The summer I was twenty, I spent six hours a day in an empty back office reading people’s mail. These people were long dead and their son had sold their papers to the Harvard Theatre Collection, but it still felt partly illicit, and partly like I was solving a mystery--sifting through hundred-year-old clues to find out what had happened. Because something always happened--someone’s always being catty or evasive or finessing the truth (if not…
Previously: Dirtbag Zeus. APOLLO: so do you come here to this river a lot DAPHNE: i'm so sorry have we met? APOLLO: we havent met but you know me DAPHNE: sorry? APOLLO: ever seen THE SUN DAPHNE: what? APOLLO: youre welcome hey let me touch your skin for a while DAPHNE: i have to no [DAPHNE turns into a tree to escape him] APOLLO: so do you turn into trees a lot…
Stephen Lurie's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
The modern economy requires new twists on the classic meet-and-greet office games. Use these great ice breakers to help new hires contend with the realities and demands of the ‘10s work environment, streamline workflows, and identify HR challenges.
Trust Fall
Original versions of the “trust fall” had one blindfolded participant fall backward into the arms of a
"Who Here Is a Negro?": For me, the lessons were sometimes pointed. My grandmother was quietly concerned that my siblings and I might not discern how we fit into a world that was so clearly defined by the Negro question. (For my grandmother this was the polite and preferred term.) My test came on one of those steamy…
Here is how I try to tell the story: drunk, haltingly, laughing hysterically in voicemail to my therapist. At the next session, we dance around it: “I think the word you used was ‘whore.’” I package it as neatly as I can: I was too young for a real job, I was on my own, I needed the money. She says she doesn’t blame me, but it sounds like forgiveness. That isn’t what I want.
Interested parties would do well to saunter over to Book Riot's Reading Lives podcast, should they wish to hear an interview with me about reading P.G. Wodehouse for the first time, hating The Mists of Avalon, and getting your copy of the Divine Comedy confiscated at Christian sports camp during a very specific summer.
1. 10 Things I Hate About You, 9:50pm Sat 5/1/99 If Alana and I were characters in 10 Things I Hate About You, she would be Kat (Julia Stiles) and I would be Shakespeare Girl (Shakespeare Girl.) I always thought myself more literary than her, but she read way better books. Alana smoked pot and went to parties, I drank Slurpees and went to youth group, and together, we drove around listening to the radio or…
okay rule A, don't take off her cloak when she's sleeping rule B, don't touch her hair when she's sleeping i don't care how asleep they are, don't bend over them and stare directly at their vaginas no touching someone's hips just because they're asleep either, that seems like a given…
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, but he perpetually and publicly air-wanked over the city, denouncing it and its literati. As thanks, Boston has so far only commemorated his birth by placing a small plaque on the side of a Boloco, the regional burrito chain whose downtown franchise sits two blocks north of Poe’s now-demolished childhood home. Boloco’s guacamole is very good; there are—I’m pretty sure—no dismembered bodies buried under the floorboards. The
greatest American hero = I like her garbage = not very good I love you = we are both on the Internet, and we agree about something shut it all down = I'm going to stay right here and not leave the Internet and keep reading this NSFW = this is a picture of food #tcot = I have not talked to an actual conservative since high school essential reading = you will have forgotten…
ugh, roxane is great even when writing a "hey, broke something in my ankle" post: When you’re fat, one of your biggest fears is the fall while you’re alone and need to call EMTs scenario. It’s a fear I have nurtured over the years and now that fear has finally come true. “And you’re still alive,” she said. I suppose that’s the thing about fear. You dread it but you have little choice but…
Dear Toast Readers, before this relationship we have goes further than you reading the title and my name, there’s something you have to know about me. It's very sad, and I want you to prepare yourself: It’s about my family. Look, it’s a tragic fact of biology- some genes just don’t mix right and you get conditions endemic to a whole set of otherwise nice people. In my family, however, it’s a little worse than…
Toasties! It's cold and gross and finally time for Nicole's favorite mushroom soup, which The Bartender made in order to pretend that Nicole was coming over for dinner when she was not, in fact, doing so.
