People tend to have strong feelings about New Orleans. They either love it… or they hate it. I have always been firmly in the love-it camp. The first time I visited, I was eighteen and fresh off a fairly sheltered upbringing. Within approximately six minutes of walking down Bourbon Street, I had seen more breasts, public intoxication, casual drug use, and questionable hygiene choices than I had in my entire life combined. Women leaned out of doorways trying to lure us inside.

On the afternoon of November 16, 2024, my home briefly transformed into a cozy spiritual studio—equal parts intuition, gemstones, and lightly chilled champagne. The idea sparked from my recent tarot reading I had with Jenn , which left me thinking: I know people in my life who would love this.  It felt like a perfect addition to my list of 50 things. I invited a group of women who each hold a different kind of importance in my life—Melanie Buckmaster, Mary Bradley, Ashe Edlun

I’ve always loved strategy games—Spades, Rook, Othello, Risk, Battleship. Give me rules, probabilities, and the chance to outsmart someone, and I’m in. So it’s honestly a little embarrassing that I made it this far in life without learning the flagship strategy game: chess. Naturally, it landed on my “50 Things” list, because nothing motivates self-improvement quite like writing it down and publicly announcing you’re doing it. Enter my friend Austin—equal parts patient teach