I was sitting on a park bench near a crying woman who was pleading with a statue to love her back.

He might as well have been one.

He was leaned so far back on that bench you’d think it was a lounge chair, lips flat, body stiff, eyes looking at absolutely nothing.

I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t live without you, she said.

And I, well, I could not stop staring.

My brain kept yelling at me, jennnn stoppp, this does not involve you. You played the lottery and picked the one bench that happens to be two feet away from somebody’s worst day of their entire life. That does not mean you were invited. Look at your phone. Look away. Marvel at the birds chirping the exact thing you want to scream, which is: whattttt an (chirp) asshole.

How could you do this to me? And without telling me why? she cried. Don’t you care that I am sick over this?

No change in the statue. But of course, in me. A loud sigh, like a knock on their invisible door, as if to say: let me into this please.

It was time for me to leave. But where I was supposed to go? Home? So I could think about this woman for the rest of my life? I should probably stay so that when he leaves, I could be there like a friend.

Don’t do this to me, she repeated. Why are you doing this to me?

By now, if I were her, I would be checking his pulse. Was someone painting him? Was the only thing in his brain the mantra: Be still. Just be.

Say something to her, the birds chirped.

Finally he moved. Not toward her. Away.

You’re just going to walk away? she went on. After everything?

Don’t, I wanted to tell her. Don’t go after him. Don’t you dare.

But of course she did.

She ran toward him and the statue had nothing in his eyes, and when there is nothing in someone’s eyes it is scientifically proven (not really…but ya know) there is nothing in their heart, though there is usually still something rattling around in the brain, and his probably went like this: I just don’t love you anymore, and I tried to end it with a text so I wouldn’t have to watch your face do this, but you found me, and I am not brave, and you are, and I cannot stand to be near someone braver than me.

So I got up too. And I did the right thing. I followed them.

I walked slowly behind them, hoping to witness the ending I wanted for her. The ending I would want for me.

The one where he walks and she stays. Where she sinks down right there on the grass into her own private wreckage. Where some small, faraway part of her already knows this is going to hurt like hell for a while, and then one day it simply won’t. Where eventually she sees the thing it took me years and a few too many of my own park benches to learn: we do not love the people who turn their backs on us. We want them. And those are not the same, no matter how identical they feel.

I wish I could tell you I was never her. That I have never been her. But I have been her in three states and at least two area codes.

I wish I could tell you to never beg a person to love you. But I would be a raging, hypocritical liar, and I have decided I will not lie to you.

Oh, how I have begged. With my words. With my silence. With my silly heart.

And it works, it works beautifully, right up until it doesn’t, and then you curse them for ever trying to leave, or they dislike you because the truth is they always sort of did.

He walked off again, and this time she ran so fast in his direction that I genuinely hoped it was to tackle him. I do not condone violence. But I figured if she could just grab an arm, a leg, anything, she could at least confirm he was a human man and not, as I had started to suspect, a ghost.

I found Adam in the park. He was playing with Gemma and Goofy.

Did you see all of that? I said.

He had not. Of course. Why would he> Most reasonable people see two adults crying on a bench and think, let me give them some space.

I, a looney tune, see the same scene and think, let me go save her.

I once followed a crying woman into the bathroom at a fancy Italian restaurant because the guy she was with was treating her so awful. I waited for her to flush the toilet and wash her hands to say: Do you want someone to talk to?

She looked at me stale like the bread and walked past me as if I was invisible.

Maybe, in those moments, people don’t want to see the life raft. Maybe they can’t because they don’t even realize how much they are sinking.

What would you have even said to her? Adam asked.

That he’s an asshole. Move on. But then I actually thought about it, and the only thing that would have been true, the only thing that would have been fair, the only thing a woman that desperate to be wanted by exactly the wrong person could have possibly heard, was this:

It is not going to end well. It might be okay for a while. It might even be wonderful for a while. But it is not going to end well, and there is going to be so much pain. So listen to me very carefully. Push through it. A little bit, every single day. The real truth is, and you won’t fully know this for yearrrrrs, is that spending your life with a jerk is a really shitty way to live it and you don’t deserve that way. You don’t actually want that way or this lame guy. You just want to be loved. So let yourself be loved. Actually loved. And that will happen once you get through this pain.

Anyway. None of this is my business!

I have plenty of my own business to mind, and if I told you my business you would say, well, would you like it if a stranger sat down next to you on a park bench, listened to every messy second of it, and then wrote the whole thing down to 10,000 people in a newsletter?

Yes. Obviously. Sure. Why not?

We all have to tell our business to somebody.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

Ps. Know somebody who would loooove this place? Send them this link and tell them that Monday’s (and life!!!!) don’t have to suck.

On to the goooood stuff!

Using ChatGPT to fix my makeup :)

A couple of weeks ago, I put a photo of myself into ChatGPT and said: teach me how to fix my makeup.

The best suggestion it gave me was to swap my mascara color and try a new brand that has an applicator that curls your lashes when you apply the makeup.

This is not an ad! I bought this based on ChatGPT’s suggestion and gave it a whirl.

Here’s what that swap looked like:

The mascara!!

The best white t-shirt in the entire world…

This is the beeeesstt summer t-shirt in the entire world. It’s amazing quality, not thin at all, and under $20. I bought a few in white and black so I can just toss them on every day. They are cropped and a boxy fit. I sized up (medium) because I like my tops a little baggy and I like to let them shrink in the wash :). Truly do not spend a ton of money on t-shirts when your armpit sweat will likely stain them if your mustard does not first. Get this shirt!

I’m sucked into…

Learning how to play Mahjong. I really want to learn and whenever I learn something new, I over prepare. SO I scheduled two different lessons this month so that I can dive in and overly obsess about learning the game. My first one is tonight and then again in two weeks. I pray that I understand the game by the end of June but there’s a chance I might be even more confused….

The best bathing suits all under $40…

I tried on 25 different bathing suits and here are my favorite that are all under $40. I have worn and washed all three of these bathing suits 3x already and the quality = amazing.

• High-waisted Bikini

• One Piece With a Cut Out

• One Piece That Flatters

Things that make me feel like a teenager again

• Olivia Rodrigo songs. Loving this new one and the music video is fun too.

• Acne (LOL). I’ve been getting cystic acne again and i’m on the verge of 40 🤪. Honestly no product has helped my acne. The only that helped was leaving it alone.

• Lining my closet door with Polaroid pictures of my life.

• Hair gems on a random Tuesday morning because why not?

I turn into a bumbling idiot at doctor’s appointments. Nerves! I have bad health anxiety so the sight of a whit coat makes me forget my ABC’s.

SOOO this is what I’ve been doing this year while I’m navigating stomach issues and seeing my gastro more than my besties.

• Keeping a symptom log. Day, time, how I feel. Before the appointment, I drop it into ChatGPT and create a summary that I print and bring.

• Lab logs. Doctors don’t always look at your past labs vs. current for patterns. So I’ll also put those into ChatGPT and ask to compare new to old and then I share that with the doctor too. Pro-tip: email it ahead of time so they can look it over before the appointment.

• Write down a list of questions and hold that list in my hand. NOT THE PHONE. A pen is in the other hand. So if I have questions whil the doc is talking, I jot them down so I don’t forget. Jen tip: I rehearse what I want to say ahead of time so that I’m confident.

• FINALLY. Record the audio of the doctor visit on your phone. Drop that into ChatGPT for a summary/next steps. It’s sooo helpful because how in the world are you supposed to remember…everything…at your appointment?

Thanks for reading this. I adore you. See you next Monday!

One small ask before you go: if this was worth your time, scroll back to the top of this email and hit the ❤️ button. It’s the main way new readers find this newsletter — and it really helps.

And if someone in your life needs a weekly reset, forward this their way. Thank you my love <3

Hit reply anytime. I read everything or 👇

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Jen Glantz’s Books / Business / Podcast / Instagram

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a solo weekend at home in Brooklyn (plus Goofy the dog). Adam and Gemma went away for the weekend, and I had the entire 800-square-foot apartment to myself.

Everyone I told about this solo weekend, including the lovely couple who cut Goofy’s hair, said:

Are you okay? Are you sure you want to be alone for 72 hours?

...........................ummmmmmmmm, yes.

I love, love, love my family. We roar with laughter and annoy our downstairs neighbor with our constant gorilla footsteps. But for most of the 24-hour rotations of my life, I am within arm’s reach of someone else and we’re talking, singing, snoring, debating, negotiating snack choices, and blah blah blah-ing our way through the day. It’s both my favorite thing about my life and also the most distracting.

I am never alone.

Even when I work my 3-4 hours a day, I do it in a tiny office space in Greenpoint where Adam’s desk is about five steps away from mine. We spend a lot of time together.

The hardest part of all of this is that I don’t really hear my thoughts as thoughts anymore. I hear them as background hissing noise that I’ve gotten really good at turning into white noise. When you’re constantly surrounded by people who need things, tell you things, ask you things, or want to do things with you, it becomes very easy to take all the stuff you want to do and shove it into the back of a pickup truck that gets repossessed for so long you have no idea where it ended up.

The only reason I’m scared of being alone is because I’m scared of facing the important stuff. I’m scared of my own thoughts. Some of them are scarier than a true crime podcast.

So instead of filling my weekend with plans and people and things to do around New York City, I vowed to hardly leave the apartment, which also raised eyebrows and made the people who love me wonder WTF was going on with me.

What was going with me was that I had goals! Goals of my own!

Like deep cleaning the apartment (in an effort to avoid the other goals that were more important but, of course, much scarier). And get my life back on track (See? Terrifying stuff over here.)

I wanted to move forward on a writing project that has been open as a tab on my computer since December and completely untouched, except for the time I lost the latest version and 5,000 words disappeared into the computer black hole. Poof.

I wanted to figure out how to improve this newsletter, which I’ve had for more than 10 freaking years but lately feels like it needs a pick-me-up of its own.

And I wanted to work on Bridesmaid for Hire, which I do every week, but I had so many things I needed to finally sit down and figure out.

Seventy-two hours of being solo and having nobody to talk to except Goofy, who mostly slept next to me and occasionally side-eyed me when I tried to make light convo about the weather, made me realize this:

If you’re feeling lost or stuck or overwhelmed by a giant pile of things you haven’t done yet, you don’t always need to hire a $1,000-a-month coach. You don’t need to buy a course on organizing your life. You don’t need to wait for all the noise to disappear.

You need to be alone.

You need silence.

Sit in a library for an hour. Turn off your phone. Shut off the Wi-Fi. Go for a walk without headphones. Take a very long shower. Ideas looooove showers.

Some of you have a bundle of kids. Some of you take care of other people. Some of you are simply very talented at filling every empty space in your life with noise so your thoughts never get a chance to step up to the microphone and do their monologue.

Try a little silence when you can and see what shows up.

Maybe it’s a pile of emotional gunk.

Maybe it’s the answer you’ve been looking for.

Maybe it’s a million-dollar idea.

Maybe it’s just remembering what you wanted before life got so loud.

Either way, it’s worth binging to on repeat a thousand times like a song you can’t stop singing along to, except. this is yours. All yours. Sooooo listen.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

Ps. Know somebody who would loooove this place? Send them this link and tell them that Monday’s (and life!!!!) don’t have to suck.

On to the goooood stuff!

Bathing suits! The dreeeead.

I love my body, but I don’t love people seeing my body, and normally they...don’t? The only time of the year hundreds of people are looking at my bits and pieces is when the pool is open and the beach is nearby, and the only comfy way to enjoy those bodies of water is in a swimsuit.

After having a baby, I started going in the pool with a T-shirt and gym shorts because people love to comment on a postpartum body and say things with their EYES!

Last year, I was feeling so comfy in my body that I wore cheeky Abercrombie bathing suits that screamed, she’s on the cusp of 40 trying to be a teen.

So this year, I wanted to invest TIME picking out three bathing suits that I can toss on, feel good in (and supported), and also not feel like I’m trying to walk the Sports Illustrated stage wearing dental floss.

I tried on 25 bathing suits from Amazon, and here are the three that I love and am keeping. The best part is they are under $40, and the quality is precious. is precious.

The Bathing Suits!!!

High-waisted Bikini + One Piece With a Cut Out + One Piece That Flatters

I just finished this book and…

Honestly was shocked. Best Offer Wins really twists toward the end in a way I just would not have predicted. How far will you go to get the house of your dreams, especially when you’re always out bid? Fast read. Crazy ending.

I’m sucked into…

Watching Off Campus. It’s cheesy at first and then right before you press pause it spins you into the storyline and you can’t turn it off. I’m half way through the show and don’t want it to end. I really like this song from the show.

The most recommended product for acne…

I’ve been on an acne journey these past few weeks for TWO cystic acne balls of junk on my face. I’ve been posting about it and the most recommended product was this spray. I’ve been using it for a week and while it hasn’t cured my cysts it is refreshing and has kept my skin even and prevented more breakouts.

A flattering pair of soft jeans…

I have these in a leopard print and just got them in this light blue color for the summer. They are high-waisted and wide-legged. Very flattering. I pair this type of jean with a crop top and a pair of fun sneakers - these are my go-to.

I have 79,053 photos on my iPhone and I neverrr look at most of them ever again. A fun feature on the iPhone that I found is where you can have photos rotate on your lock screen. It’s a fun way to see a new photo on your phone everytime you go to touch it (which is probably 79,000 times a day).

Here’s how to do it:

Thanks for reading this. I adore you. See you next Monday!

One small ask before you go: if this was worth your time, scroll back to the top of this email and hit the ❤️ button. It’s the main way new readers find this newsletter — and it really helps.

And if someone in your life needs a weekly reset, forward this their way. Thank you my love <3

Hit reply anytime. I read everything or 👇

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Jen Glantz’s Books / Business / Podcast / Instagram

I get all jumpy when I’m vibing with someone and we’re talking about doing something fun like going on a walking tour of old-school mafia spots on the Lower East Side or walking from the very top of Manhattan all the way downtown and then, right in the middle of us choking on our laughter, they suddenly say:

This sounds so fun. Maybe next year?

Not in my world, honey. There’s no maybe next year because maybe next year usually means… never.

Whenever Adam says: When I retire, I want to…

I shoot him these laser-beam eyes that very clearly say: RUN. When you retire? Adam, that’s in like…IDK? Yeaaaaars.

