Childhood sweethearts finding their way back to each other after decades apart sounds like something out of a fairytale, but sometimes, real life has plans even more poetic. That seemed to be the case for Lauren and Brooks, who went their separate ways in February 2015. But during a flight to Oklahoma, Brooks felt a shift—he realized that Lauren was truly the love of his life and decided he was going to marry her.
And marry her he did. Recently, to mark their third wedding anniversary, Lauren shared a touching clip from their wedding ceremony on her Instagram page. In the video, Brooks tells her about the moment on that flight when he wrote a heartfelt love confession, acknowledging how much she meant to him. The video was taken during a beautifully orchestrated day that included a bachelorette party, a rehearsal dinner, and a garden pizza party, all leading up to the church ceremony where they exchanged vows. In her blog, Lauren shares that in that moment, surrounded by loved ones and the church’s priest, Brooks recalled how that flight had changed everything for him.
“So there I was, sitting at the airport, upset, fighting tears,” he said on the microphone. “But despite our current situation, I knew we would be together. Sitting there in that moment, on my plane ticket I wrote, I’m going to marry that woman.” The groom then slipped out the old ticket from his coat’s pocket and handed it to Lauren. The priest looked at the ticket and read the note for the guests, “On the ticket, it says, I am going to marry that woman with a little smiley face. There’s a little heart too.” Continuing his speech, Brooks said, “A few years, countless memories later, here we are.”
Calling her childhood sweetheart and husband “the most thoughtful human,” Lauren wrote in the post, “It’s the love in my life that keeps me going.” The video has been viewed by more than 9.7 million people ever since it was shared. “The kind of man every woman deserves,” @fabulousjudy_ commented on the wholesome clip, while @tmcconnell74 said, “I still believe in love because of you nice people sharing your stories.” Reflecting on the couple’s story, @realmeyure added, “When you genuinely want to work things with another person, you literally move mountains, aka you would literally do anything to be with that person.”
In the blog post, Lauren described that she and Brooks organized their wedding in the Southern California area where most of their guests lived. They opted for a sustainable wedding, to minimize the waste that is typically generated during weddings. They also skipped the traditional “save the date” invites and chose vintage postcards with QR codes printed on them for the guests. “A wedding is a time to publicly declare how much you love your partner, invite your beloved community into that experience, eat your favorite foods, drink your favorite drinks, dance your butt off, and have a blast,” Lauren wrote, describing how the couple marked everything off their checklist.
“We have no women bartenders, where are all the women?” Lynnette Marrero remembered.
The decorated bartender and mixologist worked a cocktail festival many years ago where some 30 women put it together behind the scenes. But when it came time for a film crew to record female bartenders, they were at a loss. She didn’t want it to happen again and neither did fellow renowned bartender Ivy Mix. “It was an a-ha moment, of what can we do to showcase these women?”
Their answer became Speed Rack, the world’s first and only all-female and femme speed bartending competition–a speed rack is also part of a bar to place liquor for quick handling. Now in its thirteenth year, Speed Rack, featuring “Women shaking up the cocktail world,” is part of a larger movement ensuring nobody else wonders where the female bartenders are: they’re right there behind the bar. Marrero and Mix had witnessed too many women and femme identified individuals not getting the credit they deserved or not being able to break through into craft cocktails. Speed Rack became a way to help change that. “It was just about creating a platform and a pedestal for these women to be seen doing what they do every day,” Marrero says. Plus, all proceeds from every Speed Rack event support charities dedicated to breast cancer research like The Pink Agenda. Since it began, Speed Rack has raised over two million dollars for these organizations.
Competitors Sam Smagala, of the bar Joyface, and Miranda Midler, Head Bartender of Dear Irving's Broadway location, shake it off before Round 1 begins. Elyssa Goodman
On February 17 2025, the eight top bartenders in New York’s regional Speed Rack competition arrived at Melrose Ballroom in Queens for the city’s regional finals. By that point, the field had already been narrowed from some 85 online applications with video submissions to a preliminary competition of 20-25 to tonight’s eight participants. They came from across the city’s cocktail bars–Mister Paradise, The Crane Club, The Portrait Bar, and others–and had to be working at least four shifts a week to qualify.
