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A collection of 347 posts

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Bot: Here for It, #325

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I am convinced that my rental management company has replaced their property maintenance person with AI. I don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' but I don't think ChatGPT is exactly helpful in the

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Preach: Here for It, #324

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! 💡My forthcoming advice column has a new email address! Send questions to eric@askingeric.com or submit them anonymously here. I'm packing to go to Pittsburgh for a conference. Pittsburgh is one of my favorite cities despite

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Open: Here for It, #323

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Last night we opened my new play! I love openings because they're the moment when we, the creative team, hand a play over to an audience. It is the beginning of a thing that has had so

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Tech: Here for It, #322

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Once again I am writing you from Tech for a new play. This is not a popular opinion, I'm sure, but I love tech week. This is the time in a play's production when we

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Green: Here for It, #321

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Today is my birthday! As a special treat, tomorrow I will be blocking out the sun for a few minutes over much of North America! Also, I have something to give you for my birthday! I have a new

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Dome: Here for It, #320

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Okay, one more story about Italy and then I will go back to my regular programming (recapping My Best Friend's Wedding for the 90th time). On our second day in Florence, we decided to go to the

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Ciao!: Here for It, #319

Ciao, sono R. Eric Thomas. Da Internet? CIAO! I am writing this to you from Italy! What a lark! Well, technically, by the time I'm done this I'll be writing on the plane, and whenever you read this I'll be back in America (crowd

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Recs: Here for It, #318

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Or, should I say, bon jor no (sp?)! I am writing to you from Italy! Well, no, that's technically not true. Whenever you read this, I'll be in Italy but I am actually writing to

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Nuts: Here for It, #317

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I started seeing a new ENT because I've been having some problems with, y'know, breathing. I saw an ENT about a decade ago and got what is officially referred to on my medical records as

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Niche: Here for It, #316

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Last night my friends Byron and Lawrence held another one of their Soup Parties, which readers of this here digest may remember as the Best Thing I Have Ever Done. I ran into them out and about the other

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Celebrate: Here for It, #314

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! We had a little to-do at the house this week. Nothing big. I bought a lot of champagne but it turns out people don't go in for champagne like that. I don't really know what

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Giving: Here for It, #312

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Look, I'm not pointing any fingers but it seems that Friendsgiving has been getting earlier and earlier every year. Online I started seeing people gathered at their friends' houses for an evening of bonding and Beaujolais

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Robot: Here for It, #310

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Okay, so I walk into this crowded Szechuan restaurant the other night and I see one of those little restaurant robots coming toward me. Do you know the kind I mean? They look like an air purifier with a

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Typewriter: Here for It, #309

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I am sitting at the gate in a North Carolina airport, eavesdropping on a group of seemingly well-heeled parents from Malvern, PA recapping their wild weekend of drinking and carrying on at Wake Forest and it’s like I’

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Tourists: Here for It, #307

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I load four full grocery bags into the back of an Uber picking me up from the Stop and Shop in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and climbed in the back seat. As we pulled away, the driver remarked that she didn&

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Stamps: Here for It, #305

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! THE NEW BOOK IS OUT!!! There's this hilarious--to me--thing that happens when you're sitting at a table in public, available to sign books but not the reason that people might be in the same space

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Aliens: Here for It, #304

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Okay, I'm going to say something controversial. And, the truth is I probably shouldn't be out here logging on to AOL and saying controversial things because I have a book coming out in two days

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Afternoon: Here for It, #303

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! It’s been a week since I got back from Scotland which means it’s been a week since I’ve said the words “it’s 2pm; should we have a spot of tea?” And frankly my life is

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Television: Here for It, #299

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I MET A PUPPET! That's the headline. This feels deeply important because most of my life is not puppet-adjacent so to be, as I mentioned, not only near a puppet but engaged in conversation with said puppet?

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Relaxed: Here for It, #298

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! A couple weeks ago I went to LA for professional reasons. Well, were they professional reasons? It was mostly just to hang out, but I wanted to hang out in Hollywood, a place that I sometimes Zoom with, so

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Trial: Here for It, #297

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! Okay, so I think we can all agree that my first mistake was clicking on an Instagram ad. Every year, Instagram figures out enough about me to know that I want a chunky sweater with a bold pattern, but

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Question: Here for It, #296

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! On Friday night I was in Williamston, Michigan, at the great Williamston Theater for a performance of my play Mrs. Harrison. Just before the start of the show, the executive director, Emily Sutton-Smith, bounded up on stage and launched

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Pageant: Here for It, #295

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I don’t think we give enough credit to the pageantry of this time of year. I mean, there’s obviously the nature aspect of it--trees kitting themselves up in full drag of flowers and doing a dramatic reveal

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Lego: Here for It, #292

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! 💡(If this newsletter gets cut off in your inbox, click here to read it.) A few weeks ago I went to Charleston to visit one of my brothers, my sister-in-law, and their two kids. It had been years since

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Soup: Here for It, #291

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet? Hi! I have to tell you about the soup party! A night of intrigue, double crosses, and liquid danger! A few weeks ago, our friends Byron and Lawrence mentioned that they were having a soup party at their place. I