I collect horror stories about people who spent decades saying things like: One day we’ll take that biking trip across Europe. When we retire, we’ll finally go on that cruise around the world. And then they retire and…Well. The universe had other plans, if you know what I mean.

I can be lazy sometimes. I can absolutely get in my own way when it comes to sitting down and doing what I need to do. But one thing about me is that when it comes to adventure, I will never say: How about tomorrow?

I will find the 24/7 psychic. I will book the trip that I’ll spend the next six months stressing about.

I’m impulsive and strange. But I am not waiting around to live my freaking life.

So hello, June. Our family weekend calendar is already so packed that when people ask to make plans, we’re saying horrifying things like: How’s mid-September?

I’m making a June bucket list so that I can have goooals and things to look forward to and not have the first real month of summer pass without having a good time.

Sharing a template you can use here.

May’s newsletter theme was all about being interesting. Do we like themes? Should I do more? Here’s what I wrote just for you in May:

• The stuff you waste time on is making you boring so here’s how to make little tiny changes to feel interesting again.

• This is what happens when you ask three people in your life to tell you what they think makes you interesting.

• The exact script to use to sound interesting AND to remind yourself that you are soooo freaking fun.

Ps. Know somebody who would loooove this place? Send them this link and tell them that Monday’s (and life!!!!) don’t have to suck.

On to the goooood stuff!

ChatGPT workouts.

I’m trying to do it all and the only way to do that is to fit in workouts whenever I have 20-minutes. I did it at 9:54pm the other night and outside the building where I dropped Gemma off for her gymnastics class (when you’re in a time crunch, you don’t have time to care if people are watching you do skating lunges on a NYC sidewalk).

Here’s the workout plan I followed last week.

I just finished this book and…

Thought Escape! was a fun beach read. It’s especially for someone who is reality TV obsessed (niche: Survivor). The author worked as a reality producer and interviewed hundreds of people who worked on shows to write this thriller of a fiction book. All my 2026 reads are here.

Is this the catchiest song ever?

I swear last night I woke up at 2:37am to pee and on the way to the toilet I was humming this song. It’s sooo catchy. The lyrics hit and I pretend I’m a 20-something girlie with a crush again.

Summer shoes that go with everyyyything :)

Jellies are everywhere. They are the shoe of the summer and as a Brooklyn girlie, I’m walking everywhere so I need everything that covers my feet to be comfy and well-made. I can walk miles in these and I put these on for nights out and somehow survive climbing subway stairs in them.

I can’t stop thinking about this:

“Married less to the man than to the woman silvering with the mirror... I am my own bride, lifting the veil to see my face. Darling, I say, I have waited for you all my life.” — Maggie Smith

I found this in my notes app :)

Thanks for reading this. I adore you. See you next Monday!

One small ask before you go: if this was worth your time, scroll back to the top of this email and hit the ❤️ button. It's the main way new readers find this newsletter — and it really helps.

And if someone in your life needs a weekly reset, forward this their way. Thank you my love <3

Hit reply anytime. I read everything or 👇

Leave a comment

Jen Glantz’s Books / Business / Podcast / Instagram

Welcome to the final newsletter of my month long quest to become…interesting again.

Not extreeeeeeeme interesting. Not I suddenly wake up at 5am and drink chlorophyll water interesting. Not I paid someone $3,000 to optimize my aura interesting.

I mean actually interesting.

Week one was all about cutting out the stuff that was turning my brain into mashed potatoes. Goodbye, TikTok. Being off the app for 3+ weeks has made me soooo much fun again.

Instead of spending hours watching conspiracy theories about cruise ships, obscure takes on Alex Cooper vs. Alix Earle, and people deep cleaning and then restocking their fridge, I’ve been doing weird little human things again.

I asked ChatGPT to write me a one minute stand up set based on my life and started to memorize it.

I mailed handwritten letters to long distance friends.

I sat outside and noticed things. Like a psychopath!!!!! (Kidding. Noticing things is soo magical).

It all might sound slow and dusty, but it’s what we should be doing.

Literally noticing things brought me eye-to-eye with a sign today that had THIS QUOTE from the movie UP:

That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most.

Without spending a freaking dollar or hiring one of those people who promise to make your life unrecognizable in 30 days or less for $3,000+, simply think about the BS you’re being swallowed by and give it up for a little, just to see how much different your life feels without it.

Okay. Step two.

Take inventory.

Not of your closet. Not of your taxes. Not of your 25 tote bags.

Of YOU.

I know this sounds horrifying, but sit down and make a list of what makes you interesting. Then ask other people what they think is interesting about you.

Spoiler alert: the things you overlook about yourself are usually the exact things other people find fascinating.

I’ve wanted to make more videos this year because I want the internet friends who read these newsletters to feel more inside my life. But every time I try to think of ideas, my brain goes:

Okay but who on earth would care?

My life is repetitive. Most of my day is spent pretending to be one Disney princess figurine while Gemma pretends to be another.

But after making my list, I realized something: People don’t always want giant glamorous moments from other people’s lives. They want tiny glimpses into lives that feel different than their own.

That realization led me to film a video of my office this week. Which sounds deeply uninteresting. Yet somehow…it was one of the most fun things I’ve made in a while because I got to show the place where I’ve written these newsletters for the last three years.

And now…the final piece of this weird magical equation:

how to sound interesting when someone asks: what’s new with you.

Because nothing sends a human brain into panic mode faster than:

So…what’s new?

Here’s the script I’m using:

Throwback: I just finished… + Now: Right now I’m… + Want: And next I really want to…

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Example:

I just finished a 9 city book tour. Right now I’m revamping parts of Bridesmaid for Hire. And next I really want to learn Mahjong.

But also know your audience. If I tried this out on my best friends they’d say: Are you a LinkedIn robot? Did AI eat your personality for breakfast?

So change this up based on who you are talking to and if you don’t want to talk businessssss…just tell the person the last thing.

What do you want to do next in life?

We all want something next! It’s always soooo interesting to hear what people want to do with their lives.

And even if you’re like, Jen, why do I need this? I don’t plan on leaving my house, going to any soirees (events), or talking to people ever again.

Lol. Imagine if we never had to talk to people again???

I still think this exercise matters.

Because having answers to these questions every single month, even just for yourself, reminds you that you are…INTERESTING.

Oddly, the whole point of this make me interesting month really never was to impress other people. It was to remind all of us that we’re not some washed up has-been rotating the same two life stories and three stained t-shirts and four yearly traditions in and out of our lives.

Sweet friend, my dear lovebug, you’re a person with layers and opinions and random dreams and oddly specific curiositites.

Even if right now your biggest aspiration right now is figuring out what SPF doesn’t break you out and figuring out what to do with radicchio this summer.

That still counts!

Might sound boring, babe, but only to you because you lie with it all at night. You lie with too much. Your brain is biased. You’re a wonder of the world with all you’ve done, are doing, want to do. Never forget that.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

Ps. Taking Memorial Day Monday off from entering your inbox. I’ll be flip flopping my way around Brooklyn. Say hello at anytime right here :)

Read More: I’m so jealous of you // The fastest way to become more interesting

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My personal pick-me-ups:

• 📚Book: I stayed up waaay too late reading this book when I first started it. The plot follows a pieced-together family on a road trip where two people hope to find love, when the odds are sooo stacked against them. Here’s my book pick list of 2026 so far.

• 🎧Song: All her songs are soo catchy and this one has been stuck in my head for a week.

• 👕White Tee: The best summer tee’s are always from Old Navy. I bought this one in a few colors for $8

• 👜Dupes!!!! I was in Antrhopology the other day and saw two pink handbags I loved but they were $$$ and I found good dupes for both. This slouch bag (original vs. dupe) + this shoulder bag (original vs. dupe).

• 👙Looking for: bathing suit suggestions. This is my least fav clothing item to buy so please leave a comment and tell me the brands/styles you are looooooving.

• 💌 Tiny ask: I’m trying to hit 1,000 copies of my book sold this year. I’m…not very close :I…sooo my ask is that if you’re looking for a fun summer read or a gift for a friend, to grab a copy, or two, or 400. Thank you <3

My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo! P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter. Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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I’m on this May-long quest of glowing up from being a hibernating caterpillar into an eye-popping butterfly.

I want to be the most interesting girl in the room. But I want to do that by changing very, very little of myself and not leaving the couch :) Ah, the usual saga, girl wants it all, but doesn’t want to put on pants to get it :)

Even though I’m only on day 11 of this make me interesting journey I’m kind of realizing that less is more? That the first couple of steps of being interesting are things you can figure out and do instead of scrolling on the toilet.

Last week it was all about the things that are making me a drag. How can I push those aside so ta-da! I can emerge.

But this week it’s all about just being prepared. A big part of being interesting is understanding what you’re working with.

Okay so first..what makes you interesting?

IDK?

Do you know?

What even is interesting? Also, it’s soo objective. One person might find the fact that you own 15 sequin suits interesting and another might call you a hoarder.

But that’s the best part of it all. It does not matter. Because being interesting is mostly just being in sync with who you are, what you’ve done, what you are doing, and what you want to do next.

We work soo hard to change ourselves that we don’t even know ourselves.

Most people already ARE interesting. They’ve just stopped paying attention to themselves.

You have good bones. So WTF are you working with?

This week we have a two step process to make the interesting pop out your pores.

Step one is annoying.

You need to sit down and write out 50 things that make you interesting.

The first 10 will be fast but after that you will be straining for the answers. I just went for my annual at the gyno and she said wow one of your boobs is bigger than the others so I wrote that down as number 35 because I was dessssperate, ya know?

Get to 50. Write the list in your notes app. Write it in a notebook. Write it on your hand. I promise you rando things will pop into your head. At 3am, I had a thought!

I once was a competitive kickboxer. How come I never talk about that anymore? Add to the list!

In the middle of watching a movie with a friend I haven’t seen in a few years, another. Thought came to mind:

Is it interesting the things a person hasn’t done? I haven’t seen any Harry Potter or Star Wars or marvel movies.

Is investing only what we have done and done well or done and failed or not done at all?

Here’s the good news!

There are nooo rules for what makes you interesting..except…YOU NEED TO FIND IT INTERESTING.

& the spoiler to doing this list is that usually the most interesting things about you seem so boring you forget them or pass over them.

Which is why, there’s a step two and it’s exciting.

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Ask other people in your life what they think is interesting about you.

I a asked one husband who said: how mysterious you are (LOL LOLOL) three friends, and a 3-year-old who gave the best answer:

It’s that you pee…in a toilet! (We’re trying to push potty training over here..)

Next week in the interesting series I will give you my fool-proof script I am using to sound more interesting. It’s too easy and you can memorize it in 30-seconds and it will literally make you sound like the world’s most interesting man...

Did you know I met him once?

I totally forgot about that, and that’s interesting? Adding to my list!

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

Read More: I’m so jealous of you // The fastest way to become more interesting

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Little life update:

I just finished a 7-month, 9-city book tour for Finally the Bride. What a freaking whirlwind. It was both incredibly exhausting and exhilarating. There were some tough moments, like traveling with my weird stomach issues or the infamous event in Rhode Island where nobody came, but Bethenny Frankel came to my rescue!!!

It was also so beautiful to see best friends, friends I hadn’t seen in a decade, and people who have connected with my writing on the internet over the last 15 years IRL.

If you’re wondering what’s next for me, I’m wondering that too (LOL LOL). What’s next is that I should get my ass in the desk chair and write. How unglamorous. Ughhh, how lonely.

I’ll miss lalalaing with crowds of people and dressing in my back-of-the-closet gems. I’ll think of you and our “next time” as I stare at white, empty pages and fill them with my guts.

Ps. My goal is to sell 1,000 copies of my book this year!!!! I’m a long ways away and could use your help. If you ever thought about reading this book, you can grab a copy here!!!

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My personal pick-me-ups:

• Book: Looking for my next read. Any ideas? Leave me a comment! I’d love to hear when you’re reading and loving. Here’s my book pick list of 2026 so far.

• Song: I picked this song to help you change your mood this AM.

• Shoes: These are a dupe of shoes I saw online for $1,300. I love these to pair with jeans instead of wearing clunky sneakers.

• Little Treat: Add one of these onto your phone! They are such a fun way to turn your boring old brick into something fun.

• Snack: I don’t leave the house without one of these in my bag.

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My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo! P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter. Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Hi, Friend. It’s Me, Jen Glantz.

I almost bought a book this week that was called something like: How to Be More Interesting at Parties.

I really needed to buy this book. I feel like such a lame-o at parties (or brunches or events) because I never have anything interesting to talk about (or remember to talk about).

Even though I know I’m going to get asked this question whenever I step foot outside of my lair and put on pants, I literally am so dumbfounded when someone asks me: So, what’s new with you?

The real answer I’d never say (part 1): I’m still working through my stomach issue journey and it’s been almost a year! Right now my favorite symptom is a pain near my rib that leads to a lot of burping. I swear sometimes you’d think my burps were acting like they were competing on America Idol the way they come out with such range, force, bravura.

The real answer I’d never say (part 2): Gemma and I are really into board games right now. We play Monopoly and Candy Land every day at around 1pm and you could say winning is mostly about luck but Gemma beats me almost every time which is wild. She’s three!

The real answer I’d never say (part 3): Oh, you want to know what’s new with work? What projects am I working on? Anything exciting? Do I have bigger dreams than just talking about the same old business I started in 2014? Well, I won’t talk about work because I’m a superstitious troll. I’d rather tell you the exact dollar amount in my 401(k). Ask me if I’m writing anything new and I will, instead, show you how fast I can run away from that convo.

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NONE of that is interesting. Stomach issue talk really kills the mood when it happens over a chocolate croissant. And there’s like some unofficial rule that you can’t talk about your child more than 1 time per 1 hour of convo (I don’t like this rule). And work stuff is soooo uninteresting. Truly, all I do is “try” and then wait and wait and wait. I’m for real waiting for a yes/no on something I’ve been working on since 2017….