In a round-robin, bracket-style competition, participants will have to make four perfect cocktails in a matter of minutes–it’s a competition that’s ultimately about speed and accuracy. The drinks will then be delivered to the judges, who will deliberate and give feedback–errors will add time to a competitor’s score. The winner of each round proceeds until there are only two left and a winner is chosen.
The winner will proceed to the National Finals in July at the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference, this year in New Orleans. There, winners from events in Chicago, Denver, Portland, OR, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico will join her, as will winners from Fast Track competitions in Nashville, San Francisco, Houston, Louisville, and Orlando. By the time finalists get to Nationals, they’ll have been training for at least two months, selected for teams sponsored by some of the biggest alcohol brands in the world.
Competitor Hope Rice of The Crane Club finishes up the final cocktail of her round, an Old Cuban, with a pour of G.H.Mumm Champagne. The Old Cuban is a drink created by legendary bartender Audrey Saunders. Elyssa Goodman
At Nationals, between 16-18 people will compete for a scholarship to the Beverage Alcohol Resource’s 5-Day Program, featuring an opportunity for certification with the “Curriculum for the World’s Most Comprehensive Distilled Spirits & Mixology” held at once a year at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, not to mention countless brand and networking opportunities. Marrero says that Mix usually speaks to contestants beforehand and reminds them that “everyone knows you competed.This is a job interview, so go out there and network, do your best, because whether you're the winner or not, there's opportunities that come from this.” Later this year, Speed Rack will also return to Canada and Australia.
Speed Rack becomes not just a way to bring awareness to the gender gap in bartending and the beverage industry, it’s how the gap starts to close. Build a community, reward people for doing a good job, and give them the resources to continue pursuing their education in the field. So it’s fitting that even before the audience starts to arrive at Melrose Ballroom, there’s something electric happening. What’s at stake is not just about cocktails.The venue’s two floors will eventually fill up entirely, and over $14,000 will go to charity. The hot pink fireballs of Speed Rack’s logo and matching pink lights cast a glow across the venue, where sponsors of the event, including brands like Cointreau and Patron, among many others, have set up booths and started mixing cocktails of their own for guests. It’ll be a night full of industry folks, though anyone is welcome to attend.
Competitor Ileana Hernandez just before her round begins. Ileana works at Greenwich Village restaurant Llama San.Elyssa Goodman
Contestants start to mill about the space–they’ve dotted their faces with pink glitter, tied hot pink Speed Rack bandanas around their necks, spotted clothing with pink rhinestones, painted on thick cat eye liner, donned olive cocktail rings, and more. Hugs are thrown with abandon.
“We have so many fresh new faces, I just wanna let y’all know drinking culture in New York is in great hands,” Marrero says, to uproarious applause as she and Mix begin the event. With volunteer barbacks, the first contestants prepare their stations. Ice fills glassware, and sponsors’ bottles are lined up behind the bars for easy access. The host tonight is Vance Henderson, lauded National Brand Ambassador for Hendricks Gin, decked out in hot pink sunglasses and a matching feather boa. He introduces the judges, who are also deeply respected in the beverage industry: Ignacio “Nacho" Jimenez, Operating Partner of cocktail bar Superbueno; Iain Griffiths, co-founder of Bar Snack; Charlotte Voisey, Tales of the Cocktail’s Executive Director; and Amy Racine, Beverage Director and Partner of JF Restaurants.
Full of friends and industry professionals, the audience cheers for the annual New York Regional Speed Rack competition. Elyssa Goodman
I feel jitters just hearing their credentials, but it’s part of the bartenders’ presentation tonight to remain calm and poised. The event, Marrero says later, “showcases what happens on a Friday night, Saturday night, when you're in a craft cocktail bar and you're working service, and then four cocktail luminaries walk in and ask for a round, and you have to make that round perfectly, beautifully and fast, really fast.” The drinks must be “balanced, look beautiful and be made with grace behind the bars,” Speed Rack says in its competition notes. The event is intense–the opportunities it gives participants could really change their lives if they want it to–but the mood remains high: Henderson introduces each contestant not unlike fighters in a boxing match, and volunteer barbacks, also industry people, are personal hype folks throughout the night, waving fans and cheering on participants.
