Because it’s the ultimate fail.
I’m not going to tell you another COVID story (enough already) other than to tell you that my Dad has it.
But I am going to tell you about all the people who told me, in one way or another, that it’s our fault. Our family did it all wrong. And now we feel embarrassed, ashamed.
There was the nurse who works for my Dad’s neurologist: she told me that I should never have put him in assisted living — never mind that his Parkinson’s disease was making him fall in the shower, and we didn’t want to see his…
My life doesn’t look like it’s supposed to.
My life doesn’t look like it’s supposed to, and I’m being very literal: it’s visually wrong. My eyes are supposed to be seeing other things.
Here’s how it was supposed to look: after college, I would live in a New York downtown loft with paint-splattered cement floors and industrial pipes transversing the ceiling. There would be melted candle wax and incense ashes and dinner parties that consisted of one large bowl of pasta everyone would pass around.
There was a man I was sharing this all with, but he was only vaguely outlined: an artist of some kind, with worn-in…
Did I mention I’m an only child?
A few weeks ago, I came back to Medium — after a month of not writing— with a triumphant story about getting my father into an assisted living facility. I was proud of myself: it took me less than thirty days since the moment I realized he wasn’t safe at home (because his Parkinson’s disease had gotten so bad) to finding a place for him that’s more like a resort than a nursing home. This felt like a serious win, especially in 2020 when everything we’ve ever valued is turning to dust.
So even though I’m allergic to self-help articles…
And yes, I did it during COVID-19. Here’s what I learned.
In January of 2020, my 84-year-old father was taking public transportation to volunteer at the science museum, where he gave a presentation to little kids called “Hearing Light, Seeing Sound.” By June, he couldn’t walk.
Somehow his Parkinson’s — which was well-managed for years — had gotten very bad, very fast. His dramatic decline was, in part, a result of no longer being able to volunteer: he was depressed and bored, sad and quiet. When I brought my parents groceries so they didn’t have to go to the store, he would always say something like “you’re young, let us go…
What would Julia do?
(Note: we started writing this before the horrifying, seemingly never-ending examples of law enforcement’s brutalization of the black community. That issue is too serious for this piece, or even this publication, but we wanted people to know that the information we offer below is no way is making light of this issue by not including it. #BlackLivesMatter).
We’re polytheists here at Sybarite and worship several gods and goddesses, but our most beloved and powerful deity is Julia Child. We conduct our lives based on her teachings, and often ask ourselves “What would Julia Do?” or when we’re pressed for time…
I’ll graph that sentence later.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, given my loud condemnation of dating apps, but I’m back on the dating apps. But it’s not my fault. Someone ghosted me who I was delusionally certain was not in fact ghosting me, and so I had to go back on to prove that I was moving on. Taking a stand, if you will.
And then End Times rolled around and I thought, f*ck it, I’ll continue messaging with these random men while I try to find to find my next Netflix binge. Some of the conversations have been surprisingly…
And why I use a fake name to write
I can’t remember exactly when or where I heard Nadine Strossen, the first woman to head up the ACLU, describe the world outside the Internet as the “meat world.” It was a relatively gross way to remind us that the real, non-virtual world was still comprised of blood and guts and skin and breath.
I do remember I was in downtown New York, and just about to go to law school which means it was probably sometime in 1997, before Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter and all the rest of the places that we now apparently live. I…
Stop doing this immediately.
Look, I get it. Lobster is delicious. Macaroni and cheese is delicious. What could go wrong? A lot. A lot could go wrong.
We know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and that explains lobster mac n’ cheese. Combining two wonderful things with the intention to create an extra-special wonderful thing is to be human, of course. It’s an elegant formula, in theory. But in practice, it almost always creates a monster. And because we cling desperately to our good intentions even when we make undeniable and irreparable mistakes, we can’t admit we’ve created a beast.
Other…
I’m a warrior now. My warrior name is “Dark Lilac.”
I don’t remember how the Tom Ford sunglasses came into my possession. I know I didn’t buy them new. If my vague memory serves, one day I threw up my hands trying to figure out what to do with some credits I had on ThredUP or Poshmark — and because I had gained so much weight and really didn’t know my size anymore — I decided I was, in fact, a person who wore purple Tom Ford sunglasses.
Excuse me, not purple, but Dark Lilac. Some genius at Tom Ford who should probably be in charge of a lot more…
Enough with the self-help and life hacks, let’s take naps and drink wine
Confessions of a self-described Sybarite.
I first heard the word “sybaritic” when a handsome law professor told me I was nuts for disliking my home town of Los Angeles. “The sunshine, the water, the sybaritic lifestyle…” he said dreamily while staring out the window at a steel gray Washington D.C. day. I nodded, pretended I knew what “sybaritic” meant, raced home and opened my dictionary:
syb·a·rit·ic /ˌsibəˈridik/ adjective. Fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent.
I closed my dictionary. The handsome law professor was completely out to lunch. Didn’t he know Angelenos eat plain cans of tuna because “abs are made in the kitchen” or…
