I could never fully trust someone who doesn’t love Woody Allen films. I have experimented with giving certain people the benefit of the doubt, but in the end, I just find Woody Allen’s movies to be so pee-in-your-pants funny that I become dreadfully uncomfortable by anyone who cannot appreciate at least two of the notable [...]

It never rains, it pours. My screenwriting professor went on an extended monologue about the importance of determining “all sorts of ways in which your characters delude themselves.” Then he discussed the wide range of people’s definitions of “a lot.” He asked me what I considered would be “a lot of dates to have had [...]

One of the most socially and morally detestable things about Yale is its self-important, over-endowed secret society system. The lavish windowless buildings have their own groundskeepers, and their well-decorated underground tombs have their own chefs. Though one of the more architecturally uneventful societies, Skull & Bones is the most “celeb-worthy,” boasting John Kerry [...]

I attended a Yale Pierson College Master’s Tea with the previous and reigning Playboy editors. Unfortunately, one of my life’s idols, the pimp of the universe (other than Jack Nicholson of course), the man who shares my HH initials, and, like me, prefers to dress exclusively in satin nightwear, Mr. Hugh Hefner, was not in [...]

Ever since my father forwarded me an article entitled “My Blog Ate My Career,” I have been increasingly self-conscious about my lack of good ole New England discretion. He was trying to encourage me to blog under a pseudonym in case potential employers Google my name and discover a proliferation of the term “wanker.” Though [...]

There is a rainstorm outside that has turned into driving sleet and snow. This morning a seventeen-year-old boy jumped out of an eleventh floor window while at Dalton, his elite Manhattan private school. It occurred during lower school recess. Fourth graders had been playing on the sidewalk out front when the junior boy fell to [...]

Jealousy is not necessarily an unproductive human downfall. My preschool nemesis became one of the primary motivating factors in my life: I wanted to have more doll accessories than she did, I wanted to learn to write my name in cursive like she did, and then, years later, I wanted to date her boyfriend, and [...]

The new Charles Darwin exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art is Entitled “Endless forms”: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts. It includes everything from pigeon skulls, to Cézanne paintings, to a seven-minute looped video of pheasants mating. The visiting curator from London, with her lovely nest of salt-and-pepper hair, kicky tweed [...]

My Valentine is incredibly handsome, tall, masculine, devilishly intelligent, with a touch of sardonic wit about him. Thanks to his decidedly pimp status, he manages to wear brown suede slippers at all hours of the day, in all seasons, and still look impeccable.
Late tonight I am taking him to dinner at my favorite restaurant, and [...]

In The New York Times review of the new production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya that premiered last night in Manhattan, the Russian characters are described as frenetic and “hands-on — grasping, clasping, cuffing and massaging one another.” Touching, most often considered a form of intimacy or tenderness, is actually a sign of aggressiveness that constructs [...]