With each round, contestants will be given four classic cocktails to produce, one selected by each judge, and the round will be over in a matter of minutes–never longer than five, and even four would be pushing it. The bartenders become a choreography of shaking and stirring and pouring and tasting (and, at least once, egg separating) and when they’ve finished all four beverages, they slap a buzzer to stop their clock. Bensonhurst, Suffering Bastard, Whiskey Sour, Cosmopolitan, Nippon and other cocktails course over the bar through the evening, and soon the judges weigh in. Was it perfect? Too much tequila? Too herbaceous? Was the garnish placed appropriately? Did the drink need to be more diluted? While they wait for final scores, bartenders high five friends like they’re autographing headshots at a movie premiere, they pour shots into mouths, they can’t believe they did it again. With final scores, the winners advance.
As the night goes on, more and more people push toward the front. People cheer on their friends, bang on the stage, a flamboyant chorus of “WOOOOOOO” and “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!” and the girl next to me who looks a contestant dead in the eyes and says “Rachel, you’re a bad bitch. BAD. BITCHES. ONLY,” with a half-empty cocktail in her hand.
Competitor Rachel Prucha, of Mister Paradise and Hawksmoor, ready to take on her round.Elyssa Goodman
The music gets louder. In the last round, the finalists are indeed the aforementioned Rachel, Prucha of Mister Paradise and Hawksmoor, and Lana Epstein of The Portrait Bar. Taking their places behind the bar, all they have to do now is make four perfect cocktails while a few hundred of their closest friends and industry professionals scream and chant and applaud. It’s another dance, of whiskey and raspberries and straws and tonic and ice and god knows what else, into jiggers, into shakers, into mixing glasses, until that buzzer is banged for the last time and the cocktails are out, in front of the judges. The deliberation feels endless. It’s some four hours from when we started and nerves are askew. More shots! More cheering! Lana, Lana! Rachel, Rachel!
Lana wins, and then something amazing happens–a swirl of friends and bartenders who competed rush the stage to cheer her on, her name chanting from their lips as they embrace her in a giant hug and pink petals fall from the ceiling. People put her on their shoulders, they take pictures, they pour bubbly into her mouth like it’s the Super Bowl. The joy is genuine, and to me it’s the most moving part of the evening because it’s ultimately what Speed Rack is actually about: women supporting women.
Bartender Lana Epstein, of The Portrait Bar, wins Speed Rack's New York Regional competition. Friends and fellow competitors raise her up and offer bubbly to celebrate. Elyssa Goodman
“The community vibe of, ‘it's not just one of us, it's all of us,’ is really important,” Marrero says. She believes Speed Rack can keep regenerating itself because it really is an event for the community. There’s an understanding that the platform represents inclusivity, she continues, giving basic training to everyone and sharing foundational knowledge, and this helps people move up in the industry and continue sharing.
Marrero doesn’t remember a lot of men helping her with this when she started–it was women. She hopes in the future there will be even more women and femme identified individuals in ownership, partnership, and leadership positions throughout the beverage industry. While she says many people come to the industry for a flexible work life as they pursue an artistic endeavor, she already sees Speed Rack’s impact making space for the next generation. “The future is in, the more people that we continue to recruit to stay in the industry,” she says. “The rest of us can then go on to get funding, open places, and give those folks a spot to grow and and really, light the world on fire one cocktail at a time.”
Small gestures often spark the kind of chemistry that deepens relationships, serving as building blocks for lasting love. Mac-and-cheese soup might not seem like a symbol of romance, but for a Reddit user known as u/his_stargazer, this humble dish marks the beginning of a love story that’s lasted a lifetime. Sharing her story in the r/wholesome group, she explained how a bowl of mac-and-cheese soup first made her fall for her high school sweetheart—now her husband.
Man at Home in the Kitchen Preparing Vegetables in the Frying Pan (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | HMVart)
Her post, titled “Something I’ve never told my husband,” quickly went viral, racking up 9,700 upvotes in a single day. She described a day back in high school when she visited his house and mentioned she was hungry. Eager to help, he ran to the kitchen to whip up some mac-and-cheese, but accidentally added too much milk, resulting in a soupy mixture he thought was a disaster. She reassured him, calling it the “best thing” she’d ever tasted, and even confessed her love. “The way he looked at me after that will never leave my mind,” she wrote, capturing a moment that remains as warm and comforting as that first bowl of mac-and-cheese soup.
