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Hello Crush,
Hello dear CRUSHes!
I got so much strong reaction to last week’s TOPIX on Separate Bedrooms. Thank you! There was a lot to process, so I’ll share that in next Saturday’s CRUSH Letter. If you haven’t taken the (live anonymous) poll yet, scroll down. We’d love to have your thoughts.
At this very moment I am sitting at gate 50 in La Guardia Airport next to a guy in his 40’s who has his two-and-a-half-year old daughter in his lap. Our flight is delayed so he has decided to use the time productively, by teaching her how to say “I love you Dad!” Each time he repeats the phrase he then says “Now you say it, Elisabetta.” Elisabetta stares straight at him concentrating seriously then shuts her eyes, screws up her nose a bit and says “I wub you.” He then says “Great, Elisabetta! Now say Dad! Say I love you Dad!” They are laughing and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. And I am MELTING. Go, Elisabetta! Go, Dad! May every good and true deity out there wrap you up in this bubble of father-daughter love forever.
And YES, thank you, to those Readers who have sent me notes telling me about the movie The Idea of You. ON IT. Will report back next Saturday. (Love your love notes!)
In This Letter. +My Tits Contain MulTITudes. By Dish Stanley. During a recent biopsy on my right breast my mind went into a revelatory, celebratory tit-a-thon of sorts. +Dish’s Top Turn Ons. +This Must Be The Place. Christian Pan´s Northern California Escape “so close to the Pacific Ocean that you’ll have sand in-between your toes in less time than it will take you to read this.” +Travel Tips Part 1: Safety By Dish Stanley Here’s what I do to stay safe when I travel. What’s Next on Dish’s Nightstand in the PrimeCrush Bookshop The list includes the fairy porn book sweeping certain social circles. +Social Media I Loved This Week Something for my grammar lovers. +Our Song of the Week Bring gratitude for what has come to bе
My Tits Contain MulTITudes. By Dish Stanley
During a biopsy on my right breast last Friday my mind went into a revelatory, celebratory tit-a-thon of sorts (just in case, I guess). But before that, there were three months of annoyances and fears, real and imagined.
Everything ended up fine in the end, but last Friday I had to have some calcifications in my right tit biopsied.
It all started at the end of January when I went for my periodic mammogram. Two days later I logged in to see the results. “Focal asymmetries” on the left and right breasts and “grouped calcifications in the upper outer corner of the right breast.” My immediate reaction was not “Shit, I might have cancer” like I imagine a normal, emotionally mature person might react. Mine was “Shit. Are my breasts lopsided?” (I have always adored my tits and was somehow under the impression they were hot.)
Just as I fretted over their hotness, my Primary Care Physician called to say that I needed a follow-up mammogram zoning in on my tits’ problem areas. That ended up indeterminative, so my PCP called again to say I needed a sonogram. After those results she called yet again. At this point it is late March and the whole tit thing has become tedious. She said, “The good news is that the asymmetries were deemed okay.”
“Okay? So not okay! Lopsided tits? So not hot! LOL.” I joked with her.
“The asymmetries are minuscule, barely visible. What’s an LOL?” she responded.
“Laugh out loud? Do you have kids?” I said.
“Why? Is that a term the kids are using?” she asked.
“Ummm, no. Actually it’s OG. Very OG. But we’re OG.” I said.
“OG?” she asked.
“Old Guy. But speaking of that, this morning I noticed an unusually large amount of hair had come out in my hairbrush. So I have lopsided tits and now I’m losing my hair. Those are the only two physical features I have ever actually liked about my body, of course. And I think I need them both for dating. This whole tit trip is getting tedious. Not to mention, menopause. It’s been such a fun phase! But I’m ready for it to be over.” And then, “Sorry about that. You probably don’t have time for this. Ummm, what’s the next stop on my tit trip?”
“Well yeah, the calcifications require a biopsy. There’s only a 20% chance of breast cancer from calcifications though,” she said.
Before this tit trip I was a woman who pretty much always enjoyed having my tits touched. I couldn’t think of a single instance when I didn’t, even if I thought really hard about it. But somewhere along the tit trip that started to change. They had been heavily handled but, regrettably, not in a good way. In a clinical poking, prodding and compressing way. My attitude about my tits was slowly adjusting.
