It isn't that small talk is hard, necessarily, or complicated; it's called small for a reason, after all. But basic doesn't connote bearability. Make small talk Simpler with these 5 tips.   1. Ask questions. Listen. Be interested. Small talk, when done well, feels like a little peek into someone else's world. It feels like a no-strings attached interaction. It doesn't matter if you won't ever meet that person again, or that you have less ...

Sometimes I feel this need to not indulge the retail world's over-zealous, in-too-much-advance-of approach to selling goods. Like, can't we ever just buy things when we need them, instead of four months before? It isn't as if we're going to sea and won't spot a shore (or a store) for who knows how long so we better stock up and get ready! Only, sometimes this defiance backfires on me. Like this year, when I went ...

A little while ago I was at the dentist, having my teeth cleaned as one does. I was half-listening to the inappropriately perky morning talkshow host's voice and half thinking how strange it looks and feels to cross ones legs when they're higher up than your head. My hygienist was working away, scraping and wiping and occasionally looking up to comment on whatever the woman on TV had just proclaimed. "You've been using that new ...

Just as one can now be assured that crossing a golden retriever with a poodle will render an irrefutably cute "doodle," and crossing a lime with a kumquat will give rise, naturally, to a "limequat," I feel assured I'm now in the possession of the formula which results in a winning interior designer. Well you cross an architect with a ceramic artist is what you do. Anyhow, as much is true with Taylor Jacobson, whose work reflects ...

The seeming randomness of today's post topic is also its proof of eligibility--the love doled out around here specifically for the men-people is sparse, at best, and thus always called for. Anyhow, I've been in enough master closets to know that most men are working with rawther dilapidated situations as far as their accessory storage goes. Either it's coated in a layer of dust so thick you can't hardly detect the thing's original finish, or ...