Adorable couple enjoys cooking together in their well-lit, modern kitchen, playfully sharing bites of food (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Natalia Lebedinskaia)
To this day, her husband proudly tells everyone how he made her fall in love with him with his “mac-and-cheese soup.” The truth, however, is that, even though the soup tasted “okay,” she fell in love with him because “he is the most generous and amazing person” she has ever known. She added, “Now every time he makes me a bowl of mac and cheese soup, he has the biggest smile and I get to fall in love with this man all over again.”
People in the comment section were left swooning over the cutesy love story, and sharing their personal stories of how and when they fell in love. u/motormouth08 recalled the moment when she knew that she wanted to marry a guy. It was a pre-cellphone era and she was utterly sick one day. She had a sore throat and hadn’t eaten much for days. But then, when she felt better, she called her boyfriend and told her that she could afford to eat some pudding. Since calls were not so prominent during those days, he returned with two gigantic cans full of chocolate and tapioca, to make sure that she had the pudding she wanted to eat. They got married a year later. u/his_stargazer responded to the story with the comment, “The feeling of being cared for is indescribable!”
This woman, who is head-over-heels in love with her husband, says, that now, the mac-and-cheese soup has become such a beautiful relationship booster for them that he would make it for her even in her afterlife. In addition to mac-and-cheese, the beautiful couple has other little things that add an eternal spark to their relationship. Sharing the “best memory with her husband,” the woman said in r/love that when times are hard and she’s having nightmares, her husband always steps up to comfort her. “He pulls me in close and I lay my head on his chest, I love the way his hair tickles my nose. He holds me tight and tells me stories. He makes up the most random stories about characters, the weird adventures they go on, and how they fall in love every single time. He always knows how to make me smile and make me feel safe,” she wrote.
Comment by u/zenarian-369 appreciating the couple (Image Source: Reddit)
Meanwhile, people in the comments also shared other recipes that gave momentum to their love stories, including mashed potatoes, meatloaf soup, fettuccine pasta, grilled corn, spaghetti, and more.
This article originally appeared last year.
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File:Manuscript illustration of 2 women making pasta Wellcome ...
On the western edge of the Monte Albo mountains in Sardinia, Italy stands the comune, the municipality, of Lula. Twice a year, on May 1 and October 4, groups of people make the pilgrimage to Lula on foot from Nuoro, some 40 miles away for the Feast of San Francesco. Upon their arrival, they’re rewarded with a recipe some 300 years old: Su filindeu, or tears of god, a pasta so difficult to make there are now only a handful of people in the world who can do it.
The pasta is served in a lamb broth made with generous portions of pecorino primo sale, a cheese made of sheep’s milk. While the recipe has traditionally been passed down matrilineally, masters of the delicacy like Paola Abraini--who lives in Nuoro, where the sacred recipe is also from--have started to instruct others. According to Atlas Obscura, “Abraini, who is currently in her mid-sixties, made a conscious decision to teach people outside of her family to make it, in large part because not everyone had a daughter to inherit the knowledge.”
One of those people, the site shares, is the chef Rob Gentile, who went to Sardinia to learn from Paola herself: “There are a number of people in Italy saying, ‘You know what? Anyone can learn how to make it. Why would we let this go extinct?’,” Gentile told them. Su filindeu now appears on the menu at Gentile’s Los Angeles restaurant Stella and on the menu of chef Lee Yum Hwa’s Singapore restaurant Ben Fatto 45. Another restaurant in Nuoro, Il Rifugio, also serves the pasta.
What makes su filindeu so difficult is partly the process of making the pasta itself–one thick rope of semolina pasta dough is turned and pulled eight times to produce 256 thin, almost fringe-like strands. The strands are then placed on a large disc in three layers–but the pasta can never get too dry or the layers won’t stick to each other. This large disc of pasta is then dried in the sun–in the fall, it can take up to three days. The disc is then broken into delicate shards and added to the homemade lamb broth with cheese. The other difficulty is in making the dough. Semolina can both absorb and release a lot of water, so the amounts have to be just right and account for local heat and humidity. The dough has to be extremely soft and elastic, and the only way to tell if it’s ready is really with enough experience of making it. Many have tried and failed–famously among them is lauded British chef Jaime Oliver. Similarly, Barilla pasta hoped to make a machine that could handle the process, and they too could not succeed.
