YES (I also think the Washington Post could have made better pronoun choices when describing Bailar’s life before transition, but remember how old and easily confused people who read the Washington Post sometimes are):
She was the quintessential recruit for the women’s swimming team at Harvard University: a nimble breaststroker with a fierce work ethic and sharp intellect. But when Schuyler Bailar jumps into the school’s Olympic-size pool this fall, he instead will be a member of the men’s team, the first openly transgender collegiate swimmer in U.S. history.
Emerging from a tortuous year of self-reckoning and a lifelong quest to feel comfortable in his own skin, Bailar, 19, will be navigating far more than the usual freshman challenges; he also will be a pioneer and role model as society openly grapples with shifting mores about traditional male/female gender lines.
Docents Gone Wild (this is what happens when you hire Charlotte York):
Kat Braz, a graphic designer from West Lafayette, Ind., was visiting the Iolani Palace in Honolulu this past December when she said a guide scolded her for straying from the group. The docent, an older man in a Hawaiian shirt, insinuated that certain people on the tour were fat, she said, and mocked them for not knowing obscure historical trivia. Ms. Braz, 35, couldn’t wait for the experience to end. “I’ve never had anybody be so rude before,” she said.
More arts-loving baby boomers—educated, experienced and recently retired—are hustling to become museum tour guides. The number of volunteers ages 65 and older is projected to climb nearly 23% to 13 million in 2020 from 10.6 million today, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency focused on volunteering.
Wheatcroft is now 55, and according to the Sunday Times Rich List, worth £120m. He lives in Leicestershire, where he looks after the property portfolio of his late father and oversees the management of Donington Park Racetrack and motor museum (which he also owns). The ruling passion of his life, though, is what he calls the Wheatcroft Collection – widely regarded as the world’s largest accumulation of German military vehicles and Nazi memorabilia. The collection has largely been kept in private, under heavy guard, either in the warren of industrial buildings Wheatcroft owns near Market Harborough, or at his homes in Leicestershire, the Charente in south-west France and the Mosel Valley in south-west Germany. There is no official record of the value of Wheatcroft’s collection, but some estimates place it at over £100m.
Zookeepers are living the dream:
In a 2009 paper for Administrative Science Quarterly, J. Stuart Bunderson and Jeffery A. Thompson studied zookeepers and found that the profession was about the closest anyone in the modern, secular world comes to having a calling—the sort of intensely meaningful career that Martin Luther said could turn work into a divine offering. Zookeeping is dirty, repetitive, and poorly paid. And yet people volunteer for years, move across the country, and accept major sacrifices in their personal lives to be able to do it.
Scalia is such a turd.
NOPE:
A husband of a friend of mine received this email from his workplace:
“You have the opportunity to attend a Retreat at ____ Church, on Friday from 9 am-4 pm. It will be a day guided by Father ____, on finding Peace and God with your fellow colleagues in the workplace. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served. If you would like to attend, this will be a paid day. If you choose not to attend, we will try to accommodate you by opening the corporate office. (This will be based on attendance) Please respond by email to Mary and myself if you will be attending or not. Response needed, no later than 3 pm Monday.
Alessandra is going to go do what she was born to do: write about rich people. Who is your favourite TV critic and how do we get them her old job?
You are not Sherlock, do not hound people:
Could you send us a phone log confirming you were where you say you were the night Jessica died? Why does your white truck look like the white truck that a commenter said might belong to the murderer? Care to explain that 2003 drug possession charge? If locals engage with their interrogators, they end up arguing all day with people they’ve never met. They can’t avoid suspicion by staying offline, either, because when they do so, they appear even guiltier.
The fuck is thisssss oh, I would FLIP OUT, like, I would live in a haunted house, absolutely, but I would NEVER stay in a house that some weirdo is obsessed with:
“I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming,” one of the letters reportedly reads. Two others allegedly refer to the couple’s young children. “I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me,” one reportedly says. Another asks, “Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?”
I enjoy Charlotte so much (I do think that it’s possible to hire a sex worker in an ethical manner, and I do not think that the act of paying a professional for sex is inherently bad or shameful or should be illegal):
Be reasonable. Your sex worker isn’t there because of their lust for you, or even their like for you. They’re there because it’s their job. Interrogating them about their own tastes, proclivities, and the authenticity of what they wanted you to believe was an orgasm is boorish and will cast a sour pall over the proceedings. “What do you want to do?” is one of the most groan-worthy things you can say to a sex worker, because odds are they want to be texting their friends, watching a Bravo marathon, or fucking the person they’re dating instead of you.
Did you read the piece about lithium?
Lithium, a mood stabilizer that can help stop and prevent manic cycles, is usually the first medication tried with bipolar patients; it’s effective for most of them. Including me. I was discharged and sent back to high school with an apple-size bruise on my hip. For two decades since then, I have been taking lithium almost continuously. It has curbed my mania, my depression and, most significant, the wild delusional cycles that have taken me from obsessing over the value of zero to creating a hippie cult (my uniform: bell-bottoms, psychedelic sports bra and body glitter, head to toe). As long as I take those three pink lithium-carbonate capsules every day, I can function. If I don’t, I will be riding on top of subway cars measuring speed and looking for light in elevated realms.
