Did you miss me???!
I’m back and doing the last thing you’d expect.
Bet you never thought you’d hear from me again.
It’s been a little under a year since I posted my last Substack and effectively ended 129 Ways to Get a Life. For those who need a refresher: from November 2023 to October 2025, I worked my way through a dating listicle from 1958 called “129 Ways to Get a Husband,” Julie & Julia style. What transpired were adventures in dating, meditations on romance, and interactions with strangers who became friends. It was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
But being the spine of the story catches up with you. It was this time last year that I got the email that kicked off the fling that ultimately led me to shut down 129. It was not his fault. The experience inspired reflection, and that reflection made me realize that constantly mining my own life for material might make it hard to sustain a relationship.
I am happy I did the project, and I am happy it’s over. So what am I doing back here?
A lot has changed since we last spoke. I have a job I adore, I’ve entered a new decade (30!), and I’m no longer interested in writing about my love life. I am, however, eager to write for an audience again. And I’ve started a new side quest, which likely no one saw coming.
I am becoming a nun!!
Jk. I’m Jewish. But nuns are having a moment. Has anyone listened to their podcast?
Ironically, this new project began during a monastic period of my life. The short version: almost two months ago, I fell headfirst into a metal pole on the red carpet at an event. Pause for effect.
It was painful and embarrassing and hilarious. Picture me, crying, left eyebrow and bridge of the nose bleeding, stumbling through a movie theater while Broadway icon André De Shields poses on a nearby step-and-repeat. One trip to the ER later, I was relieved to learn I had not broken my orbital bone. I had, however, suffered a mild concussion.
Those who have had a concussion will get it, and those who haven’t will think I’m being dramatic, but recovering from a brain injury, even a mild one, is no joke. Light hurts your eyes. You’re nauseous and confused and have a near-constant headache. You’re not supposed to do much, but you’re also not supposed to do nothing. You’re told to take it day by day, to let symptoms inform behavior.
It means no running, no alcohol, and no packed social schedule. It means slowing down.
It also meant I couldn’t write.
In June, I had big plans to script something: a play, feature, manifesto. But in the throes of the concussion, the space behind my left eye would throb at the very thought of concentrating at the computer. This was different from writer’s block. A corner of my mind had simply become inaccessible. The medical term for this is “brain fog,” but to me it felt more like a mind maze. I was staring at a wall with no way out, around, or through, and I was terrified.
Something interesting happened as I waited to heal. While my right brain went out of office indefinitely, my left brain began working overtime. The space that would normally fill with play and movie ideas was empty, and in its place I found… a business plan?
I won’t bury the lede. In my time of brain trauma, instead of doing a puzzle or coloring like a normal person, I fired up my computer (once screens allowed) and vibe-coded my way into an ethical consumption platform.
You’ll have to wait until next week for details on the aforementioned platform, but here’s the preview: Even before metal-pole-gate, I’d been frustrated by the endless slew of coffee shops, bagel spots, and clothing brands seemingly backed by private equity. Lately it’s felt like watching New York get same-ified in real time, multiplied across locations, and corporatized. (I’m not the only one to think this). I wanted to know if my suspicion that everything was owned by someone else was correct, so I built a website to tell me — and realized I was only scratching the surface.
Pivot of the century, am I right?
A quick definition of vibe coding, since I had to look it up myself. The term was first coined in early 2025 by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy when he tweeted the following, on X, on my birthday. Of course he couldn’t have known it was my birthday, but it was.
I had assumed it was more about curating a vibe while coding, like when you’re throwing a dinner party and make sure the playlist is right, the wine is chilled, the overhead lights are off, and the conversation is stimulating. I thought vibe coding was just about having a good time on the computer.
It is not about just having a good time on the computer! It is about describing what you want built in plain English and letting AI write all the code.
Obviously there are bigger conversations to be had about the implications of vibe coding, along with the general impact and ethics of AI. I have reservations about doing this project and am candidly not totally sure where I stand on the topic. I don’t think AI should be used to write a play (or a Substack), but when used to create a tool that could help consumers become more informed, uplift local businesses, and decode corporate jargon? I don’t know.
What I do know is that we’re entering a strange new reality, and I’m not sure how to navigate it. What’s right, what’s wrong, what’s fact, what’s fiction, did a human actually write said fiction, is the em dash evil — the line becomes more pixelated by the day.
Recently, I was talking to a friend who raised a new fear: “The information economy is dying.” By which she meant that in the age of AI, we are careening toward an era where no one really needs to know anything anymore.
Take vibe coding. For a software engineer, it’s a tool (or the end of a profession, depending who you ask). But for me, who thought Python was just a snake until a month ago, this innovation means I can get away without understanding how I’m doing what I’m doing. And while I don’t plan on becoming a full-stack developer, I still want to ask why. I still want to know how.
Just because we don’t have to learn doesn’t mean we should stop doing it. It shouldn’t mean we lose our curiosity.
This realization brought nostalgia for what was, to me, the most curious place of all: the University of Michigan. A literal breeding ground for big ideas, deep discussions, unfettered delusion, and potentially mono. Most of my college career was spent at the theatre school learning to juggle and accurately die on stage, but sophomore year included an ill-fated stint at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
It wasn’t a good fit; I dropped the BBA program after two semesters. Yet for everything I abhorred about business school, I genuinely enjoyed the education. I liked demystifying finance and marketing and investigating corporate history. I probably also loved the idea of being in charge. It was, after all, 2016: Girlboss heyday.
Though the BBA didn’t last, the spirit stuck. After the big quit, I threw a party to celebrate: a banger aptly called “Business School Dropout,” for which the dress code was suit and tie. It was such a hit even the cops came (To shut it down).
And so when it was time to pick a name for the new Substack, the answer was obvious.
Business School Dropout will follow the process of building this ethical consumption platform and everything I learn while doing it. A post every week: featuring interviews with local business owners, reflections on what fails and what succeeds, and deep dives into various topics related to [REDACTED COMPANY NAME].
The first standalone piece will be released next Tuesday, where I’ll go into further detail about the project, give a little more business school background, and explain the newsletter's structure. I’ll also be doing the website reveal from the publication, so watch that space.
I wish I could share the link now!! But I have to double-check that I can’t get sued. There’s an increasingly long to-do list as I go down the rabbit hole, and I’ll write through the rest of it live.
Working on this project has been satisfying and imaginative in a way I never expected. It’s entirely different from writing a play, but the act of building something from nothing is the same. It’s creative and analytical at once. While it might feel like a departure from 129, the central goal is not: to meet people, run experiments, and share reflections.
It might blow up in my face. I can’t predict what will happen. I just want to learn what I don’t know.
129 will always exist as an artifact of the past, a scrapbook of my 20s. It was an amazing adventure, but I’m 30 now, and it’s time for a new one.
See you there?
Welcome back. Sorry about the concussion. I've had two. They suck.
So excited you are back!