Oh, I should also mention - we are a nonprofit. So my employee actually started with us as a volunteer. She just wanted to get out of the house for a day a week to keep her spirits up while she was job hunting. And she was so smart and hardworking that as soon as a position came open, we asked her to apply.

That sounds horrendous!

Yeah, that is an important part of the problem: becoming seen as a victim who is now more vulnerable. I work at an organization with women in management - and still, when a young woman was harassed by a new male employee, she spoke up, he was talked to... and then her reputation has suffered ever since. The managers…

Sadly, that’s not true. It’s a common assumption you make -but actually, 38 states and the District of Columbia have religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse or neglect, or failure to report.

I know, this is a side topic. But should it matter what the odds are? It sure mattered to my dad that he was partially deaf for the rest of his life because his Christian Science parents denied antibiotics to him. It also mattered a hell of a lot to all of my parents’ friends who died or were permanently disabled as…

I too had a friend who cut off contact with me and her other college friends. She was sent over her to the US to get a degree, mostly so she could be a suitable and cultured wife someday to an older man.

At my nonprofit, we pay our blue-collar staff pretty well compared to similar work at other places, but we underpay for our white-collar jobs... and then wonder why we have a mostly-white management team. I am in the middle of hiring for a position in my department right now, and just had an amazing candidate turn us…

I do not doubt your landlord’s story. My father worked for a while at the Smithsonian in the mid-90's. They had just built new warehouses in the suburbs of DC and were moving excess collections. His team was unpacking crates that had been in the attic of the original Smithsonian building on the Mall (the red castle)…

I really think someone needs to make you the next poet laureate. Reading that just now, I wept at the beauty of your words.

Thanks, I never thought of that! I’ll start losing weight now.

ding ding ding

I have year-round allergies and dairy makes my sinuses go crazy. But my doctor told me to cut back on soy products because I have PCOS, and apparently soy mimics female hormones and upsets your hormone balance. So I switched to almond milk. My mornings have been so much nicer since stopping dairy - I can actually…

You gotta use almond creamer for your coffee - almond milk is too watery to make a difference.

I socialized with a bunch of Marines in my late teens/early 20s, when some of my friends were dating guys who were stationed in DC. It was pretty standard for them to go to the gay bars in SE DC (this was before the stadium was built and all the clubs torn down). The guys would claim they hung out there because the…

Mr. Bailey, wading into the sea in his ice cream man outfit to serve his cones... oh my.

The frayed look is also good for tall girls. Instead of having to special order jeans from Long Tall Sally in Canada, I can get jeans cheap at the thrift store, rip out the hem to give myself an extra inch or two, and voila, I’m trendy.

FUCK! That picture just makes the accident story even more unbelievable. And what are the chances that this rope and pulley system would have cut across her neck at that exact angle? Wouldn’t it the rope have been at more of a vertical angle than a horizontal one?

Thanks - that is very kind of you!

Exactly.

We have a creeper system too! We don’t have the same problem you do, with folks asking at the front for someone. We are a thrift store, so what happens is they will approach you, and make up an excuse to ask you about a missing price tag or an item they don’t understand. Then they get you back somewhere away from the…