I just NEED to be more interesting! I want to be more interesting! I really believe in the saying:

I will say that I’m interested maybe even a little too much that I can pull off having a 90-min convo with a person and not leave them with any opportunity to ask me one question in return :)

Feedback from new friends is always: I feel bad I talked about myself the whole time and asked you nothing. And my response is always: I did that on purpose LOL

Okay so back to the book. I wanted to buy it in the overpriced Brooklyn specialty gift store but it was 20-something dollars and Gemma really wanted this little Care Bear toy and a book about Passover?? even though that holiday has passed and I wasn’t looking to spend $40 on a Monday afternoon stroll. So I decided to just spend $4 on the Care Bear thing and before I put back the How to Be Interesting book back, I gave it a quick read:

It was JUST 150 pages of facts. Weird facts. Fun facts. Cool facts. Really niche facts.

How is this going to make me more interesting? An awkward person like me will use this the very wrong way and should not have something like this in her social toolbox.

Them: What’s new with you?

Me: Did you know that dolphins used to live on land??

*As if I needed more reasons to run away from the question: what’s new with you……*

I came home that day and made it my May mission to become more interesting. Not for other people, but for myself, because it’s always about you. When you’re doing more interesting things, you feel more confident. You feel happier. You feel like you’re actually living your life, not wasting it deep in Reddit threads about why Amanda Batula would blow up her life for a guy with really good hair.

So in order to become more interesting, the first thing I decided to do was write down all the things about me that are not interesting at all, the things that are capitalizing my time, dragging me down, and stopping me from doing the things that would actually make me interesting.

List of things holding me back from being an interesting person:

• My anxiety. Let’s not give her any screen time. She robs enough of my life. I know how to park her under a tree and say: stay here! But when she comes back to my front door, it’s very hard to focus on anything by my own delusions.

• I don’t have any hobbies? Unless you count obsessions as hobbies...

• Sweatpants. Sorry but I survived the 2025/2026 NYC winter and it was bad, babe. Like reallly bad. It’s May and there’s still a thick chill. I don’t wear real clothes. See picture for proof:

• I do the same stupid stuff every day. I’m a rebel without a purpose. Here’s an example that can be replicated in every other area of my life (work, etc.) I eat the same breakfast and lunch every day of my life. The same exact things. It’s not like my dinners are exotic. I just rotate three things for that meal.

• TikTok is making me dumb, dark, and dull. I’m addicted. It adds nothing to my life except gossip about people or conspiracy theories that nobody interesting has time to care about.

SO for the last week, I attempted to spice up my life by focusing on the things that make me less interesting and doing LESS of those things:

• I stopped going on TikTok! One whole week and my brain feels like it went on a $5,000 a night mental health retreat. I swear that app is ruining our lives. I also got 1+ hour of time back in my day that I used to think creative thoughts, clean the apartment, and get dopamine hits in real life ways. I swear I felt like my brain broke out of a cage.

• I decided to swap out two of my dinners this week for home cooked things. I used ChatGPT and gave it all my dietary restrictions and it came up with this quinoa dish and then a roasted veggie/bean quinoa dish another night. I’m eating less boring. I’m eating better. Find me at a party and I’ll talk your ear off for 3-5 mins about…quinoa!

• I got dressed? That is if you consider sweatpant jeans getting dressed. But I think they are a step up from actual sweats and they boosted my confidence.

• The hobby thing..i’m going to pick something to be obsessed with instead. I’ve always wanted to teach myself Chinese Medicine? So I learned one quick thing this week which is about your Qi… your body’s energy, and when it flows well you feel good but when it’s stuck or low, you feel tired and off. So the goal isn’t to push harder, it’s to keep your energy moving with small, simple habits each day, like taking a 10-minute walk, eating a warm meal instead of something cold, doing a quick stretch, or putting your phone down to avoid overstimulation.

If you’re with me still and I hope you are, you might be wondering okay cool Jen but how does any of this make you interesting? It doesn’t. Maybe it does?

But it makes me feeeeel more interesting and less like a sluggish slob. AND THAT IS PART ONE. Part one is ridding yourself of the stuff that has stained your soul. So when you walk in a room you’re not thinking about the things that are ruining your life because everyone has stuff that is ruining their life and sometimes it’s fun to talk about those things (note to self: read the crowd first) but what is even more interesting to talk about is how you are working on telling those things to GTFO out of your sweet little life. How you are working on making your life marvelous. Now, that…that my friend…is interesting.

Next week, I’ll be more interesting than I am right now.

I already feel like I am.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I’m so jealous of you // Bethenny Frankel promoted my book

My personal pick-me-ups:

• Book: This was a popular pick last year and I’m finally getting around to opening it and looooving it. The dialogue and humor keeps it a page turner. All of my 2026 book picks are here.

• Daily use: Started to clip this on for video calls or creating content and it really makes me look alive!

• Makeup: I keep this in my purse and start to reapply whenever my eyes look tired. It’s sooo easy and takes 3 seconds to use. ALSO this foundation brush has changed the way my makeup looks. I swear by this one!

• Snack: I sprinkle this onto my yogurt in the morning and grab a few throughout the day. The chocolate sea salt flavor is the best and always sold out at my grocery store.

• Tops: Grabbing a bunch of fresh white tees from here for spring and summer.

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My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter. Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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At the end of every month, I give myself a performance review.

I put on a blazer and take a glug of coffee and stare at the data of my life and pick it apart like I’m desperate to find ways to improve the bottom line.

The bottom line being...?? My own happiness? The point of my own life? How to not spend another freaking year going through the motions like I’m in a zombie costume I forgot to return to Spirit Halloween.

Here is how I do this monthly performance review.

I take inventory.

I go through my calendar from the month, photos, text messages, and my daily journal (I recap my day in a 1-2 sentences so I can remember how I’m feeling/what happened).

I make three lists.

List #1: The greatest parts of my month. This list is always so special because it reminds me that I actually livedddddddd even if there aren’t any NY Times articles covering my successes from April or medals around my neck.

I made this list this morning and it’s always soooo shocking. It’s an out of body experience. I’m like wait a freaking second? I did…this? I had so many beautiful moments this month that my single-focused-always-find-the-negative brain forgot about (Broadway show! QT with my best friend in DC! Facial acupuncture!)

This list is the most important one because it’s proof that you are caring about your own life and doing something with it even if those things seems so small, they add up at the end of the year and when you look back at them, you feel gigantic.

List #2: All the things I wish I did that I just...didn’t. This list should be shocking, but it’s not. It’s obvious. I can literally copy and paste it from the month before. This is the list that bothers me. Haunts me. Annoys me.

This morning it had me barking: Jennnn why can’t you just doooo these things?

And the answer is because i’m scared? I do too much busywork to avoid my own truths? I say yes to opportunities when I should say no and saying yes to everything leads you so far into the middle of nowhere which is where I am now and my own internal GPS is sooo mad at me for not listening when it tried to yell: Jen, stop! You’re going the wrong way! That now it is giving me the silent treatment and when it does decide to talk to me it says: You don’t deserve me anymore. Get yourself out of this mess without me. See if MapQuest is still around….

List #3: What I want out of my own May. Because if you do not know what you want out of a month, you will get a month. A month where things happen to you and not a month where you make things happen FOR YOU.

I think the worst advice anyone can give you is to just be chill.

(LOL LOL OL It’s probably the advice I need to follow…)

I think the best advice you can follow is to be so obsessed and addicted and goo-goo eyes crazy about your own life. Care about it because nobody else will care about it as much as you are allowed to. Keep track of how you are living and when you feel like it’s not right or enough or taking you in the wrong direction, go back to list #1, see how fun you can be. Go back to list #2, pick something to squeeze tight this month, There you go, that is your list three.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm),

Jen Glantz

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I popped into your inbox with three new issues this month:

• My favorite was about how I’m so freaking jealous of someone and how i’m coping then exploding then coping…

• People I loved once told me that I’m exhausting to be friends with and this is how it changed the way I view friendship.

• How I became an expert at celebrating my birthday, even though it’s been a doomed day from the start since I’m an April Fool.

💬 Things that stuck with me in April

• This quote from William Gibson: Time moves forward. Memories move the other way.

• A friendship reminder: You can be best friends with people whose lives look nothing like yours. Sometimes the very things you’re each focused on, the opposite pulls, are what make you so close. But for any friendship to work, there has to be mutual love and care. Always.

• A life lesson: If you’re waiting for someone else to end something in your life so you can finally move on, you’re living passively. Fiction books with passive protagonists frustrate people. Real people who live like that eventually realize they’re frustrated with themselves, too.

• A life tip: You need a bank of “no” lines ready to go. So when you want to say no, you have scripts to follow. I was asked to be on 10 different podcasts this month, and honestly, I don’t feel up for any of them right now. So I told the truth alongside my no: I’m tired of talking about myself right now, but I really appreciate you asking.

• Annoy yourself to get things done: If there’s something you know you need to do, but it’s awkward or uncomfortable or emotionally heavy, write it on sticky notes and put them in 10 to 20 places around your apartment. It’ll be annoying to see it everywhere, right? Good. The sooner you do the thing, the sooner your apartment stops haunting you with it. Brutal, I know. But we’re trying to change our freaking lives this month, aren’t we?

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💌 Most loved April picks

• Book: I had a slow reading month and only finished two books. But my pick of the month was Lena Dunham’s Famesick. It explores what happens when your wildest dream comes true and how it can actually make you so miserable and sick.

• Pants: They are so comfy and an extra 50% off. Polka dot is the print of the summer..said some blog..somewhere?

• Beauty: I used under eye patches for the first time last week!! I literally live like I’m prehistoric or something. They felt soo good and I saw a difference.

• Makeup: This arrived last Monday and I have used it 45 times. I love the color and the consistency.

My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

📉📈 How to make May freaking amazing

• Text a friend right now that you really want to spend time with and say: You’re on my mind! Let’s hang in May. What days are the best for you? You’ll start the month with their name on your calendar :)

• I just recorded 7 episodes of my podcast and two of the guests gave the same advice that if you want to connect with more people IRL, you don’t need a fancy first line. You just need to make eye contact and smile. How much your life could change in one month if you just did more of this.

• Spend the first 3 days of the month cleaning. Start with your bedroom. Your closet. Your living space. THEN your digital stuff…email, texts, who you follow on Instagram… THEN your mind. Pour out your own problem list. What is making you anxious? Release it from your brain before you start a new month.

• What is ONE way you can celebrate yourself this month? For no reason / for any reason. Think about it, plan it, book it on your calendar.

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April was my birthday month!! My theme was have a freaking ball, Jen and that I did. I saw a Broadway show (Death Becomes Her…it was amazing), went to the coolest magic show ever, got a head massage, facial acupuncture (my news skin obsession), went on a solo trip with Gemma to Florida, had two fun book tour stops, filmed 7 episodes of my podcast!!! and took a few SoulCycle classes for the first time in a while which like dance classes that I could sit down for?? They were great. Yeah I turned a year older (blah blah) but all this stuff made me feel young and alive and just joyful?

I planned all this stuff for myself, for my own life. Nobody put any of this on my calendar and said: See you then.

Do more for yourself when you can. Celebrate yourself for absolutely no damn reason OR for any damn reason this month.

I adore you, my friend.

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And then it reminded me of this…

You are exhausting to be friends with. THIS is a really insane thing to hear from a group of friends you thought loved you because you certainly loved them.

But a chunk of years ago, those were the exact words I saw pop up in a group chat when I asked why the air between us felt like smog. Even when I craned my neck through it, there was nothing I could do to reach them.

It didn’t take a PhD in friendship to see the obvious.

I was being left out.

I would have bet my entire 401(k) on them having a different group chat without me in it just to talk about me. A breach of group friendship see rule #57. My FaceTime calls were declined. When I would reach out and say can we make plans??, their responses came back in emojis, not words.

AND THEN I SAW: They took a girls trip to a sunny city five states away.

I found out the way everyone finds out they have been replaced….through social media photos. Them drinking chai lattes. Them getting matching permanent friendship bracelets at a local gift shop.

AND THAT’S WHEN I had no choice but to swim through the smog and calmly, but directly say: Is there a reason I am being pushed out from the group?

What why would you say that? There is always one person who tries to keep the friendship group together even while quietly holding the jackhammer.

So I asked again. More blunt this time. Your trip looked really great. Was there a reason I was not invited?

There were four girls in the group. I was the fifth. We used to go everywhere together. Reservation for five, DUH! All four of them went. I was the only one NOT invited.

Jen, tbh, you are exhausting to be friends with.

WHAT THE ACTUAL….My whole personality was built around trying not to exhaust people.

I am literally the friend who when asked how she is doing will say great even when she just lost her job or spent the entire night awake thinking about her own future death.

I do not tell my friends my drama unless they ask three times, hop up and down, knock, skip, hop, jump, all in that order.

I have always tried to be not the burden. Just the listener. The one who overextends. The one who says call me if you need anything and when the call comes through I stay on the line as long as it takes.

I have never in my life picked up the phone on my saddest day to offload it onto any of my friends. I let it run wild inside me, like a pinball, bouncing from my heart to my small intestine, back up to my esophagus, until it eventually floated all the way down and out through my butt.

So how could I be exhausting? Hard to break through, yes. Busy, yes. Focused on my work, yes. But exhausting? Wrong word for the wrong girl.

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It’s important to note that four out of the five girls were married, working 9 to 5 jobs, taking two to three vacations a year.

I had just been laid off. I was self employed, building Bridesmaid for Hire, promoting a book I wrote that Simon and Schuster bought for a lot of money and expected a lot from, running a podcast and a newsletter, and in the middle of year one of not having a home and instead living in new cities every month with my newish boyfriend now husband Adam.

Even so, I believed friendship could survive difference. That it does not require identical lives, just mutual curiosity. My closest friends now live completely different lives than I do, in different states, some without kids, others with a handful. And yet we are madly in love with each other. We can talk for hours even though on paper, we are mismatched magazine scraps.

Sure, I asked this friend group to come to book events. To buy my book ($20!!). To share my business. And I am sure I asked for ten other things too.

BUT I showed up for them. I went to their weddings and alll the wedding events. Bought gifts for their babies. Checked in. Asked how they were. What else could I have done?

I have thought about their words for years.

Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere when I am walking past blooming pink flowers in the park I think about Lyla. When I catch a certain smell I remember Teresa. A cinnamon bun makes me think of Grace. Any shade of pink lipstick pulls me back to Reese’s collection.

