Toxic friends are not always as obviously seen as the three Heathers from the cult Heathers comedy. There is a very fine line between friendly banter and frank mockery, especially when it comes to people you consider close. Toxic friends have various methods of influence: criticism, competition, deceit, and manipulation. All this is generously sprinkled…
The relationship between the sexes often resembles an endless battle. Major stakes are at issue, but these cannot be won or lost in a short period of time. Meanwhile, in the interims, there are so many little things that could endear partners to each other as surely as the sun rises on your union with…
A group of populist reformers from up north arrived in Alabama in November 1894 with a radical plan. Their mission: to establish an experimental utopian community inspired by the economist Henry George, whose wildly popular book, “Progress and Poverty,” influenced readers around the world in search of more equitable societies. In this case, their chosen…
One night in November 1999, a 26-year-old woman was raped in a parking lot in Grand Rapids, Mich. Police officers managed to get the perpetrator’s DNA from a semen sample, but it matched no one in their databases. Detectives found no fingerprints at the scene and located no witnesses. The woman, who had been attacked…
Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. I get lots of emails from readers with recipe requests, and so I’m devoting today’s newsletter to a few that come up often: dishes that can be made ahead and are strategic wins for busy people; dishes that can feed one or two people without waste; and dishes…
“I have a solid six ideas every single day for a business,” said Ariel Arce, the owner of two Greenwich Village hot spots: Tokyo Record Bar and Air’s Champagne Parlor. “That’s not to say that all of those are good ideas. But because I’m naturally really impulsive, I just want to do it and I…
Chicken soup is a warm, comforting, cure-all, home-cooking classic. It is also maybe a little boring. Not that there’s anything wrong with a clear golden broth flecked with bits of chicken and thin carrot coins. It is delicious, of course, and sometimes — especially if you’re not feeling your best — boring is good, and…
Janet, the all-powerful virtual assistant (imagine an intergalactic Alexa) on the metaphysical sitcom “The Good Place,” does not have a tattoo. But D’Arcy Carden, the actress who plays her, does. Three fletched arrows — a tribute to her three siblings and a play on her maiden name, Erokan (“arrow-can,” get it?) — nestle just below…
Donna Kaye Hill realized that her 80-year-old mother was faltering cognitively when her phone suddenly stopped working. When Ms. Hill called the phone company, “they told me she hadn’t paid her bill in three months.” Finding other alarming evidence of memory gaps, she took her mother, Katie, to a memory clinic. A geriatrician there diagnosed…
My therapist believed that if you wanted to manifest something in your life, you needed to focus your energy on that thing. I decided to apply this to my search for love, so I made a list only a 22-year-old could make. I wanted the man of my dreams to be: 1. Taller than me…