know their houseguesting M.O. all too well.
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Being a Standup Guy
And why it’s sometimes harder to be a standup girl
For me, one of the benefits of being a freelancer is not having to take mass transit during rush hour. Nevertheless, last week I found myself on the 79th Street crosstown bus at 5:30 p.m., which is a bit like being stuffed inside a can of sardines—live, irritated, smelly sardines. There was the usual friction between the people standing toward the back hoarding their personal space and the people trying to get on who were calling out, “Move back, people!” And, of course, there was the continuous vying for seats.
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That’s My Queue
Embracing waiting in line
The other day, as I was in line at Pier 11 for the water taxi to Ikea, I started thinking about how much waiting in line we all do. Every day we wait in line at stores, stations, theaters, banks, post offices and bus stops. We wait in line to get seated at a restaurant, to buy a Metrocard, to get gas. I looked it up: the average person spends over an hour a day waiting in line—that’s two to three years in a lifetime. (If you’re a woman, probably at least one year of that waiting time is spent in line for the ladies’ room.)
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The Tao of Mingling
Checking your agenda at the door
It sounds like a simple thing, something we all should know: When you go to a cocktail party, it’s best to leave whatever social “goals” and expectations you may have at the door along with your coat and hat.
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For Your Ears Only
The best thing about cell phones
These days, there are a lot of people (and yes, I’m occasionally one of them) denouncing the omnipresence of cell phones. They point out that in the last 20 years, cell phones have gone from exotic rarities to bodily appendages we cannot live without; that people are increasingly unaware of what is going on around them, even while walking or driving, because they are glued to their phones; and that kids today rely on being able to look up everything they need to know on their smart phones and as a result are maybe not so smart. The biggest concern people seem to have is about how much our ever-expanding connectedness—via cell phone—to the vast universe of online social media is impinging on our privacy.
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The Good, the Bad and the Oblivious
I can only forgive some people who block the way when I walk
Combine one part self-absorption, one part 21st-century apathy and one part urban burnout and what do you get? You get a way-blocker.
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