On April 24th, two days before the biopsy, a voice from the hospital (presumably attached to a human being, but that was not clear) called to pre-register me. From what I caught I’d be sitting atop a table on all fours, naked from the waist up, then I’d ease my right breast into an opening where it would be tightly compressed, then the table would twist and my tit would be pierced by a 7” needle deep into the tissue. There would be blood, soreness and the risk of a hematoma. I should plan to do nothing for two days following the procedure. All this was delivered over a twenty minute call in a robotic monotone which was anything but calming.
When the robot finished her spiel I asked whether I would be allowed to bring somebody into the procedure room with me to, like, “hold my hand.” “No,” the voice stated flatly.
During the biopsy, lying on the table half-naked and face down, frozen awkwardly in position, I felt oddly detached from the whole experience. There were the physical sensations I couldn’t ignore: the snap of the rubber gloves; the pierce of the needle penetrating deep into my right breast and the artwork I was forced to stare at while my head was jammed sideways—a glammed-up princess whose make-up looked very much like some of the women I spotted at the bar at Harry’s in West Palm Beach right after it opened (though those women do not wear “I will survive” tiaras)*. Otherwise my mind wandered.
*Dating in the Palm Beach area is its own unique trip. Often hilarious! I am working on a story (heteronormative focus) and would love input from anyone who’s done it in the last two years. If you’re willing to chat off-the-record please write me at Dish@PrimeCrush.com.
Continue reading MulTITude here
Dish’s Top Turn Ons.
What are yours? Write me at Dish@PrimeCrush.com.
This Must Be The Place.
‘This Must Be The Place’ is our feature where PrimeCrush-ers share the one special place they love to go.
Christian Pan´s Northern California Escape
A little bit about me…
New York has been my home since 1990, but I grew up in California, and have also lived in Europe, Asia, and Oceania. I write erotic short stories, have published six books so far, and recently began interviewing sexy/smart folks for the Pulse Session, a new segment for the monthly podcast All the Filthy Details. To learn more about me, you can check out all of my stuff here.
In the past, I’d go out…
Until the sun came up! Before I started writing, I worked primarily as an actor and dancer, so once the curtain came down the night was just beginning for me. Especially during the ´90s, everything (and everyone) I enjoyed seemed to be within walking distance; I lived on St. Marks Place, right above Cafe Siné, and during the week I would easily be up until at least 1 or 2, bar-hopping. Weekends, I would frequently stay up past 4. I don't remember a lot of sleeping. I miss that era sometimes.
When things changed…
After 9/11, I felt like the city really started to shift into a different kind of place. The first eleven years I lived here, one could still afford rent in lower Manhattan without needing to work two full-time jobs, and there were a lot more spaces to show your work then, too. A lot of the places I loved from back then, and which felt an important part of my neighborhood–CBGB´s, the Ohio Theatre, PS 122, Joyce Soho, Yaffa Cafe, the Pyramid Club, Leshko´s, Dojo´s–they´re all gone. They've been replaced by Chipotle and Chase. I feel like some of the grit and unique character of the city has been lost, and that it's becoming more like everywhere else. And people like me left everywhere else, to come to New York.
I (we) landed…
I´m not sure if I´m “landed” back in New York–maybe I´m just refueling during a delayed connection to a destination currently unknown? When I left New York early in 2008, I also left the United States for nearly 12 years; and when I returned, it was just a few months before the lockdowns from the covid-19 pandemic, which canceled the majority of my employment & income, had me lose my apartment, and personal loss. Over the next 18 months, I moved from different places, only staying in each place for 4-10 weeks; on top of avoiding the coronavirus, I also avoided the wildfires plaguing northern California, got stranded in the Paris during its 6pm curfew, camped outside of Oslo, and sublet a tiny apartment by the sea in Croatia. I have only been back in New York since August 2021, and to be honest, I can't say how long I'll be here. For me, once you’ve formed roots here, New York is a pretty hard place to beat.
The place I love most…
Pajaro Dunes, located in the Monterey Bay Area of Santa Cruz County, less than a 2-hour drive south from San Francisco. My family used to go to the Dunes multiple times a year. Nowadays, with all of us spread out all over, my cousins, aunts, and uncles continue to gather there for Thanksgiving, spending a week just hanging out, eating, collecting seashells, playing pickleball, talking, and laughing. Furnished condos are available to rent right along the beach, and many of them are so close to the Pacific Ocean that you’ll have sand in-between your toes in less time than it will take you to read this.
Continue reading here
Got a favorite place? We’d love to know about it.
Travel Tips Part 1: Safety Tips You Might Not Know About By Dish Stanley
A lot of people are making travel plans for the upcoming summer. In this recurring column, we’re sharing all kinds of tips to make your travel safer, easier and more fun.