Because masters like Abraini continue to pass on the recipe to others, there becomes a hope that su filindeu as a recipe will survive. While some have come through and found it too difficult, others carry on. Food archive The Ark of Taste, created by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, currently lists su filindeu as an endangered recipe. Recipes like su filindeu are important because they teach us about a location’s heritage and history. As Saveur wrote when covering the dish, “What we don't eat vanishes.”So many recipes like this have been lost already, but if there’s the opportunity to preserve it–again, why not? Not everything should be fast food, especially when slow food carries so much culture and history withit. Paola and people like her end up preserving not just a dish, but a legacy.
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People share tips for remembering that you've locked the door.
Without fail, every time I leave my house for a weekend (or longer) trip, I immediately get that old-fashioned wave of anxiety: "Did I lock the front door? Did I somehow leave the refrigerator door open? Did I accidentally turn on the oven, despite having not used it in three days?"
On many occasions, 10 minutes into my drive, I’ve had to head back home and double-check—even if it’s simply jiggling the door handle—just to ease my mind. It’s a genuine problem. And it turns out I’m not alone—after looking around the Internet, I realized that lots of people suffer from this same form of self-doubt. Luckily, some clever folks have suggestions for how to soften this creeping unease.
On the Subreddit r/LifeProTips, one user started this discussion with the prompt, "To remember if you locked the door, turned the oven off etc., say the name of a film when you do it." Interesting idea! It’s definitely easier to remember yourself saying the words "The Exorcist" or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" than it is to visualize the task you may or may not have forgotten.
But for some of us—and I count myself as a member of this group—it’s easy to complicate that plan. As someone notes in the thread: "Brain 5 minutes later, 'Are you sure you said Bend It Like Beckham or did you just think it?'" Another user replied, "What if you mix up yesterday's film for today's, after uttering so many films?" Ugh, at least let me try this one before crushing my spirit!
Another suggestion that I particularly enjoy is to eliminate all quirkiness and get straight to the heart of the matter: "I do the same, except I say it out loud the action that I just did: 'I HAVE LOCKED MY CAR.'" One Redditor agreed with this approach, which they use at work while closing up a retail shop. "When I'm leaving, I always have employees with me, but I lock the door, jiggle the handle, and say out loud, 'THE DOOR IS LOCKED,'" they wrote. "Because before I did that, i would lie awake at night worrying I had forgotten. My rationalizing brain also feels like it helps deter thieves if they're nearby while I say that, but that's probably crazy lol."
Others use technology to their benefit, taking pictures or videos of whatever might later worry them—doors, stoves, and the like—as documentation for their future selves. "I do this, especially when I leave my house for longer periods," someone wrote. "I film a video going through all the rooms so I know kitchen appliances and lights etc are off, and lastly film myself locking the door. Never get anxiety during my absence anymore now that I have the evidence."
A more unorthodox approach is to utilize an oddly specific behavior—something that would be very difficult to forget. "My version is I give one of my ass cheeks a quick grab and squeeze," someone said. "If I'm worried it's becoming a reflex and I'll forget doing that I just do a longer one or squeeze both cheeks. No idea why, but it works for me. Just needed something weird to trigger the acknowledgement." Hey, no judgment! Whatever gets the job done.
As Newsweek reports, a 2024 study at Houston’s Rice University (and later published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory) explored why people are more likely to remember certain details of an experience over others. Researchers conducted a memory test, showing pictures to 38 participants, with some of the images repeated and others new. They discovered that the most memorable images are the easiest to recall. However, the effect was reportedly lost after one day.
One of the researchers, assistant professor Stephanie Leal, said in a statement, "Our brains can’t possibly remember everything we experience, and so we have to do a bit of selective forgetting for information that isn’t as important."
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Street Scene with Darcelle XV Female Impersonators Sign - … | Flickr
The premise of a legacy drag venue anywhere, let alone in the United States, isn’t something we can take for granted. That Darcelle XV Showplace opened in Portland, Oregon in 1967 under its eponymous owner, the legendary Portland drag queen Darcelle XV, née Walter Cole, and remains open to this day is just short of a miracle. Darcelle XV Showplace, known as Darcelle’s, was the first LGBTQ+ history site in Oregon added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. According to the National Parks Service, “as a nightclub and drag venue, the aesthetic of Darcelle XV Showplace reflects the improvised, low-budget, and self-reliant illusion of glamour that resulted from its development during the late 1960s and early 1970s when drag was celebrated mostly behind closed doors due to gay discrimination and the threat of harassment.”
