Living in Sin - 031
Karen Read...welcome to Call Her Daddy.
Hi y’all!
Not to keep talking about how I’m right all the time, but High Times is also returning to print media. The issues should come with rolling papers.
Pride
The Fulcrum, a newsroom dedicated to solutions-based journalism, published a feature on how D.C. is rethinking food access as health policy, and it spotlighted one of my clients: FRESHFARM.
It’s not just a profile of a nonprofit doing good—it’s an in-depth look at how Produce Plus, FRESHFARM’s flagship food access program, is connecting the dots between local farmers, city markets, and D.C. residents who deserve better access to fresh food. It’s not just about fresh vegetables; it’s about dignity, policy innovation, and data that proves community-based models work. It’s an honor to help tell stories like this!
Sloth
This week’s long-read to luxuriate into comes from Refinery29’s Cristina Escobar: “Yulissa Escobar Does Represent Our Community. And That’s the Problem” It’s a sharp read about the downfall of Love Island USA contestant Yulissa Escobar. The piece threads together personal identity, electoral patterns, pop culture, and privilege into together clearly.
For PR pros it’s a good reminder that “representation” isn’t just about who gets cast, it’s about how identities are portrayed. It’s crucial to go beyond aesthetic inclusivity and provide a genuine, nuanced understanding.
Greed
I am ashamed to admit I lost a good amount of productivity momentum to the Karen Read trial last week. While I’m obsessed with the content, I can’t help but hope she resists the podcast circuit.
There’s something uniquely unsettling about true crime’s ability to flatten nuance and she deserves more than a carousel of podcast appearances chopped into Reels. Not all media is created equal, and not all exposure is progress. A single, thoughtful, tightly controlled feature in the right outlet will do more than a dozen loosely managed interviews.
As tempting as it might be to chase vindication through visibility, sometimes the most powerful message is simply choosing silence.
Gluttony
The 2025 James Beard Awards delivered. This year’s ceremony tackled what American hospitality means in 2025. The Beard Foundation has steadily repositioned the awards into a values-forward platform.* This year’s event loudly and proudly celebrated immigration, second chances, and cultural complexity. For publicists, this is a reminder that awards are micro-stages for macro-messaging. The chefs who used their speeches to talk about immigration, flexibility for single moms, or hospitality as radical empathy are proof that when the message goes beyond the plate, the spotlight gets brighter.
Lust
The 9-to-5 is dead, and the “infinite workday” is here—and it’s a mess.
Meetings are creeping into your bedtime routine (up 16% after 8 p.m.) and the average knowledge worker is pinged every 1.75 minutes. That’s 275 digital pokes per day. No wonder we all feel like we’re constantly chasing a regenerating to-do list.
If you’re in Comms, you’ve probably already accepted that we’re work-life integrators by design. Media hits don’t respect time zones, client crises rarely schedule themselves, and the client text thread never sleeps. So, how do we as communications pros model healthy boundaries without spiraling the second we silence notifications? Normalize availability protocols—aka letting clients or coworkers know what your real-time windows are and when you’ll respond. We have to build muscle memory for unplugging that doesn’t feel like abandonment.
Bonus: This would make a great thought leadership angle if you’ve got a workplace wellness or productivity client looking to jump into the conversation.
Envy
Wrath
As always, I have no time for wrath, so instead you get a recent camera role gem: I may have made my TikTok algo too chaotic.
okay bye, babes!
-M
*After a good amount of controversy