I was exhausting to be friends with because I had a lot going on. Because I asked for their support?

I was not a good friend because I did not support them enough? Even though I swear I did in the big moments.

Somewhere inside their words is truth. And somewhere inside mine is clarity.

The only lesson I can take from the pain is that it’s really tough to support someone who is going through something you never have.

You don’t know what they need. You don’t understand how much (or little) they want you to dig your claws into their pain or joy. You don’t know the right thing to say and even if ChatGPT suggests the most appropriate gift, it can feel wrong if it’s just not the right time.

You can just try. But there are rules for trying.

• Don’t try once. When you’re showing up for a person, it’s not just texting them on the good/bad day and crossing it off your to-do list. It’s reaching out to them days often to remind them you are, especially when most people have probably forgotten/moved on from them.

• I try to remember that rather than trying to see the most perfect thing to a person going through something good/bad that I have never been through, it’s more important to just say something. I will not ask ChatGPT what to say (bc friendship shouldn’t sound robotic) and instead just write from my gut. I don’t care if it’s long and rambling as long as it’s genuine.

• You don’t keep score. If you believe the people who love you are doing their best, then you do your best. If they haven’t supported you in the ways you needed them to, remember they can’t read your mind. If they need your support, give it to them the best you can, without diluting it with water so it matches, exactly, how they showed up for you. I have learned to be a much better friend from watching how my friends treat me.

And you know what? Being a good friend is exhausting. Supporting other people is exhausting. Showing up for them when it’s more than just omg want to get brunch next week? isn’t always sooooo much fun.

But everything in life is exhausting (this is coming from a toddler mom who is also iron deficient lol lol). No for real, everything that’s worth it is freaking exhausting.

But we have to keep going.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I’m so jealous of you // Bethenny Frankel promoted my book?

My personal pick-me-ups:

• Book: Reading Lena Dunham’s story of how the exact thing she wanted completely exhausted her (fame). All my 2026 books can be found right here.

• Song: Watching all the Coachella performances here and pretending like I went this year.

• Outfit: Living in these pants right now. They are lightweight and super easy to pair with a simple white/black tee.

• Shoes: Love a platform sandal in the summer.

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My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

You can follow daily adventures here and buy my book here And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Dear Zoe,

I’m writing you this email because I’m jealous of you. I know that probably goes against all social etiquette. I know a normal person who can control their rage would brush these green-with-envy crumbs to the side and open up a blank email and instead write: OMG, I came across your blog the other day and GIRL!!! I am so proud of you. It’s really good and you’re doing so well with all the likes and comments you’re getting. You are goals! Anyway, keep crushing it and know that I’m cheering you on.

But it’s 2026. I’m almost in my 40s, and you know what they say about women who emerge in their 40s? It’s called the IDGAF era, because how can they when they are (peri) menopausing? I imagine when you start sweating yourself silly in public places and waking up with terrors at 3am and growing hairs in places you didn’t know had enough soil to sprout gardens, you suddenly don’t care as much about people pleasing (a perk??) or writing emails you don’t really mean to people you’re side-eyeing.

Ok so back to why I am emailing you. Because you have kept me up at night with the kind of heart rattles and racing thoughts that absolutely no amount of melatonin or sheep counting or meditation apps can fix. When you can’t stop thinking about someone at 1:30am, you also can’t stop thinking about them at 2:30am, and then by 3:30am you are wondering if you should self-abandon and become them!

Let me make this clear, I am not obsessed with you. I am jealous of you. I’m not even jealous of everything about you because that would mean I like nothing about myself. I like myself (can’t you tell lol lol lol??).

No but I do. I like my conviction and my determination and how when I get in the mood I can deep spring clean a 900-square-foot apartment in two hours. I like how my brain works even though multiple medical professionals have suggested that maaaybe I start micro-dosing Zoloft, and I like how I put myself together even though the mirror sometimes tries to scream at me that polka dot jeans and a leopard top clash clash clash.

So what am I jealous of then? Don’t worry, I came prepared, because when I was sitting down with my absolutely lovely family eating my gluten free vegan pizza, because at the age of 37 I became lactose freaking intolerant and gluten intolerant (are you jealous of me??), I thought about you and your blog and how I should NEVER have decided to think about you in the first place.

Because days before, I remembered you even though I had silenced you on social media and decided to look at your Instagram and click a link to your Substack and see that the little food blog you started a few months ago has become a sens-freaking-sation. Your most recent post got 330 people tapping the heart button. 330!! I’m lucky if I get 3, but this isn’t about me, this is about you.

I never should have thought of you, but I did because one of our high school friends who I haven’t thought about or seen in years DMed me to say hello and asked if you and I kept in touch, and I simply said not anymore without telling her that years ago I decided I couldn’t have a parasocial relationship with you, so I silenced your Instagram. I blocked you without making it obvious I blocked you.

You never wanted to be a writer. I remember you saying there was a list of things you never wanted to be when you grew up: anything medical, anything to have to do with direct sales, and writing. You hated writing. You were the one who paid that guy Jon in AP English to write your final exam. For $50 you got an A and passed honors English and said that if you can swing it, you will never write a damn thing ever again. Hold on. Let me find my Razr phone. I have receipts of you saying this!

I was the writer! I was always the writer! I was always the one who said she wanted to be famous one day for… guess what… writing. And you said yay and I said okay great. It’s hard to be good friends with someone when you both want the same thing, when you’re competing for the same exact goal.

So what changed? Any mental health professional or person removed from this situation would say there’s enough room in the world for everyone to have a blog, and I would say yes, I agree. I advocate for people to tell their stories. But youuuuuuuuuu? I’m glad you are (not a lie). I’m just jealous that you didn’t want any of this, and now you have it, and you’re doing better than me.

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There you go!

Reason number one on the list of reasons why I am jealous of you: your Substack is doing better than mine.

Reason two: it happened overnight.

Do you know how long I’ve been writing one of these? For over a decade. Back when I was just starting, begging for followers, you were starting your career as a project manager at a place that rhymes with Help. And now you started a blog and boom! You’re getting hundreds of followers a day, and I’m standing on some street corner with a cardboard sign that says: please Like. Subscribe to my writing.

I don’t know what to do about this jealousy. It’s slimy and I feel it percolating like a lava lamp inside my gut. I’m parenting myself like a toddler and saying that if I don’t click on your blog for a week, I get a reward. I’m booking myself an acupuncture session to try to poke needles into this rage. I’m going to yoga every single day at noon, hot yoga (ups the ante), to sweat out all of this tension.

But none of it will work, and so I’m taking the jealous feelings I have for you and turning them into action items with KPIs. I haven’t worked a real job in ten years, but I am circling back!

What do you have that I don’t?

Luck. You have luck. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that so much of this is luck! How do I get luck? Who will sell this to me?!

You have a focus, a niche, a swim lane. You write about one thing, and it makes it easy for people to understand what they get when they come to your blog. I write about… everything? Anything? My deepest, darkest feelings? Should I pick one thing and only talk about that forever? Should I become the gluten free vegan pizza girl? The anxious mom girl? The I wake up at 3am and question every life choice girl? Because I can do that. I can niche down so hard I disappear. I can sand off all my weird edges and package myself into something clean and clickable and easy to understand. Maybe I could think of a focus if I stopped thinking of you….

But here’s the problem. I don’t want to. I want to be messy and honest and write the things that don’t fit neatly into a category. I want someone to land here and feel like they stumbled into a brain, not a brand. Which is beautiful in theory and terrible for growth, which brings me back to you, thriving, focused, beloved, beautiful. I really like what you did with your hair. The layers and swoop bangs are working for you! Did you add a tint of read? You’re glowing.

Jealously is bad I know. It’s destructive, and a waste of time, and according to Google, Chronic jealousy can even be linked to physical health issues like cardiovascular problems.

Ah, my heart! My precious heart! I need to go touch grass, journal, stick my face in a bowl of ice water (free mood regulator!), and wait 3-5 business days for this feeling to wear off and when it does, I’ll like one of your posts. I’ll comment and say: You rock!

Because you do. I can be deeply, irrationally jealous of you up to the wazoo and still admit that.

Shall we all keep going forward without wandering eyes making us wacky over how much someone else is winning.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I can’t make a decision for the life of me // Bethenny Frankel promoted my book?

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

My personal pick-me-ups:

• Book: Picked this book at the airport and racing through it. I like it a lot so far. All my 2026 books can be found right here.

• Workout: The quick arm workout I did 3x last week.

• Outfit: The outfit for summer might just be these shorts and an oversized long top.

• Snack: Keep these in bag for when my tummy starts to growl

• Shoes: How fun are these for the summer/pool season? Can you tell I’m craving warm weather because it’s still freeezing in NYC.

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My swear-buys: Deodorant // Shampoo + Conditioner // Bala Bangles // Sweatpant Jeans

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

You can follow daily adventures here and buy my book here And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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My birthday was last Wednesday, which was also April Fools’ Day. And like every single year of my life, it means that when I tell someone it’s my birthday, I also have to say:

Yes, it really is my birthday.
No, I’m not joking.
If you’re trying to prank me, please just don’t.

Having your birthday fall on a prank holiday isn’t for the weak-hearted or ultra-sensitive and unfortunately, I, Jennifer Sara Glantz, am both. BOTH.

So when it comes to my birthday, I walk into it already wrapped in a callous. I’ve been tricked. I’ve been humbled. I’ve been punched by the punchlines of everyone else’s jokes.

On my 9th birthday, someone swapped the candles on my Carvel birthday cake with trick candles. After I made my wish, I blew, blew, BLEW those flames out until my face turned red and hot and desperate.

And they just…kept coming back.

Instead of everyone chanting are you one? are you two? are you three?

They laughed and then screamed: APRIL FOOLS!

I cried.

Thank goodness there wasn’t social media back then or this would’ve gone viral. Instead, it lives in a stack of glossy photos developed at Eckerd’s, printed in doubles, shoved in a plastic container that probably has mold growing inside it somewhere in my parents’ house. And honestly, may it stay there forever.

Then came middle school.

A boy who made my heart bounce like a runaway tennis ball walked up to me and said:

Hey Jen… I’ve been noticing you for a while and I wanted to tell you that I like you.

My body started melting inside itself. This is it, I thought. The stories you’ve been writing in your diary are FINALLY happening. Maybe today, on your birthday, your pus-exploding pimples and rubber-banded, brace-filled teeth are suddenly invisible to the world!

But before I could even breathe, let alone respond, his friends ran up behind him screaming: APRIL FOOLS!

Ha. Ha. HAAAAA. Ha. HAAAAAAAAAAAA.

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If you’re born on April Fool’s Day, people should honestly just donate directly to your therapy fund. It’s just…easier?

But all of that was nothing because one of the worst, like, very very very worst, days of my life also happened on my birthday a couple of years ago.

You don’t get to choose when the worst days of your life show up. They just arrive. And 99% of the time, they don’t arrive on your birthday. But it did for me.

And it was awful. And traumatic. And almost funny in that cosmic, twisted way of you’re telling me out of ALL 365… it’s happening TODAY? TO-FREAKING-DAY??

After I came out the other side of that, it felt impossible for a birthday to ever fully ruin me again.

I no longer cared that I was an April Fool. I loved being a joke!

I no longer minded that on a day when my heart rate levels should be steady, it’s best to let a little anxiety keep me paranoid about a prank that could sneak up behind me and cover me in bird feathers or glitter.

I would do whatever I COULD to make it a special day. To make it my own.

Everyone who has ever had a birthday (hello, that’s you!!!) has wanted to feel loved on that day. Seen. Chosen. Floated through it feeling like it’s anything but just another freaking Wednesday.

So after I recovered from that birthday in 2019 (and the birthday after, which was COVID and I couldn’t leave the house), I decided to have rules for my birthday. Actual rules. They live in a book on my mind-shelf, and the title says: Jen’s Birthday Rules.

And rule number one is that I tell everyone I meet or see that it is my birthday. Literally everyone.

The bathroom attendant at the Broadway show I went to, who just listened to things fall out of my body and into a porcelain toilet bowl, made eye contact with me as I was towel-drying my hands. I flexed my shoulders, trashed the towel, and said, that was a birthday pee!

Because if we want to feel special and loved on our birthday, we have to remind people that it is our birthday. They don’t always know. Sometimes they forget. And we waste so much of the day wanting and waiting that, by 3pm, that turns into resentment and disgust, by 6pm, it turns into why does nobody care? and by 9pm, you’re spiraling in your pajamas wondering why the day felt so…flat.

Here’s what else I do:

I pick 2–3 things that I enjoy doing/never get to do anymore/

• If you want a day to feel special, then it simply can’t repeat like every other day. I pre-plan a few birthday activities that I do solo because I like the time alone and also because I want to make sure these activities happen and don’t want to worry about whether other people can go or if they will have fun.

• This year, I did a face-lift facial (I haven’t even had a regular facial in 4 years) and took myself to a matinee Broadway show.

Don’t wait for other people to make your day special.

• No no no. Other people are unpredictable. Other people can’t ruin your mind. If people want to celebrate you, say yes, and tell them that they can from 5–9pm. But the rest of the day, if possible, should be in your control so that if nobody celebrates you (work, life, etc. happens), you are not disappointed. You are having a ball all because you planned your day to be like that.

Slap yourself when you start to focus on the people who didn’t call you on your birthday or get you a gift.

• No no no, my love bug. We are not doing this. We are not making our day centered around what didn’t happen or who forgot to care. When this starts to creep into your brain, you take your right hand and you give your left hand a little tap tap to remind yourself to stopppppppp.

Save up and buy yourself the gift you actually want.

• Some people like birthday gift surprises, but I am not one of those people. My mind is a 1,000-piece puzzle that’s scrambled up and probably missing pieces. Nobody can read my mind and know what I want for my birthday gift, and sometimes I don’t even know. I build in 1–2 hours on my birthday to go shopping, and with some money I’ve saved, I like to buy one thing. This year, I bought these pair of jeans.

When people ask you what you want for your birthday, actually tell them.

• See above. Say: I want us to go to lunch. I want you to not send me anything, but instead do an hour FaceTime catch-up call. It’s so hard to say what we want, but if we actually want something from someone, our birthday is the best time to make this happen.