When Darcelle passed in 2023, at one point named the World’s Oldest Drag Queen in the Guinness Book of World Records, the venue faced some uncertainty. This was despite, as the National Parks Service shared, its status in 2020 as “one of only two known drag clubs open prior to 1970 in the United States with an owner who performed (and is still performing!) as part of the company.” After Darcelle’s passing, however, business at the club had become slow and attendance had waned; could it stay open? As of last week, however, its future remains much brighter: under new ownership, the club shares, its life will continue.
It had been Darcelle’s wish that the club’s life would continue after her passing. The new owner of Darcelle’s is Jeremy Corvus-Peck, himself a drag artist of over 30 years, an Air Force veteran, and an Oregonian business-owner, who purchased the club from Darcelle’s children. “His goal to honor the history of the club while moving us forward with innovation and creativity is highly anticipated by the current cast and crew,” the club shared on Instagram. “His desire to honor the legacy of Darcelle XV stems from their longtime friendship.” As of now, the club remains “the longest-running drag cabaret on the West Coast.”
Darcelle’s is a long beloved Portland institution and a foundation of drag history in the U.S. It’s fitting, too, then, that a new plaza is being built in the city honoring the legacy of both Darcelle herself and the club. A groundbreaking was held last July, and “early drawings show the new park will have a stage, a public art space and ‘wall of fame’ for notable LGBTQ Portlanders,” Oregon Public Broadcasting reported last year. According to updates from the Portland Parks & Recreation department, as of January 2025, underground work is scheduled to be completed on time and sidewalks will begin pouring thereafter.
That the club’s life will continue and that the plaza will honor Darcelle’s life and contributions is a huge win for LGBTQ+ history in Portland and in the U.S., especially when drag faces direct opposition from the standing current presidential administration. Because of venues like Darcelle’s and owners like Cole and now Corvus-Peck, drag and drag history have become cemented as part of American life–it’s not going anywhere.
As I often say in my own drag history work, “drag history is American history.” This phenomenon is alive and well on the Gerber/Hart Library & Archive’s Instagram. Here, once a week, the renowned Midwest LGBTQ+ library and archive celebrates “Tillie Tuesday” in honor of famed Chicago drag queen Miss Tillie, “The Dirty Old Lady of Chicago.” Tillie worked as a drag artist for some 50 years, between the 1940s and the 1990s. Drag has faced pushback throughout history and in our current moment, with lives both underground and aboveground, so this was a rare feat then and remains one now.
As Gerber/Hart shares on their podcast Unboxing Queer History, what became the Miss Tillie archive was dropped off by a friend of the drag artist after her passing. There was a wealth of photos and memorabilia in this woman’s trunk–professional images, snapshots, flyers, and more–all highlighting the five decades of Tillie’s career, a majority of which were spent in the Chicago area.
While few biographical details are known about Tillie herself, historian Owen Keehnan and the archive were able to put together some of them. She had a 9-5 job at a uniform company, for example, and lived a very separate life in drag–at the popular drag bar Club Chesterfield, for example she worked two nights a week, making $9 a night plus tips in the 1960s. She also loved to deck herself out in jewelry, and many of her photographs chronicle a treasure trove of wigs, gowns, feather boas, and fishnets. And the nickname? It comes from the younger men she kept around, who often lined up to buy her drinks after her shows. Tillie’s archive remains a favorite of the Gerber/Hart staff.
To have such photographs chronicling Tillie’s life in these eras is practically unheard of, the podcast shares. This was a time when, if people were found out to be queer, let alone in drag, they could lose everything. Raids of gay bars were frequent and frightening, “with patrons being arrested, jailed overnight, and typically having their names printed in the newspapers,” the archive writes. “Even if the charges were later dropped, this caused many individuals (especially individuals who were teachers or worked for the government) to lose their jobs. Some even committed suicide.”
If you appeared to violate what were then Chicago’s laws against cross-dressing, you were often singled out early on. So the fact that so many photos of Tillie’s exist situates her and drag in the context of not just drag history, but American history and the queer community’s ongoing fight for equality. “When we see these joyful photos of Tillie and her friends, it’s important to remember that these gatherings were critical acts of resistance at a time of hostile legal oppression of LGBTQ+ people,” the archive writes.