There’s nothing more important than staying safe when you travel. Here’s what I do. Yes, even when I travel domestically and yes, even when I stay at luxury hotels. I have a nephew who is a travel bug, and I’ve also bought these products for him. (Well, really for me because I worry about him. He has gone to Colombia, Greece and Italy in the last six months.)
- Follow Cici.IntheSky. Cici is a flight attendant who gives a lot of quick, efficient, useful travel tips on instagram. I follow her religiously and some of these safety tips are from her.
- Get this bare minimum sweep of safety products: personal alarm, portable door lock, door alarm and a wireless travel router. Descriptions/use cases and links are below. I keep these in bag that looks like a dop kit that I never take out of my luggage. Cici also travels with a portable security camera, propped on her bed to deter anyone from entering her hotel room. I don’t, but because she recommends it I thought I should let you know.
- Leave the Do Not Disturb sign on your door, and turn your television on in a normal volume when you leave the room so people think you’re in there.
- Don’t wear flashy clothes or jewelry. I have a lot of very stylish friends, many of whom I travel with, who don’t follow this advice, so there’s that. But I’m still going to share it. Some of them work in glamorous fields where being chic is necessary for their profession. Also maybe they haven’t had a Cartier watch or Armani coat disappear, or they haven’t been mugged. Or followed down a hallway back to their room. I have (all). I don’t like to look rich when I travel as I think it makes me a target. I do like to look chic, but when I balance that against wanting to feel safe I end up deciding (most often) to leave my nicest things at home. I opt for understated, high-end attire and costume jewelry. And then I almost always have a large Hermes shawl to dress things up and one pair of stylish Manolo Blahniks (those can be worn with a dress or jeans).
- Don’t sit at the hotel bar solo and drink a lot of alcohol. Just don’t drink too much. This is obvious? You will be noticed. And you have to be aware to be safe.
5 Products for Hotel Safety
These products are recommended by Cici. (I now travel with all of them except the security camera Cici swears by.) Here is her amazon travel safety page with a comprehensive list of safety products.
Personal Handheld Alarm - Vantamo Keep this attached to the outside of your luggage; put it in your hand before entering the elevator to go up to your room, that way you’ve got it if anyone gets onto the elevator and also for walking down the hallway to your room.
To get the links to the rest of the safety products, continue reading here
What’s Next on Dish’s Nightstand in the PrimeCrush Bookshop
The list includes fairy porn that is sweeping a certain set, which now includes “our set.”
How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon For those of us who got excited about Lyn Slater’s rise as a style influencer starting in 2015, the publication of her memoir chronicling the twists and turns in her life as she looks back on it post 70 is a hotly anticipated book.
Ian Fleming: The Complete Man I am so thrilled to dive into this biography of the creator of James Bond, written by the only Fleming biographer to have access to private family papers. Fleming was, by many accounts, a rascal, but an utterly compelling one.
To see what else is on Dish’s list, continue reading here
Have you read something that you loved? A new book or an all-time favorite? A CRUSH Reader wrote in to suggest that I ask every CRUSH Reader to make a book suggestion so that we could publish a SUMMER READING LIST. Great idea!
Social Media I Loved This Week
For My Grammar Lovers. Such a Clever Post!
from Dee Rambeau‘s ‘Of Sober Mind’ on Substack
• An Oxford comma walks into a bar where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.
• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
• A question mark walks into a bar?
• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."
• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
• A synonym strolls into a tavern.
• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
• A dyslexic walks into a bra.
• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.
- Dee Rambeau Read on Substack
Song of the Week
Wonderful by Gretchen Parlato
I was turned onto this song by John Kirk, the author of Building the Perfect Music Collection, which I wrote about here.
There is a photo of Gretchen Parlato in Chapter 2 of John’s book. She is a critically acclaimed jazz singer with a distinctive singing style. Wonderful may have been inspired by, or written as a love letter to, her son. She had taken several years away from touring after his birth. Parlato's life partner is the boy's father, jazz drummer Mark Giuliana, who plays drums on the track.
May every day
Remind you of your possibilities
And every night
Bring gratitude for what has come to bе
I've been bingeing on this song this week. Her beautiful message is inspiring.
Anonymous Live Poll on Separate Bedrooms: Have You Taken It Yet?
Here it is, just in case:
Have a wonderful week, CRUSHes. Did you like today’s CRUSH Letter? Then PLEASE forward it on to a friend.
Be kind,
XO,
Dish
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The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?