I had a really good birthday this year. Of course there were mini moments that could have derailed the day, made it extra stressful. I almost left the Broadway show before it started to deal with a little thingy thing but I said nope, no. My world isn’t falling apart and everything will be okay if I stay. So I did. I’m grateful that I did.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I can’t make a decision for the life of me // Bethenny Frankel promoted my book?

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

My personal pick-me-ups:

1. This is the first book I’m reading in April and here’s a recap of my March reads. All my 2026 books can be found right here.

2. Everyone on TikTok raves about these free at-home pilate workouts. I’m on day 4 of the 25 day challenge and my body shakes just thinking about pressing play. Great if you want a tough quick workout with minimal equipment.

3. If you need simple weights for workouts, these are the best.

4. These pants are my new favorite pants to wear. I will wear them every day until they fall apart.

5. I really love this song and I apologize if I already shared this one with you!

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

You can follow daily adventures here and buy my book here And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Don’t yell at me, okay? But I just have to tell you this because it’s been bugging me. We’ve just lived out 1/4 of our 2026. 90 days. Poof. Gone. Over. Done.

If you’re thinking STFU, Jen. There’s still a ton of days left ahead. I adore you. I need to get coffee with you. I need you for emotional support. If you’re reading this and screaming expletives at yourself for spending far too much time being obsessed with the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives drama or arguing with trolls on X that you really didn’t live your freaking life in those 90-days, hi, I see you, I am you, let’s hold hands.

The good news is….April is almost here and it’s spring and spring = new = sun (please!!) = a second chance = come on let’s get moving grooving.

IDK about you but after a very long cold crusty winter where I didn’t leave my house for days, I’m shaving my legs, putting on a mini skirt, and reinventing myself (for the 140th time) this season. Or at least I’m in the mood to do all of this.

Goodbye, March, and February, and January. Give me the spring flings and cleans and awakenings :)

I popped into your inbox with four new issues this month:

• The most unromantic thing we did for our 10-year-anniversary was sign our will and estate plan. But we had a good reason on why we did it on that special day.

• I can’t make a decision for the life of me and so I found that it’s impossible to know if you’ll regret what you decide until you make that decision, le sigh.

• You’re never going to believe this but Bethenny Frankel promoted my book on her social media after finding a video I posted whining about nobody coming to my book event.

• After nobody came to my book event in Rhode Island, I was scared to do another one in New Jersey the next week. But I was shocked about what happened.

Holding your hand as we shuffle into April with this stuff…

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💬 Things that stuck with me in March

• Your life is your responsibility. AND I am someone who lives in hopes that someone else will take care of me, fight my battles, knock on my door with huge opportunities. This is a very bad flaw. This is how you waste your life. This is how you walk around slathered in anger.

• If you can’t decide whether or not you want to do something, it honestly means you don’t want to do that something, you’re just not ready to admit that yet.

• The most interesting people I know are the ones who are curious about every.single.thing. They read a ton of different books and understand both sides of an argument, and try different hobbies with no other intention but to have endless lived experiences.

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💌 Most loved March picks

• Book you can’t drop: Whidbey. There are a lot of trigger warnings to know before starting this book, but if you’re comfortable with the content, it’s a tense and thrilling. The writing is stunning.

• Jeans that go with everything: I’m thrilled to say goodbye to my sweatpants and leggings for spring/summer looks. I invested in these jeans because they are a statement and can be paired well with any color cotton t-shirt.

• High-protein snacks: I’m addicted to snacking on potato chips and have swapped some of those cravings for snacks with more nutritional value, like these edamame beans and chickpea snacks.

• Something simple making me happy: I attached this to my phone and I swear I walk around a different person these days. It’s just a fun accessory that makes me feel giddy.

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📉📈 How to make April freaking amazing

• The best way to start a month? Pick a goal you can actually finish in 30 days. One thing. Just one, okay? BUT once you have that ONE THING… you need a plan.

  What are you going to do week one, two, three, four? Little wins each week… and by the end of the month you’re like wait… I actually did the thing???

• Spring clean your entire life. Okay, that’s overwhelming. Start with your room. Wash your sheets. Take everything out of your dresser. Toss the shirts with stains. Organize whatever is acutally in your nightstand. Walk around with a big garbage bag and add things in it that you can donate it.

• List your winter gear on Poshmark. It’s making me happy to see a lot of this stuff go after a very cold and long winter. Last week I made $75 selling two items.

• Read and process your birth chart. You can use a free program like this and plug your results into ChatGPT. I just did Gemma’s and it is spot on. It also predicted possible careers she could have (top pick: entrepreneur!!).

  

🎯 What I did vs. didn’t do in March

• Goals I failed at in March

  • Cooking two new recipes. I had this grand idea of trying out new recipes every month so I’d have 12–24 go-to options by the end of the year. TBH, cooking and meal planning are truly one of my life’s biggest pain points. I have a million recipes saved in a spreadsheet, but I have yet to actually make one of them…

  • A friend date. I wanted to do 1 per month, and I’ve only done this once (in January).

  • Getting back on the writing track. I have failed at this since January freaking first.

• Goals I did in March

  • Working out. I’ve been doing only home workouts for a year, since my really bad vertigo episode last January, and I’ve been scared to really push my body or try a group fitness class. I finally faced my fear this month and did hot yoga sculpt. I swear, in the first minute of the class, my body cracked.

  • Canceled a credit card I opened last year and never use. I don’t like to have a lot of credit cards open.

  • Paid $800 for a professional to help with a mystery project of mine. One of my biggest flaws is hiring the right people, so it took me a while to find the right person. I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t mess this up.

March is my favorite month of the year. It’s my anniversary with Adam, Gemma’s birthday, and Goofy’s gotcha day. This March, I let go of A LOT of anxiety and said yes to a family trip to our favorite place in California. AND we finally signed our estate plan and will (sounds dreary but it’s been lingering on our to-do list). Gemma had her 3rd birthday at American Girl Doll store (but she doesn’t really even like the dolls lol) and Adam and I relived our first and second date. After a lo0o0ong winter, this month started to make me feel hopeful again, in motion finally, and desperately keeping my eyes open for what’s next for me this year…

My birthday is on Wednesday (I’m an April Fool). Some really, really, really insane things have happened to me on my birthday SO in recent years, I’ve turned that day into Jen Day where I pick 3-5 special and random things to do solo. I’m excited to share how the day went in next week’s blog. Stay tuned and know this:

I adore you, my friend.

Take care of yourself this week

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On Thursday, Adam and I celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our first date at the tiny, sunken-in coffee shop on Irving Place in Manhattan where we met. We also got married there five years ago on that same date. AND then, three years ago, on that date, after grabbing our anniversary coffees there, I went into labor with Gemma.

It’s a crazy, lucky, larger-than-life date that has somehow fallen short in the years in between, because how the heck do you celebrate an anniversary when the most humongous things have already happened on that date?

Last year was a total bust.

I dragged the whole family there and thought the magic would find us. Someone would certainly tap me on the shoulder and say: missy, you’ve just won an all-expense-paid cruise to Bermuda!! And I’d jump with joy and just assume it was from one of the links I clicked in my email when I shouldn’t have been curing my loneliness by hunting for joy in my spam folder.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, a 20-minute drive took us an hour because of traffic, and then there was no parking, so we spent another hour circling the block. And when we finally parked, Adam was annoyed, Gemma was rightfully SO over this, and Goofy the dog just wanted out of the freaking car.

It will all be okay, I said. The magic happens IN THAT PLACE, not on the curb.

Our only anniversary tradition is that we order the same drinks we had on our first date, and when the barista asked us to pay $17, I reached for the credit card and squealed: we met here and got married here and I went into labor here all on this date (years apart)… and he said, can you tap the card again?, as if I just opened my mouth and silence fell out.

Okay, so this year, on our 10th anniversary of meeting, the 5th anniversary of our wedding, and the 3rd anniversary of going into labor, I said: we are not going to try to make magic happen.

We are not going to just waddle into the coffee shop and expect something humongous to find us. We’re not going to buy a zillion scratch-offs thinking we’ll become millionaires. We’re not going to let the pressure of this day become the entire day.

We are going to do something very, very, very different.

We decided to finally finish something that’s been lingering on our “we have to do this but likely never will because it all-around sucks to do” to-do list.

We signed and notarized our estate plan and will…

Bet you didn’t see that coming. Or I’ve become so obnoxiously predictable that you’re eye-rolling reading this, saying: of course you celebrated your favorite day of the year doing something dreary and sad.

When our estate lawyer told us the docs would be ready on March 19th for us to come sign, Adam typed out this whole email about how that’s our special day and how we could do literally any other day of the year. I told him to erase it.

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Well, I said, thinking about everything inside those 138 pages of documents, like who will be Gemma’s guardian, what age she gets all our “stuff”, who controls everything until she’s 18, whether I want to be resuscitated or be an organ donor, what happens to my business and book IP, and… yeah, that kind of stuff…..this will be memorable in a very different way?

I know it sounds bizarre, but this is something we’ve been putting off since Gemma was born. And while we could have told the lawyer not that day, it kind of felt like the perfect day to finalize what we want to happen if/when the worst happens.

I’d be lying big time if I didn’t also mention that we sandwiched that very blah thing in the middle of a day that started with us going back to that coffee shop and trying to relive our first date and arguing about what questions we asked each other.

You asked me about my five-year plan, Adam swore.

I would never! I probably did.

At night, we relived our second date, which was at a tiny pizza/pasta shop in the East Village. And after I said, okay, we’ve spent time talking about our past and planning for our future (ughhh), let’s hear about what’s going to happen to us now…

We went to a tarot card reader who told me that my entire life is going to change and I am going to be unrecognizable and that this type of change only happens once every 240 years in a person’s life. Yes!! Go onnnn this is the kind of energy i need today I begged him. And when we got back on the subway to go home, I laughed and thought that even though we didn’t try to make this day anything more than it could be, it turned out to be outrageous and special.

And also… ahhh, what are we supposed to do next year to top it?

That’s the kind of person I am. Thinking about how I’ll find happiness on a single day that’s not happening for another 365 days.

Ugh. The drama I create in my own little life.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I can’t make a decision for the life of me // Bethenny Frankel promoted my book?

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

My personal pick-me-ups:

1. Listening to this audiobook. I didn’t know anything about the author’s life before pressing play. It’s a very wild and dark story but I am sooo hooked. Here are all the books I’ve read so far in 2026.

2. Loving this makeup brand. Just stocked their Hydro Grip Skin Tint (it’s soooo good and lightweight), the Lip + Check Stick, and the Cooling Water Jelly Shimmer (it’s too much fun to add a pop of glitter on my face).

3. I went to a tarot carder reader who told me I’m going to learn a new skill and then THAT NIGHT I had a dream that I was DJing at a club with Paris Hilton. Is this a sign? Here’s the kind of music I’d play.

4. I wear a similar turquoise necklace to this one a lot and really love how it turns a boring simple t-shirt into something with a pop of color.

5. Celebrated 10 years of dating/5 years of marriage/3 years since going into labor with Gemma — all on the same day — March 19th. See/read the wild story here.

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

Leave a comment

I’ve been stressed to the max lately trying to make some life decisions. If someone were grading my decision making skills right now, they’d probably give me an F-. I wrote this while on a train to Philadelphia for another book tour (we are not talking about my book events anymore!!!) right after finishing a very intense pro con list to help me decide something with a looming deadline. It’s exactly how I went about making that decision…

Make a pro con list. By the end of it, you will have lots of words on your paper and you will realize that you made very valid points for both why you should or should not do something. Be proud of yourself for making that silly little list. It could win you a Pulitzer Prize in how not to make a decision. It tells you absolutely nothing about what you should do. It shows you how little control you have over what you want in life that you’re willing to let a piece of paper determine where you’re going to live, and what career goal to set, or whether or not you want to have kids.

The last time I tried one of these lists is when I met Goofy (the dog). I ran home and took out a mini whiteboard we had and labeled it: should we take her home? The only thing on the pro list was that I loved her and believed she was my soul mate from the 2 and 1/2 minutes we spent together. Everything on the con list was valid, endearing, factual, and responsible, like I traveled once a week for work and the other days often didn’t get back home until 10pm and I’m soooo selfish and I can hardly take care of myself and this is a bad idea and I know it in my core. Three and a half days later, Goofy (the dog) came home. Imagine if I let that list rule me? If I had shown it to some stranger on the street and said help me decide!! they would have said 100% do not get the dog. I’m a stubborn, foolish, wild girl. I always just do what I want.

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Okay! So do what you want. But what if you do what you want and it’s not the right thing? One of the first lessons you try to teach a little tiny human is that their actions have consequences. You can’t just let them. You have to let them know that if they eat an entire bakery of cakes or scooter on the ice or stay up all night watching Frozen 1, 2, and 3, they will not feel great for a good amount of time. And then one day, when we turn 18, we really don’t have to listen legally to that person telling us that our decision might not be the best decision anymore. We don’t have to run things by them and hear the consequences that they have already vetted for us. We can just do what we want. And we get away with that for a long time until we crash again in our 30’s and realize that yeah, not only can we think we’re making a good decision, but we can make one that hurts our family forever.

Flip a coin. Flip a table. Flip the bird. Flip yourself over until the blood drains to your face.

People will tell you if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. But those people do not have the indecisiveness gene in their DNA. They are able to say crazy, unthinkable things like: I want to go to Hama Sushi tonight. Instead of: ahh I don’t know I’m scared if I pick one place over the other it will be a total disaster. Nobody ever has an answer for you if it feels like a hell yes!!!! and….a hell no.

Sleep on it. Put your head on the pillow. Tell yourself that this is tomorrow’s problem. Not tonight’s. Curl up like you’re trying to fit your body in the overhead compartment of an airplane. Close your eyes and dream about what it would have been like to be Carolyn Bessette and then have that dream interrupted because you find yourself like a Sims character waddling around the kitchen, with the cupboards open, and a cold cup of tea on the counter, staring into the frying pan, screaming: why can’t I decide!

Decide. Then take it back! Decide. See how it feels. Take it back.

