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Hello Crush,
I’ve reached a point where I have given up as far as Koko, my new puppy, is concerned. I’ve given up meaning I’ve surrendered. Accepted. Admitted that I don’t have control of the situation.
A couple weeks ago, in Love Is Terribly Inconvenient. Meet My New Pup Koko, I wrote about all the ways that Koko, my new Cavalier King Charles puppy had disrupted my life.
Since then she has discovered the thrill of chewing on soiled items from the laundry basket, the spines of any books on the lowest shelf of my bookcase and the vintage silk covering a living room screen. We are living in a studio apartment while renovations on my home are being completed and as you walk in the dirty laundry basket is now housed on the top of my dining table/desk, the books are now being kept on my kitchen counter and the screen that once blocked the sun from my couch is hiding in a corner.
And yet, there is the joy of waking up to Koko crawling on my chest kissing me before inevitably rolling off and nestling my side with her belly displayed eagerly for pats.
Although this morning - instead of Koko kisses - I woke up to the sound of vigorous paper wrestling. Koko had noiselessly slipped out of the bed like a one-night stand, pulled a shopping bag full of Valentine’s cards, wrapping paper and ribbon down from the desk and created her own festive Valentine’s party.
The cards and paper? Chewed up.
The ribbon? “Mom, this pink glittery stuff is a blast! Get up, come play with me!” her eyes said plaintively.
“Koko, no.“ I said. “That’s not for you.”
“Really? Oh.” (Her look said.)
{Sigh.}
I looked it up and technically, a dog is a puppy for 12 months. Only five to go!
CRUSHes, this is not going to turn into a Saturday letter dominated by Koko. With, you know, weekly updates on her antics, her progress, my setbacks. We are absolutely not going to go from writing about angsty midlife topics like separate bedrooms and sex toys and simple, five-ingredient-recipes and three-ingredient cocktails and the best nonfiction offerings to my puppy.
Are we?
Who are we kidding?
It’s Koko’s World now.
In This Letter. +Roam: Merida, Mexico. From CRUSH Reader Patrick +PrimeCrush & Chill: Grown Up Love: The Goodbye Girl +Three Things I’m Crushing On: What Made My Life Easier in 2024. +Social Media I Loved This Week. +Our Song of the Week
Roam: Merida, Mexico. From CRUSH Reader Patrick
A new column where CRUSH Readers share a snapshot of where they’ve been and what they loved there.
Mérida, Yucatán, México
Merida, the capital of Yucatán, has become a popular travel destination over the last five years. It is smaller and more relaxed than Mexico City, with a more tropical climate.
Tell us a little bit about you..
New Yorker, culture nerd, hispanophile and overall bon vivant, I'm passionate about exploring destinations that blend rich culture, history and culinary delights. I appreciate finding gems that offer value (in location, experience, quality), but I don’t hesitate to splurge where it’s worth it. And while I prefer to stay someplace stylish with character, I sometimes stay in chains that offer modern conveniences and are well-located, especially if I can use my points.
What is the reason that you’d go back?
Mérida is an unexpectedly beautiful city filled with warm spirits (and warm sounds), stunning Spanish colonial architecture, a rich local cuisine and a plethora of experiences that make it hard to decide how to spend your precious time.
In one word, describe the atmosphere:
Sultry
Where did you stay?
NH Collection Hotel Mérida Paseo Montejo
Selling points: clean, modern, well-located, highly functional, well-priced. There are boutique hotels with more regional character, but this more than solid.
Any restaurant recommendations?
Oliva Enoteca, Micaela Mar y Leña
Any recommendations for someone who has never been there - can’t miss things to do or see?
Don’t miss seeing a cenote or one of the countless Mayan ruins in the nearby province!
Anything else we should know?
Be prepared for hot weather, even in Winter. Mérida is beautiful but be ready for classic Latin America including a chaotic downtown.
PrimeCrush & Chill: Grown Up Love Stories Worth A Rewatch: The Goodbye Girl By Christian Pan
In this spin on our periodic column we hook back up with our favorite ex’s — as in classic movies featuring stories of grown up love that are worth a re-watch.
Christian Pan is a writer based in New York City. Since 2021, he has published sixteen novellas and over a hundred short stories exploring the erotic imagination. In addition to book & film reviews, he hosts the Pulse Session for the monthly podcast All the Filthy Details, and is a founding author of TheoReads.
The Goodbye Girl (1977)
Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Tubi
Starring: Richard Dreyfus, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, and Paul Benedict
Released: November 30, 1977 (USA)
Basic Plot: Broadway chorus dancer Paula (Marsha Mason) and her young daughter Lucy (Quinn Cummings) unexpectedly become roommates with actor Elliot (Richard Dreyfus), who relocates from Chicago to appear in a play off-off-Broadway. Even more unexpectedly, especially given their different habits and temperaments, the two fall into a crazy kind of love.
