Dorothy Parker would have been 132 today.
That is why I chalked one of her lines. She wrote like she drank... hard, fast, and without apology. No sunshine, no unicorns, no rainbows. She understood chaos, the kind that keeps you staring at the ceiling fan at 3 a.m., waiting for the hammer to drop. That is why her words hit like they do. We’ve all got storms to face.
I knew storms in the bond room of the Chicago Board of Trade. Back when men were louder than the phones and the jackets were louder than the men. The pit wasn’t a workplace; it was a war zone. Screaming matches from the opening bell to the final trade. Brokers and locals bidding and offering like their mortgage and car payment were hanging by a thread. Hand signals cutting through the air like semaphore for the damned. Phones ringing off the hook. Runners, trade checkers, and arb clerks holding it together while their hearts pounded like Professor Longhair on a piano in New Orleans.
Calm?
Never trusted it.
A quiet pit meant trouble was coming. I’ve seen it all...
... stock market crashes, dictatorships toppling, planes slamming into towers. That kind of life rewires you. It makes you pace when the room goes still. Makes you twitch when the phone doesn’t ring.
Now, here we are on Dorothy’s birthday, with a Black Moon rolling in this weekend. The third new moon in a single season.
Dark sky.
Clean slate.
Fresh start if you want it.
Finish the week strong, but don’t forget the gusto. Life is too damn short to whisper when you can roar.