Trust your gut! Unless your gut, like my gut, has retired. There’s no set age for a gut to retire. They don’t have to wait until 62 to clock out, put on the Hawaiian shirt, throw themselves a going away party with all their other coworkers, the heart, the bowels, the lungs, who don’t get to retire so easily, and book a cruise to Alaska. When I ask my gut for help it says la la la I can’t hear you la la la you never listen to me anyway la la la you don’t pay me enough for this job la la la I’m retired remember?

Let someone else pick for you. This. screams. danger. And you are in the market for a little danger! A little mess up my life for me, sweet stranger! A little come on, choose my adventure. But then your mind travels back to the time at the nail salon where you said to the nail technician, pick a color for me and she picked one that was identical to poopy brown and you lied and said: ahh that color! I got one similar to that last month. What else would you pick? And four shades later you realized that you can’t let other people live your life for you. It’s just not the point. You’ll end up a plaid-wearing robot who laughs at things you find boring and who feels trapped in your own body and you love strangers but their advice and decisions only make sense when it’s for their version of life. Your version will never make sense to anyone else so only ask them when you want to be reminded for a quick second just how wrong they are about everything. Pooopy brown???

Ask ChatGPT. Realize it takes a similar approach to that therapist you once paid $275 an hour for. It won’t tell you what to do. It will tell you more about each potential route and then ask you a zillion follow-up questions. Get annoyed. Flat out say:

The therapist will huff and say: That’s not what I’m here for. ChatGPT, in more words, will tell you the same.

Realize you can indeed pay a tarot card reader or a psychic to tell you what to do. That’s literally the point of going to one. Search through your spam folder and find one in Brooklyn who offers Zoom sessions. Press the OMG BOOK RIGHT NOW link in the email. See that it will cost you $300. Think about paying it. Think about how bad it will feel to pay that much money. Spend 17 minutes debating whether or not you should pay that much money for someone to tell you what to do when there’s a very small chance you will listen to them. Realize duhhhh you can’t decide this either.

Get so tired of your own BS that you just say: OKAY, FINE. I DECIDE THIS. There’s a chance you’re making the very wrong decision. But there’s also a chance you’re making the right one. You won’t ever know for a very long time. And even if your gut has quit working for you from 9–5, it might start to guilt you with little nudges that kick the emotion up from your stomach and float it through your esophagus. If it feels like acid reflux you know that maybe the decision isn’t settling so well for now. And if it feels like butterflies, then maybe it is what you wanted all long. But you won’t know, my love, until you just decide.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. This is such a good pump up Monday morning song.

2. Bought this to jazz up my boring old phone.

3. Picked this book randomly at the airport when I was in a rush to board my flight. It was a lovely read. Made me think about how much friendships change over the years. Am missing these characters now that the book is over. All of my 2026 reads are right here.

4. Wore this t-shirt 5 days straight.

5. Last week, we took a family vacation to Los Angeles! Photos from the trip are here. I’m honestly itching to move back there. IDK if it’s because NYC winter did me in or if I just need a new home for a little.

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Okay, you’re never going to believe what i’m about to tell you and before I tell you…. for the sake of you sticking around and hanging out with me every Monday morning, I must first pinky-promise you that this is the last time I’m going to talk about how nobody came to my book event.

But, as you already knooooooow, say it with me! Nobody came to my book event!

When Adam came to pick me up from the event, he didn’t make a big deal about the naked room. He said things a person who loves you should say when they step into your shame, unafraid that it’ll be contagious.

It looks nice! He said. What looks nice? I wanted to ask. The glistening HVAC system hanging from the wall? The view of uneven trees towering over a parking lot? The poppy-seed stained looking carpet?

I just want to go, I whispered to him and he gave me the I will ask no more questions, I wall say no more things nod.

A few days later, I was looking at my camera roll, trying to find this photo I took of a gigantic Minnie Mouse stuffed animal I saw at TJ Maxx (to show Gemma) when I found this video:

@bridesmaidforhireI'm not sure why I'm sharing this except that being an author is so lonely and the process is hush hush. I want to be transparent. Sometimes nobody buys your book or shows up to your book event and it's happened to me in the past and it just happened to me last week again #booktour #romcombooks #finallythebride

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When I was waiting for the event to start, I felt so crummy and dummy that I just turned on my camera and recorded how I felt. I don’t know why except that I wanted to use this moment as self-destructing collateral.

I decided to just post that video on my TikTok account because why not? I’m very much in a IDGAF era of my life. My boundaries are blurred. My embarrassment tolerance is sky high. My desire to lie about anything has evaporated.

It took me three days to remember I posted the video. I opened TikTok pretty sure that I’d find that nobody watched the video and then I’d delete it. Poof! Like I’ve done for soooo many other ones before.

And then I saw this:

I was alone in my office when I saw this and leaned so far back to gasp and clutch my chest that I almost fell backward on the chair.

You’ve got to be kidddding me I screamed. I reached for my phone to call Adam, but never pressed the right buttons. I just watched the video again, looked her comment again, looked at her comment again, looked at the video…….

SEND HER THE BOOK? How? It’s not like celeb’s list their addresses or contact information. I don’t think someone who has 3 million followers even checks her DMs.

I messaged her all over TikTok, posted in every single networking group I’m in, and wrote this up in a professional group I’m in on Facebook (called PR marketing and media Czars).

About a dozen people responded with email addresses for Bethenny.

I opened up 12 blank emails and sent this email message to all of those email addresses.

Bethenny lives in Boca Raton so I even offered that my mom could drive the book over.

Hours passed and I let it all go. It was nice that she even commented that on the video. That alone was electric. It was enough to make me realize that this book event is now something to laugh at rather than mourn.

But then I got a response. Someone on her team gave me an address of someone to mail the book to.

I grabbed a copy from the 45 that I have on a shelf in my apartment because if you’re not going to support your own dreams who else will ??? and begged Gemma to come with me downstairs to mail the book. It was about to be nap time but I had to get this book out before UPS came to pick up packages at my building.

Gemmies, I pleaded with her. Let’s go on an adventure!!

Mommy she said, rubbing her eyes and hugging her blanket, I would love but after my nap.

If I don’t get this book out now it won’t be there for days and I have to act fast.

please Gemma, please please.

mommy yes

great

but after my nap.

After a little back and forth and the promise of an orange popsicle, my sidekick accompanied me downstairs to overnight the book.

Days passed and I stopped thinking about it. Except when I thought about it, which was often a few times an hour, and always on an empty stomach.

If it happens, it happens.

But if it doesn’t happen, what a wild ride!

When you self-publish a book, you don’t have anyone on your side. You are responsible for doing everything on your own time, with your own dollar. I spent $1,300 to publish the book, $500 to apply for this book tour i’m on and get accepted to nine stops all around the country, and hours doing the marketing for the book. I

It’s a lonely process because you realize that even when you have a platform, a newsletter and social media followers, you will have to squeeze a person silly to get them to buy your book.

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This Tuesday, I put Gemma down for a nap and I crawled up on the couch and took one too. I woke up groggy, my hair in chlorine-like tangles and grabbed my phone.

I opened TikTok and that’s when I saw that Bethenny posted a video with…my book.

@bridesmaidforhire#duet with @Bethenny Frankel omg this might be the greatest thing to have ever happened to me as a #selfpublished author. I literally can not breathe. I need to ugly cry for another three minutes. Oh my goodness. So grateful for you #bethennyfrankel

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The sum of it is all is that on that book event, I got unlucky. But then I got lucky when Bethenny found my video, accepted the book, and posted about it.

You have to put yourself out there for truly anything that’s not blasé to happen. It might be a total flop or the most insanely cool thing to ever happen to you. When you are trying, you are telling the universe: pay attention to me. You’re looking at a different version of yourself, one that makes the wrinkly, washed-up version slumped on the couch feel like a distant past life.

Most of the time what you put out there in the world will go unnoticed. But you see it and without seeing it, it changes you.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Ps. this is the book from the infamous book tour.

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. We took a family vacation this past week (our first!!) and when we got to the airport (of course very late!!) I ran to a store and bought the first book I found. It was this one. Fast read and good if you like mysteries. My complete list of 2026 books is right here.

2. My favorite little mid-morning snack.

3. Loving these lightweight pants for spring/summer.

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Last week I wrote about how nobody came to my book event.

A stranger sent me a message that said:

Hey, Hey, stranger! Who do you think you are trying to tell ME what’s more embarrassing? Embarrassment is my middle name. It’s what I’d get tattooed on my clavicle if I wasn’t so indecisive. I literally just went on a date with a new friend and at the end of it, I hugged her goodbye and said: WE had a great time.

WE?? JEN, WE???

I have a PhD in embarrassment, ok?

I think it’s embarrassing when you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or when your earring gets stuck on a new friend’s blouse when you go to hug her goodbye and you’re stuck for so long the “ha ha ha” wears off and now you’re just rubbing against each other trying to break free (see: date with a new friend part 2).

But what’s so embarrassing about admitting the truth to people on the internet? That a book event you traveled three and a half hours for, lugged your entire family to, for a book you self-published and begged absolutely everyone with eyeballs to read, was a complete and total flop?

Was I sad, yes. Disappointed, sure. Embarrassed? Not really.

It’s exhausting pretending to be something you’re not online. To brag about your own life and what you are planning on doing without sharing what happened after you actually tried.

I could just post: I’m going on a book tour! I’m on the book tour! YAY book tour!

How boring.

BUT what was about to be super duper embarrassing, and disruptive to my inner child who had one too many birthday parties where nobody showed up, was going to ANOTHER book event where the seats had no bodies in them.

And that was about to happen because two days before my book event this week, where I was scheduled to chug along to New Jersey (2-hours away from Brooklyn), there was a big blizzard. Snow everywhere! Streets closed! People’s driveways lined in thick fluffy ice.

I emailed the event organizer:

AKA, please spare me. One book event where the room is empty is fine. But a second, less than a week later, is just too much for my sensitive little soul. Plus, if it happens, I’ll have no choice but to crawl back to the stranger who told me I’m embarrassing myself and tell him, You win, honey. You’re right! Then I’ll never leave my apartment again as I hoard copies of my own book and pretend they’re decorations. Tchotchkes.

The event is on, we’re excited! She said.

@bridesmaidforhirePlease may there be at least one person at tonight's book event in #bridgewater NJ. #booktok #romcombooktok #selfpublishedauthor

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On the way there, I prayed.

Dear God, please, can you let there be one person there? Just one? They don’t even need to buy the book. I’ll buy it for them as a thank you for coming! We’ll take a photo together, and I’ll tell myself this is a step up from last week’s rock bottom. We started with zero, and now we have one. After one comes two, and eventually a hundred.

Ah, I know!! My Uber driver. He’s schlepping me two hours out of Brooklyn. Maybe I can pay him a fair rate to come to the event, laugh at one of my jokes, and trick my subconscious into thinking this entire thing is a success.

But when we pull up and it’s time to leave the car, he lets out a grunt of an exhale, as if to say: This was a long ride. Your perfume has infested my Corolla. I found it weird that you were talking to yourself most of the time. And now I’d like you to leave my car.

My best plan has failed.

The event organizer did such a good job setting up the room. There were banquet chairs and tables. Tablecloths! Platters of fruit and pastries. Wine! What will they do with all of this if nobody comes? It’s too pretty to be trashed. I looked into my tote bag and wondered how much of it I could stuff inside and lug back home.

Five minutes before the event was supposed to start, the room was empty. I tapped my toes and tried to act like I’d been here before.

It’s okay if nobody comes! I whispered to the event organizer who luckily didn’t hear me because once I got those words out, I looked behind me and saw real, living humans entering the event room.

I snuck off to the bathroom to have a good look.

There wasn’t just one person, there were dozens, eating fruit, carrying MY book in their hands.

I slapped the edges of my head.

Wake up, Jen! You must be still sliding down the jersey turnpike asleep at in the passenger seat.

But when my phone said 7:05 p.m., I walked into the room, sat up front, and looked into the eyes of forty-something people.

After it was over, people clapped. We ran out of books to sell. Some people bought three copies.

I got back into the Uber to go home, this time with a different driver who would probably have similar thoughts about me by the end of the ride: a little manic, talking to herself a lot.

And I cried.

I cried and cried and cried.

How much your life can change in a week. One minute you’re convinced you’re a smelly, expired block of cheese heading for the dump. The next, you’re clawing your way out of your own stench, realizing that nothing lasts forever. What goes up comes down. And what goes down? Even gravity gets tired of holding it there.

I swear life is so insane.

Whenever you are down, please remember that your UP is going to happen soon.

It usually happens when you’re covered in fleas of self-doubt, worried that it won’t.

It’s waiting for you in the wings.

It’s finding you right now as we speak.

It wants to smother you with manic joy.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Ps. this is the book from the infamous book tour.

• I received such an outpouring of support after last week’s newsletter. I was so overwhelmed by the messages that I spent most of the week feeling so seen and loved. I appreciate it all so much. It was what lifted me back up and brought me back to my stubborn determined fighting foolish self. I love you, dearly.

• I decided to post this video that I filmed at the event when I realized that nobody was coming. I only posted it because I wanted to be transparent about my journey as an author. The video went viral and the comments have been so raw and special. I’ve tried to respond to each one. The most shocking was from Bethenny Frankel who wrote that she once had an event where nobody came (and it was being filmed for TV). That must have stung! I’ve always admired her and seeing that comment made me absolutely shake.

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. I have been spending less time fueling my anxiety by doom scrolling on TikTok and more time reading. I read for an hour before bed and when Gemma is independently playing. I listen to audiobooks when I’m sitting in Gemma’s room as she falls asleep (an hour a day there), when I clean the house (another hour), or workout (not so consistent here!!) so I’m able to fly through these reads. This week I finished Bright Years (was good) and Down the Drain (was amaaaaazing). My complete list of 2026 books is right here.

2. I also really enjoyed diving into a new TV show. I’m slowly watching Love Story on Hulu. I didn’t know much about JFK JR and Carolyn Bessette but now I’m sucked in to being obsessed with them.

3. Loving these as a mid-day pick me up.

4. This song played at the end of Tell Me Lies (the series finale) and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. I love it.

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below or share the newsletter - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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Last week, I dragged my family to another state for a book tour stop. I was really excited about this one. But spoiler alert. Nobody showed up. Here’s what went through my mind as I waited backstage.