Summary: Paula (Marsha Mason) is not having a good day. Thinking that she and her precocious daughter Lucy (Quinn Cummings) are going to be moving out to Los Angeles, they arrive back at their New York City apartment to discover that her boyfriend Tony has left them. Not only that, but that he has sublet the place to Elliot (Richard Dreyfus), who arrives from Chicago in the middle of the night so he can be ready to begin rehearsals the following day for a “new interpretation” of Richard III by an eccentric young director (Paul Benedict). Initially, Elliot and Paula mix about as harmoniously as fire and ice–like many self-centered performers, they are unyielding in how they expect things to be, and seem unused to listening to the needs or concerns of others. But when circumstances put both of them under pressure financially and in terms of their career, the two forge a bond that is cantankerous yet still somehow affectionate. When Elliot gets offered an opportunity to act out west, Paula initially fears that history is repeating itself, and that she will remain forever cast as “the goodbye girl.” But by the end, as the meter on the waiting taxi ticks on and the two have a frantic phone call in the rain, Elliot is able to reassure her and Lucy that he is not the same, that he will come back–because he loves her.
Continue reading here
In this series, readers like you share recommendations for the things they love the most, right at this moment.
Three Things I’m Crushing On: What Makes My Life Easier. By Dish Stanley
Efficiency Service: LugLess. There’s a reason it has more than 10,000 5-star reviews on Trustpilot.
When I mentioned to my friend Nina that I couldn’t have lunch one day because I had to spend the afternoon boxing up, then driving and shipping multiple boxes of summer clothes from my little beach cottage back home, she told me about lugless. It’s a service where you can put your luggage (or boxes) on your front porch with their tags attached to them, and they then show up — voila! — wherever you’re going. (They have multiple options — drop-off or pick-up, speedy or cheaper, etc.) I used it then, and many times since, including last month when I had to ship a bunch of things from my storage unit. It’s not just a lot less of a hassle than checking luggage or dragging stuff to Mailbox, Etc., because their logistics network finds the cheapest fedex or UPS option (with spare room), it’s cost effective, too.
Storage: Ordering a bevy of Stackable, Freezable, Glass Food Containers
I, too, am trying to reduce my exposure to microplastics, and so I’m gently and gradually moving from plastic storage containers to glass. There are less expensive options than these Glasslock versions, but because I make large portions and freeze leftovers often, I prefer these — they are thicker and more resistant to freezer burn. I have a number of glass Pyrex containers that I’ve picked up in the stores, which are perfectly fine for the fridge, but these have thicker glass and it really makes a difference when freezing things.
Uniqlo Heat-Tech Line of No Bulk Thermal Tops & Bottoms (Unisex)
I have mentioned the Uniqlo Heat-Tech line before, but I can’t say enough about them. The U neck shirts are such a thin layer that I love to wear them under sweaters in the winter. Who needs the extra bulk? I also sleep in the shirts and leggings (because as you’ve no doubt heard from Peter Attia and others, we’re meant to sleep in cold temperatures). And as you know, I never travel without them, because they take up no space and wash and dry quickly.
What are the products and services that make your life easier? I’d love to know! Write to me at Dish@PrimeCrush.com (and it would be super helpful if you remembered to put “What made my life easier” in the subject line so I catch it). Thanks!
dishing.
Things I thought you might want to know about, and some you probably don’t.
For Valentine’s month, The Criterion Collection has pulled together a list of the films that make up the best New York Love Stories. Watching these would be a great way to spend time with a squeeze this month. Even their teaser is a nostalgic thrill.
Thanks to the many CRUSH Readers who forwarded this week’s NYT article Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex of Their Lives.
I love this dating advice, which I heard years ago and try to follow religiously. It is best to force yourself to create options before prematurely settling in on one person. It allows you to take the pressure off the feeling that this one thing needs to work out.
I have a lot to say about how great Season 2 of Shrinking was, but one of the reasons was the thrill of watching Harrison Ford as Paul Rhoades, a behavioral therapist. Harrison Ford Is Still Full of Surprises is a fun feature on the actor from WSJ Magazine. Remember that before he was Luke Skywalker, Ford was the carpenter who took forever to finish a deck on Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s home in Malibu? We learned that in the documentary on Didion by her nephew Griffin Dunne.
Meanwhile, speaking of Didion, what do we think about the ethics around posthumously publishing the diaries of famous writers who were famously private, under circumstances where there is ambiguity about whether they would want their private journals published? I ask, of course, because diaries of Didion that were found in a filing cabinet years after her death are being published in April. Notes to John cover intimate details of her marriage, her therapy sessions and her fraught relationship with her depressed, alcoholic, deceased daughter.
Social Media I Loved This Week
Song of the Week
Martha My Dear by The Beatles
How many Beatles’ fans know that Paul McCartney wrote this song about his Old English Sheepdog, Martha?
Hold your head up,
You silly girl,
Look what you’ve done.
Oh, and I have a fun bingo night date to tell you about. I’m going to pull it together for next week.
Got a date you want to tell us about? Write me at Dish@PrimeCrush.com
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?
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