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If you like laughing, hate rules, and just want to drink wine and save animals, this is for you.

by Jennie O'Connor

What do being hunted by a squirrel and police-escorted while wearing assless pants have to do with lifestyle design? Sign up for Shiny Objects, the Newsletter, and find out! Then, stick around and learn how to create a “pinch me” life for yourself.

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Featured Post

He was NOT "the one" 🙄

I just booked a trip to NOLA, and this time I will not: Drink hot vodka out of a flask at two in the afternoon. Fall in love with a psychopath and move cross-country to be his girlfriend. Lose my wallet and scramble to board a plane without ID. Old me didn't listen too well to my hunches. My mantra back then was apparently: If you're not experiencing cognitive dissonance, are you even living? Six years later, my inner compass has stopped doing me dirty, though. These days, my spidey senses...

2 months ago • 1 min read

I'm the kind of girl, Reader, who's up for anything. A haunted house where they kidnap you and tie you up? I'm so in. Heard a strange noise out in the dark forest and need someone to investigate? I'm your girl. Move across the country to pursue a relationship with somebody I've known for five minutes who may or may not be a psychopath? I was born for this. But the one thing in life that turns me into a pile of terrified mush? Dolls. I hate them with the passion of 1,000 burning suns. I know...

3 months ago • 3 min read

The day I got my Roomba was one of the best days of my life. I was instantly gifted HOURS a week of my time back. The task of emptying a metric fuckton of dusty cat hair from a 4-inch box became a bizarrely satisfying ritual. A rite of passage into adulthood, you might say. But the shiny new vacuum smell has worn off. Maybe it's because Roombas are like iPhones and self-destruct after two years. Maybe, like me, when they hit middle age, they no longer move as well and sometimes leak fluid....

4 months ago • 3 min read

I heard a movie quote the other night that made me cackle.* "I never had children. Sometimes I wonder if I wish I should have." It reminded me of the time I was chatting with Rosalba, the gal who cleaned the cooking studio at which I used to work, about the fact that I had no plans to be a mom. "Oh? You're very selfish, aren't you?" she asked, seemingly unaware that maybe she shouldn't say every thought she has out loud. I blinked at her for a few moments before replying, "Yes. Yes, I am."...

5 months ago • 1 min read

I'll never forget the Hanukkah I spent with my college boyfriend. His family was a colorful cast of characters on a normal day, so wine-fueled, they were . . . extra. That's why it isn't surprising that before dinner even started, my bf's step-dad Steve, a sharp-tongued know-it-all, had jumped onto the bench we were sitting on, the better to bellow in his daughter's face about how animated Disney films should not be nominated for Oscars! I snickered behind my napkin because this was amazing....

5 months ago • 1 min read

Not to be an alarmist, Reader, but it's happening. The holiday mania has already begun melting our minds and turning us into Karens. 🤦🏻♀️ We've barely crossed the threshold into December, and I have already waited in a 25-minute line to purchase . . . get this . . . cookie cutter twinkle lights. 25 minutes for shit I don't even need to simply because it brings me a disproportionate amount of joy. But what a refreshing perspective, remembering that I was buying something for no purpose other...

5 months ago • 2 min read

Once upon a time, I thought witches were make-believe. If, on the off chance, they were real and secretly existed in a hidden enclave somewhere in the world, they were certainly diabolical. That's what happens when you don't question the things you're told growing up. So imagine my surprise when I met my first witch - a lovely young Swiss woman named Fabia, who loved French fries and cried when she read poetry out loud - at a Buddhist retreat center. Between sessions, she and I got to talking...

6 months ago • 3 min read

I ought to be embarrassed, Reader. It seems my feelings about Halloween never evolved beyond 1st grade when I treated sugar like it was a precious commodity I could only get once a year. I became that teenager obsessed with horror films and progressively more realistic haunted experiences. Live chainsaws dipping dangerously close to my face? Kidnapping and low-key torture? Sign me up! I majored in costume design and had a professional photoshoot with my handmade Catwoman, Medusa and Jessica...

7 months ago • 2 min read

Many moons ago, I met Jason Patrick. It was so long ago, in fact, that Corey Haim was still alive (RIP), and rumor had it, he and Feldman were trying to make a Lost Boys 2. I know there is a .001% chance a sequel - especially a horror sequel - will be worth watching, but if ever I wished that to be true, it was with The Lost Boys. And if Jason were willing to reprise the role of Michael, well, what's not to love, right? So, naturally, I had to ask him. >>>Side bar: I approach famous people...

7 months ago • 2 min read

I'm writing this email from a cabin in the clouds. This is the spot I chose for a week-long solitary writing retreat. I have done nothing but write, eat and read whenever my brain needs a break from writing. There is no Wi-Fi and temperamental cell service, so despite the fact that I would enthusiastically embrace a distraction as if it were my long-lost twin, there seem to be no good ways to avoid doing work. I think I have become a "real" writer. This, after 20 years of writing...

8 months ago • 4 min read
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