Maybe everyone is somewhere else together. Like someone sent out a DM across book lovers of Rhode Island that said: If you’re going to Jen Glantz’s book event tonight, we’re meeting at Wimpy Whale beforehand for dinner and drinks. I’ve been to places like the Wimpy Whale before. The artichoke dip takes forever and you just know someone in the group ordered a round of espresso martinis and the bartender realized he forgot to restock the espresso so he had to hang up his apron and run to Stop & Shop and by the time he came back, the very large group realized the book event had already started and they hadn’t even ordered dessert!

Ah, I know! Everyone is stuck in traffic. The roads in Rhode Island are narrow. Plus, 6pm is so early for an event. Everyone is traveling home from work and being behind the wheel must feel like you’re in a mosh pit. I once worked a wedding where there was some sort of problem that shut down an entire bridge. None of the guests could get to the island so they had to push the ceremony back an hour and 45 minutes, which is not a fun thing to tell a bride who is paying so much for the wedding that every minute wasted costs $57. I bet the same thing is happening to me! There are a million bridges in Rhode Island. One of them must be closed and so nobody can get to this event.

If nobody comes I will simply say that everybody came. When people ask: How was your event! I will say: It was ravenous. They ran out of books! There was an overflow room. Do you see my hand shaking? I signed so many books my fingers are spasming (worth it!!). They had to give me a second microphone because the people in the back couldn’t hear. I even heard whispers that it was the best event they’ve had all year.

I hear whispers and it was that nobody is here yet and the event was supposed to start 15 minutes ago. Bad news is always so loud. You can hear it in a person’s eyebrows before it even reaches their mouth.

I pretend to look busy on my phone. I text Adam:

I’d prefer to cuddle my purse and cry. But let’s get one thing straight here. I, Jennifer Glantz, am a professional. I’m an expert at putting on a happy face. I can be sleepwalking and still convince you I mean it when I say: OMG, NO! It’s not a big deal at all! I can not crumble in this empty room, in front of the event organizer. But I want to scratch my lipstick off, unbutton my jeans, and let out the loudest sigh: am i the world’s biggest loser or……?

I’m not a loser! Who am I kidding? People are coming. They must all be lingering in the parking lot. This is a large building. I bet they went to the south wing, not the north wing, I almost made the exact same mistake! It’s 20-degrees out. The cold makes people move slower. 6:30pm is totally the new 6pm. They’ll be here in no time.

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They have to be coming, right? Everyone is allowed to have one birthday party or event where nobody shows up. I already had mine in 1999. Karma has to be on my side here! It would be way too cruel to have this happen to me…again.

What If i’m the problem? Maybe I got the date wrong? I can put on the same outfit, paint my face, take another $45 Uber here tomorrow if so. .I double check the calendar on my computer, then my phone, then on the flyer….Today is the day.

I don’t think anyone is coming, I hear someone say.

One day when I’m a bestselling author standing in front of hundreds of people in Barnes and Noble, wondering what to say to them because at that point i’ll be sooo successful that I don’t need to beg them buy my book, i’ll have the absolute perfect story to tell. How one time, in 2026, on a book tour stop for my third book, not a single person came, and I sat in the room of empty chairs and thought all the crummy things about myself like: Who are you kidding, Jen? and How did you get to this point in your life? and Why do you attract emptiness and not abundance? But see! I didn’t give up! I kept writing and finding the funny in lonely little rooms and look at me here! now! with you! I’ll lick my tears because they taste the same, no matter what the occasion, and it always transports me back.

What kind of picture can I post from an event that nobody came to? An empty room will make people suspicious. My face will keep them guessing.

I could just say the event was small, cozy, intimate. But I’m not in the mood to lie to people. What’s the point? To fool them? To make them think I’m on some glamorous book tour and that being an author is easy? It’s not. At all.

For once in my 37-years, I’m just going to take out the fluff. If anyone asks, I’ll simply just say: Nobody came and it sucked! But I’m cruising toward being able to let it go and in 2-3 business day will find the positive in all of this.

And that’s kind of what happened.

I spent 1-2 business days feeling crispy and by the 3rd day, I was peacefully ready to just stick this on a shelf and it marinate in dust until I’m ready to talk about it again.

I don’t know what else to say except not everything goes the way we want it to in life. We create. We expand. We put things out into the universe and hope people have goo-goo eyes for it. And sometimes they do but most of the times they just blink by .

When you’re trying to do something with all of your damn heart, everything must work against you. You’ll struggle to find the time, people will tell you you’re being silly, your first, second, third go at it will be a flop.

Right now, I’m traveling around the country on a book tour that costs me more money to do than books sold. I could buy 250 books with the cash it’s costing me to Uber back and forth to regional airports and sit in the middle seat of a mid-day Delta flight.

There’s lots of empty seats so far. So many stacks of books that nobody is buying.

What am I supposed to do? Shutter it all? Hide in my shoebox?

I should be crushed. I should be scorned from all of this. But I’m not. I’m a fighter. I’m also a floundering fool. I’m not going to stop writing and sharing my work with the world, even if nobody shows up and the room is so empty that the dust mites make eye contact with me as they roll on the floor, laughing.

I laughed with them too okay? I swear I did until it was time for me click-clack my way out of there, and show up for myself.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

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Ps. this is the book from the infamous book tour that should be called a ghost tour (LOL!!)

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

Share

My personal pick-me-ups:

1. I finished two more books since we last chatted. Heart the Lover is worth the hype and destroyed me. I cried thick, deep tears. Strangers (nonfiction) made me angry and gave me a lesson on prenups. It was amazing. My complete list of 2026 books is right here.

2. Keeping my workouts super simple these days. I only use these and watch these free videos.

3. Forever swearing that this is the best and most comfy blanket. I have two!

4. The most complimented outfit I’ve worn all winter (it says a lot about the cozy vibe I’m aiming for) is this top and matching joggers. Plus I love being in lazy in but when I put on boots or sneakers and wear it out, it’s presentable and put-together.

5. I’ve been traveling a lot this year and this bag goes everywhere with me. Perfect for under the seat one the plane and it packs a lot.

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What I’ve been up to:

1. I recorded 5 podcast episodes on Friday. I like to batch record for my podcast so that I only have to head to the studio 3-4x a year. I documented the whole behind-the-scenes process of it all right here.

2. I wrote all about my 63 goals for January and how I did so many of them. But I hardly made a dent in my February goals. I had around 50 and only did 15. My plan for March is to just have 15 goals. I need to go a bit easer on myself during the busy months of my life.

3. I spent 24-hours in St.Louis on a book tour stop and here’s the recap of that.

4. Still navigating annoying stomach issues and it sucks! Acupuncture has been helpful for some of my issues but sooo helpful for my anxiety. I’ve done 3 sessions in the past 3 weeks and really am loving it.

Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

Leave a comment

The biggest lesson I’m learning so far this year is that being wanted is the greatest feeling in the entire world.

It’s also the most dangerous.

Because being wanted means wanting to say yes. It means flirting with flattery and making excuses to your drooping eyes when you rub them hard and growl: I have time for one more thing. Yeah, I do.

You don’t, my love.

There are only 28 days in February.

I have overcommitted myself this month as if there are 280 days. A few days ago, I walked around singing: No more things for me this month! No, no, NOOOO! I promised myself I wouldn’t add another thing on my calendar.

But of course, when someone wants me, I pretend like I’m a hermit who is slowly emerging. I must say yes! This person wants me and I am a people-pleaser who just wants to be wanted. If a new barista even briefly says my name and smiles, I will go back and get my decaf coffee with almond milk there every single day of my life.

I’m a pick-me girlie and so my February promise turned into a big fat lie.

Because I added lunch with Helen, four phone calls with who-knows-who, and thee different weekend plans that I think conflict with one another? What am I doing?

The problem isn’t that we looooove being wanted. It’s that we don’t know what we want and so when things start to pop up in our lives or say yes to us, we rush to say yes back.

For most of my life, I’ve lived in a YES era where I’d say yes to every single thing. Coffee with a person who is a friend of a friend of a friend’s second cousin? Yes. A podcast interview for 90-minutes when I only have 3-hours a day to work before going back to mom mode? Of course! Crawl to an event 45-minutes away in -9 degree weather because a PR company said they are giving away a gift bag with five different types of under eye cream? Of course (reader: I don’t even wear eye cream!!).

But I’m starting to get really comfy in my no era.

I’m turning down 85% of the things people want me for. BECAUSE…I’m trying to spend extra time I have to figure out what I!! I!! I!! want.

I’ve been pulled in 79 different directions in the past decade. I’m trying to fix that.

I just want to remind you that it’s a really nice feeling when people want you. BUT you can’t let that distract you from what you want.

And if you don’t know what you want, instead of girl bossing and hustling and saying yes to everything, sometimes you need to say no to most things, see how it makes you feel, and use some of that extra time and brain space to figure out what you do want.

And if you have nothing going on and want something going on, pick just one or two things try. Not a million. One or two. Start there.

It’s impossible to unravel when your calendar is stacked to ceiling like mega blocks.

And if you’re scared of disappointing the people in your life, remember the cliche that’s keeping me exhaling in my little cocoon all of February:

When you avoid disappointing others, you end up disappointing yourself.

I don’t want to disappoint myself. I want to give myself a dozen candy hearts, and smoother my lips in a bright red cream, and speak softly like the words I say to myself are plucked from a love poem.

Everyone wants you. But let me ask you this. What do you want?

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).

Jen Glantz

Books * Say hello

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

Ps. x 2: I’m taking off next week! It’s a holiday weekend and I know your inbox is going to be stacked when you get back to work. I’ll say hi again on the 23rd with a new newsletter :)

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. I finished two books so far this month. Half His Age (was a 10/10) and Theo of Golden (which wasn’t a book for me…but maybe it is for you). My complete list of 2026 books is right here.

2. I tried out two different winter coats. The viral Aritiza coat and the $200 dupe from Quince. Here’s what I liked best.

3. Keeping this on my lips all day every day.

4. I just bought one of these to help me blend my soups.

5. Ps. I’m building a really cool new social media platform with my bestie and looking for anyone who wants to beta test it and try it out! If that’s you, hit reply and i’ll send you the link!

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Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

Leave a comment

At the end of December, I passionately looked at Adam and said:

You see me? Take a good freaking look! Because by the end of next year, my life will be completely unrecognizable!

I didn’t mean looks wise. I’ll still have very bleached blonde hair and fingernails painted my signature neon yellow. The acne scars aren’t going anywhere, unless the money in my high-yield savings account takes them to a ritzy Tribeca derm. My front left tooth will still slant. I’m sure the beauty mark on my cheek will still be a part of your first impression. I’m okay with all of that.

I meant more like: my life can’t look like this*** anymore. I’m tired of it. I want to change. I’ve wanted to change for so many years and I haven’t. But now I’m ready (I think??).

****like this meant:

• Doing everything BUT the actual bucket list life/career goals I have and blaming it on not having enough time but really it’s because i’m a scared little puppy dog who plays mental tricks on why I just can’t get started.

• Fearing literally anything. I used to be down for absolutely anything and now thinking of doing anything gets me down. I’m being dramatic. I just have anxiety and most of it doesn’t even make sense.

• Wasting so much time on actual BS like TikTok or my latest obsession, Love Thy Nader.

I need to get my s-h-i-t together and I finally feel the energy radiating from my pelvic floor to make that happen.

And I’m the kind of person that when I feel the urge, I feeeeel the urge. Nothing can stop me. And so I must be drastic, radical, and take things to a level 1,056 instead.

When i’ve deemed the house a mess, I can’t just clean sections of it, I have to pull everything, all at once out of the cabinets and the drawers, and spend the rest of every waking hour putting it all back.

So before January started, I made a list of 63 things I wanted to do in the month, everything on the list was meant pull me out of a rut, get back in my shiny dancing shoes, and make my life so different than it has been before.

I printed the list and hung it in my closet so I could see it every day. I kept it open as an excel spreadsheet on my computer and had a third version in my wallet.

Now that the month is over, I want to be honest with you.

I did a lot of things on the list. A LOT. BUT….I didn’t do two of the most major things that were integral to changing my life.

Here’s how trying to do a list of 63 things in January impacted my life.

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It forced me to do some of my old FAV things again

I wanted some easy wins on my list. Things that after I did them, I’d feel really good about myself. All of these things on the list helped me return to my old self, the version of “me” when I wasn’t a mom or a wife or a forever lost entrepreneur.

• Read three books (I’ve had years of reading 0 books and years of reading 50 books. I wanted consistency this year.)

• Play guitar twice (After not picking up my guitar in three years!!)

• I set workout goals of moving my body 16 times in the month. It didn’t matter for how long or what type of workout I did. But having this as a goal, helped me remember to move, especially on the very cold days when it would have been easier to sit on the couch. These helped big time.

It helped me have fun again

The months can fly by so fast that by the end of the year we find ourselves thinking: Was any of it fun or memorable? I wanted to be intentional about scheduling fun things into the month so that they could be part of my highlight reel.

• A Gemma/mommy adventure (We went together to Florida for a few days which was a big adventure. In future months, we’ll do smaller things around NYC that will be unusual and different than our day-to-day together).

• ABCD dates with Adam (After years of going on 0 dates, we’re doing a date for every letter of the alphabet this year. Two a month. In January we did A(acupuncture) and B(Broadway).

It pushed me out of my comfort zone

I put a few things on the list that I knew would feel tough to do but the reward would be high.

• Host one dinner party (I want to get better at hosting and make my home feel like a warm, open space. This isn’t easy for me! Plus, hosting people for dinner in a tiny apartment where we only have a table and two chairs can be tough. BUT! I hosted three different times this month and got better at making it feel so awkward by the third time.)

• Cook two new recipes (I eat literally the same thing almost every day. So breaking his habit and trying out two new recipes wasn’t an easy thing to bring myself to do. I fell in love with this salad and Gemma + I made these animal crackers. At the end of the year, I want to put our 2026 recipes in a book.

It got me to do things I’ve put off for 3+ YEARS

The best part of keeping this long, aggressive, list is that it helped me get things done that I have been putting off for years.

• We finally made progress on doing an estate plan. We’re 25% of the way. At the end of 2025, we were 0%.

• I also booked doctor’s appointments that I forget to book in 2025 (derm for a skin cancer check and etc.)

The FOR REAL downside of all of this

I didn’t two the TWO MAJOR THINGS on my list. The two things that would actually change my life. The two things that made me want to even start this list.

Why didn’t I do them?

It wasn’t because I had a list of 63 things and was distracted. A lot of the things on the list were duplicates (For example: 1-16 was “workout” and every time I did, I’d cross off one of those lines). A lot of things were easy to do and didn’t take much time.

The problem was that even though I had this giant list, it doesn’t mean it fixes old bad habits.

It didn’t give me the courage to do the hard stuff, the realllly hard scary stuff. There’s no big reward at the end of the month. Just the feeling of absolute gobsmacking regret and defeat for not doing the major stuff.

BUT! I have 11 months left. AND this month, my overall goal will be to breakthrough that mindset of I can’t do these things. They are too hard.

Instead, I’ll say:

Give the scary things a try this month. Do something a little different from the last. Remember that this life is yours. You can mess it up. But you can also slowly make it better. Slowly do that for yourself. Very fast will your pile of s-h-i-t will look unrecognizable.

Ps. Here’s the template I use for my February goals.

Jen Glantz

Books * Say hello

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // I lost the mom of the year award

PS. Can you share this with someone you know? Thank you (ily, always).

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. I read a lot of really good books in January. My complete list is here and this is a review that I did of each book and the ones I suggest.

2. My new fav breakfast/dessert is this 2-ingredient viral Japanese cheesecake (I make it with vegan siggi’s yogurt) and it’s soo easy to make and is majorly delicious.

3. For February, I want to do a lot of easy baking with Gemma and picked up a bunch of these items to make them Valentine’s Day themed.

4. It’s record-breaking cold in NYC these days (or so it feels) and I’ve resorted to covering my body in anything warm - including one of these over my head. It actually looks cute and keeps my ears very warm.

5. I’m also living in this when I go outside. It’s perfect.

6. I will beg you to buy this blanket till I’m blue in the face. It’s the comfiest thing ever ever ever. I have one for the couch and one for my bed.

7. I use these 4-5x a week to workout. I’m rebuilding my strength after not working out as much and these small weights are tessssting me. I strap them on and do 1-2 of these 5-min arm workouts and am crying halfway through.

8. Can you tell me your fav Valentine’s day gifts you give friends/like to get? I’m on the hunt!

9. Ps. I’m building a really cool new social media platform with my bestie and looking for anyone who wants to beta test it and try it out! If that’s you, hit reply and i’ll send you the link!

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Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

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Gemma and I took a little mommy-daughter vacation this past week. As we were getting off the plane, the lady in front of us turned around and said:

How old is she?

I flicked the cheddar bunnies out of my hair and quickly plucked the chewy bar wrapper from the hood of Gemma’s sweatshirt.

If I was about to be handed the ‘mom of the freaking year’ award, in front of 250 passengers on JetBlue flight 1052, I wanted to look damn good.

Oh! Well, she’s about to be three, I said, patting the back of my perfect little angel.

We’ve had flights where the literal shit has hit the literal fan. A flight where I’m not sure who was crying louder. And plenty of flights where the people sitting in front of us kept turning around giving those eyes. You know those eyes. The eyes that say STFU and stop kicking the back of my chair!! Eyes.

But this time around, my sweet little daughter didn’t say a peep. Most of that was thanks to her discovering that her tablet has a suite of games she can play. I never said I was winning an award on screen-free parenting practices, did I?

I stood up tall and looked around me. Were any of my enemies on this flight because if so, they are about to be dazzled by the compliments this stranger is going to shower us in. Can someone please press record on their iPhone? This kind of moment would do wonders for my career if it went viral. Today Show, here I come!

Ha, she puffed. You’re going to be in a lot of trouble with her.

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Trouble? With her? Little Bo-didn’t make a freakin-Peep on this flight?

Because I’m a nosey creep, I saw that she was watching scary movies the whole flight. In one scene, a monster was eating a woman’s head. Perhaps she disassociated for a second and thought the screams, the shock, the horror was coming from row 3 and not her weird taste in movies. Flying makes people go nuts.

But before I could ask her what in the hopscotch she meant by trouble, she grabbed her carry-on and carried herself off.

What was she trying to tell me?

I’ve only been a mom for 1,041 days and I didn’t read one of the 12 parenting books that I bought when I was pregnant. I have no way to see into the future. I only know how to be a parent based on yesterday, not today, or even tomorrow.

What am I missing?

What trouble am I going to be in and should I build some kind of fort to protect us?

You might say, Jen, chilllll. She was just being playful! Funny! Sarcastic. But I’m telling you, her tone was very much like:

Listennnnn to meeee…trouble awaits!

If the plane hadn’t taken off yet, you better believe I would have ran for the exit. But we were already at our destination. The trouble she was speaking off came across like she getting a message from a higher power, like she was a psychic or a medium.

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Thank you for being here. Your support truly means so much to me 💗

She probably meant trouble in 5-10 years from now.

And please, lady, you think I’m not already nervous for the day my Gemma tells me she doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore? Or drop her off three blocks away from the mall so her friend’s don’t see me? Or when she slams the door in my face when I’m just trying to be there for her? Or when I ask who she is texting and she says: None of your business!!!!!

Ahhhhhh none of your business!! You don’t think I’m already freaking out about her saying that?

This is why I tell her 3-4x a day that mommy is your forever best friend and we will love each other always. Propaganda must start a very young age.

She probably meant it like enjoy this phase now because one day it will change! And you think I’m not already stressed about that? How one day she will be in college and I’ll be ???? where the heck will I be? Or that she’ll be able to make her own decisions and those decisions might mean she moves 3,000 miles away. She can never know about the beauty of Australia. Never!

People love to give cliche one-liner advice to people who are blind about what is going to happen to them next. When they can’t know how it will feel. They can’t predict what will come.

Perhaps the worst advice you could give someone who can’t understand what is ahead of them, when you have lived a version of it already, is any type of doom.

you’ll never sleep again!

your life will be over!

say goodbye to your free time!

TBH, most of that isn’t true.

You’ll sleep again, then not again, then again, then not. Your life as it was will be over but a new one will emerge and you will have free time, more than you think actually.

The more real advice about motherhood is that gravity will divorce your boobs and you might pee when you do a single jumping jack and no other name anyone has ever called you will be as magical as when they scream mooooooom, even if they scream it 679 times a day, and mostly that more than 73% of the stuff you carried so deeply about before they entered your life will be chicken scratch.

Right after this happened, another woman, diagonal from us, said: She’s wrong, honey. The best is yet to come.

I watched them both walk off the plane with all of her life’s baggage, and I grabbed mine, my sweet little girl. Whatever trouble she meant, I’m already holding it, pretending I don’t know how fast it will slip through my hands

Jen Glantz

Books * Say hello

Read More: I couldn’t get into the toxic mom group // The 26 things I did so far in 2026

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. The second book I read this year takes on three unique perspectives, all about the same people, if their lives went in different directions. It’s a creative plot and I flew through this book in a few days.

2. It’s record-breaking cold in NYC these days (or so it feels) and I’ve resorted to covering my body in anything warm - including one of these over my head. It actually looks cute and keeps my ears very warm.

3. I will beg you to buy this blanket till I’m blue in the face. It’s the comfiest thing ever ever ever. I have one for the couch and one for my bed.

4. Can’t go wrong with a fresh pack of socks.

5. I use these 4-5x a week to workout. I’m rebuilding my strength after not working out as much and these small weights are tessssting me. I strap them on and do 1-2 of these 5-min arm workouts and am crying halfway through.

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Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

And also, tell me everything:

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There was an article that went viral last week about a Hollywood star deciding to leave a toxic mom group.

Here’s the thing about groups of friends:

You’re either in with the group, on the outs with the group, or desperately trying to get in the freaking group.

Last year I tried soooo hard to get into a (toxic) mom group but no matter what I did, they never opened their body language, shared a matcha, or added me to the group chat.

So when I read the article, selfishly (and sickly), I thought…….well at least you got into the group..some of us never even get the invite!

I was so desperate to get into this mom group that I did unimaginable, unthinkable things to persuade them to fall madly in love with me.

For example, I showered.

Some of these baby classes are so gross and germy that I’d usually wait to shower after, but if i knew this mom group was going to be there, i’d wake up an hour early, do an everything shower and study a Dyson Airwrap tutorial. I’d open up every makeup container and layer each one on my face. Stack the jewelry. Put on the mom group uniform (either a matching workout set or loose fitting jeans and a tight fitting tee). I was so polished I looked camera-ready to sit on the dirt of these outdoor sing-along-classes.

Another example. I dangled something shiny that I have that they obviously want.

I have a pool, if you guys, umm, ever want to use it?

Did I mention I have a pool?

You know I have a pool and you can like use it even if i’m not there…..

I dropped this into any/every conversation I had with them. It never worked. Nobody asked for my number. OF COURSE I did not ask for any of their numbers.

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But one day, one of the teachers randomly said: Toxic mom number one of the group, have you met Jen? You two would have so much in common.

And I thought OMG wow! I need to Venmo her one million bucks. She’s doing the dirty work for me.

Of course I played it cool, tossing my burnt Dyson’ed hair to the back of my shoulder and licking my front incisors to make sure lipstick was not to be found. Yeah, I think we’re in a lot of classes together, I said, super cazh.

Toxic mom number one said: Oh, yeah. Where do you live again?

Three blocks that way and I have a pool in case you ever….

But then toxic mom two and three and four came and dropped their Dagne Dover bags onto the grass, pushing me back into my place, outside of the group.

Another almost guaranteed chance of getting into this group was when Gemma wandered over to their kids, who were playing together in the park after class. I followed behind Gemma and thought: Let’s dazzle them! Wine and dine them with our strollers legos and freeze-dried strawberries.

But when we walked over, the girls did not let Gemma in, and after a big ol’ wave and a fancy seeing you all here!, neither did the moms to me.

I wish I could say I stopped trying. I got the hint! But of course that is not what happened.

Every class, I’d pile on the foundation and read up on the things I overheard them talking about. Oh, I’ve heard such good things about Seychelle in the summer!Le Creuset’s are on sale this week at William Sonoma! Of course I’m watching Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

One time I ran into THE mom group at the playground. We all stood around the same climbing structure. I listened to them all talk about one of the toddler’s upcoming birthday party that weekend.

The theme was wild wild west.

Aw, I love that theme! I chimed in. Look, I am not above a last minute invite to a two-year-old’s birthday, Ok? I can clear my schedule! It’s actually empty! I also happen to have the perfect cowbody hat for a party like this.

But, it was as if I said nothing. Because they said nothing back.

They all followed each other out of the playground. Not one said goodbye. Tossed a wave. Gave a half-hearted smile.

Spoiler alert: I never made it into the toxic mom group.

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I felt so sad about this for a long time. I wondered what was wrong with me? Yeah, I’m a little weird and awkward but I’m also a lot of fun. I deeply care about people, even when I hardly know them. I’m very self-conscious and make sure I never talk too much about myself and always ask the other people around me a thousand questions.

But none of that mattered because friendship isn’t something you are owed. You could say all the right things and wear the perfect outfit and try to say the most interesting thing these moms have heard all day but….

….sometimes people just click and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they don’t even give you a real fighting chance to try.

Sometimes groups of people are holding onto each other so tightly, they don’t leave room for anyone else to crawl their way inside.

I’ve been in friend groups before and have been so consumed by them I didn’t even notice people on the outside pounding to get in.

I don’t think these moms and I had anything in common. I think my nervous system would always be exhausted around them, if they had let me into their group. It wasn’t the right fit. Maybe they felt that? I was just desperate to ignore that.

I’ve wanted to be accepted into friend groups since I’m six. I’ve wanted to tell the little girl who didn’t get invited to the sleepovers, the birthday parties, the three-way landline phone gossip sessions, that she freaking made it! That all those sad diary entries about the mean girls are old news. That the adult me can walk into any room and be recruited into any group of girlies. That she freaking made it!

My ‘feeling left out’ wound felt unhinged, wide open, ridiculously raw when it was rubbed by these toxic moms at the age of 37.

Anyway, it’s a little fun to chase people, to show up with butterflies and hope they’ll say: your mascara looks really good today or you smell like rose buds. But at some point, it’s a giant waste and you’ve lost your direction in life.

Try a few times to be someone’s friend but if they aren’t turning their chest toward you, asking how deep your pool is, or laughing at your jokes, get the hint.

Get the hint! Get the hint! Get the hint!

Though if you’re like me, you’re too stubborn to accept the hint.

Life eventually carried on and my schedule changed. I stopped seeing the mom group around. Fitting in with them was the biggest thing on my social agenda for a long time. Until it wasn’t anymore. I forgot all of their names. If I saw them on the street now, I’d give a courtesy wave and carry on with my great big beautiful life.

I don’t know who needs to hear this on this bright chilly Tuesday, but if someone doesn’t think you’re a thrill, walk away, eventually you will find someone else who will.

Take care of yourself this week (ilysm),

Jen Glantz

Books * Say hello

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My personal pick-me-ups:

1. I have soooo much I should be doing but I’m absolutely hooked and obsessed with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I’m not sure why. Maybe because the drama is wild and everyone tries to start their new year soo calm. But doing it this way, binging 3 episodes a night of this show, makes me feel a little bit naughty and rebellious against time or the new year, new you mantra.

2. Okay, but to really settle into the month and kick-off my reading goal (30+ books this year) because it’s something I love, I got realllly lucky and picked a book that I can not put down. To the Moon and Back is such a raw and beautiful book. I took this with me everywhere, hungry (but also sad) to finish this.

3. The most fun hack is to put a setting on your iphone wallpaper where it changes the wallpaper everytime you unlock your phone. I have 170,000 photos and it’s fun to see them rotate as my wallpaper.

4. I’m bopping around the apartment wearing these. They are so comfy that I probably spend 8-hours+ a day in them and then I wear these shoes when I leave the house because they are waterproof.

5. I will beg you to buy this blanket till I’m blue in the face. It’s the comfiest thing ever ever ever. I have one for the couch and one for my bed.

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   Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!

   If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.

   P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!

   And also, tell me everything:

   Leave a comment