The Gerber/Hart Library & Archives first opened in 1981 and is named after the early 20th century queer activists Henry Gerber and Pearl S. Hart. Based in Chicago, it specifically chronicles LGBTQ+ life from the Midwest. Among their main missions is to “collect, preserve, and make accessible [this] history… in order to advance the larger goal of achieving justice and equality.” They also have a lending library, exhibits, and public programming that offer insight into LGBTQ+ Chicagoan and Midwestern life. Archives like Gerber/Hart are essential at a cultural moment like this and serve as a reminder of the queer community’s neverending contributions to history.
To learn more about LGBTQ+ history from this region, check out their Instagram and their website, and stay tuned for more “Tillie Tuesdays” in the future.
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People online debated the "dumbest" unwritten rules that shouldn't exist
I’m a visual learner, and I feel uncomfortable when I’m socially adrift, so I’ve never been a big fan of unwritten rules. In my estimation, if something is important enough to qualify as a rule, it’s probably best to write it down somewhere—in bold, in large font, in a document everyone can absorb. That said, we do live in a world dominated by subtle customs and niceties, and we probably couldn’t even agree on what rules should make the cut.
Which brings us to the fine strangers of the Internet, who recently engaged in a productive debate: "What’s the dumbest 'unwritten rule' that should be done away with?'" It’s a funny conversation but also a deep one—and the responses touched on everything from finances to family.
One of the top arguments on the thread, posted in r/AskReddit, is scrapping the idea that "you have to defend your friends, even when they’re wrong." Someone replied, "If they did something shitty, it’s not my job to lie to others and cover it up for them. The most I can do is stay out of it and let them deal with it themselves." And another Redditor extended that argument to family: "People that value loyalty above all else are that way because they do awful shit and don’t want repercussions."
Elsewhere, Redditors debated an eternally triggering topic. "Tipping," one user wrote. "Not because they don’t deserve it but because it’s bullshit to pass the anxiety to the consumer instead of just paying your fucking employees correctly." One person wrote that they only tip in certain contexts—a mom and pop diner would be different than a Starbucks. And someone else noted that the entire act of tipping, even on an interpersonal level, is just uncomfortable: "Tipping puts stress on me," they wrote. "I want to see a price and pay that price. I’m an awkward person and don’t like the interaction of tipping. I’d much rather that you charge me a price you think is fair, even if that means raising your prices 20%."
Then there’s the idea that we "can’t talk to coworkers about salary." The exchanges are fascinating: One person argued that "talking to anyone about salary has been engrained as a faux pas forever," working out to be "in the employer’s favor." Someone else noted that they’re open about their earnings, ensuring that they aren’t being exploited at the workplace: "I used to work in a creative industry, and we always discussed salaries so we knew we were being compensated fairly. We were not!"
On that note: While it might feel weird (for multiple reasons) to talk salary with a coworker, it’s important to know about the National Labor Relations Act. "Under [the Act], employees have the right to communicate with their coworkers about their wages, as well as with labor organizations, worker centers, the media, and the public," reads a description on the NLRA site. "Wages are a vital term and condition of employment, and discussions of wages are often preliminary to organizing or other actions for mutual aid or protection. If you are an employee covered by the Act, you may discuss wages in face-to-face conversations, over the phone, and in written messages. Policies that specifically prohibit the discussion of wages are unlawful as are policies that chill employees from discussing their wages."
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Competitors Sam Smagala, of the bar Joyface, and Miranda Midler, Head Bartender of Dear Irving's Broadway location, shake it off before Round 1 begins. Elyssa Goodman
Competitor Hope Rice of The Crane Club finishes up the final cocktail of her round, an Old Cuban, with a pour of G.H.Mumm Champagne. The Old Cuban is a drink created by legendary bartender Audrey Saunders. Elyssa Goodman
Competitor Ileana Hernandez just before her round begins. Ileana works at Greenwich Village restaurant Llama San.Elyssa Goodman
Full of friends and industry professionals, the audience cheers for the annual New York Regional Speed Rack competition. Elyssa Goodman
Competitor Rachel Prucha, of Mister Paradise and Hawksmoor, ready to take on her round.Elyssa Goodman
Bartender Lana Epstein, of The Portrait Bar, wins Speed Rack's New York Regional competition. Friends and fellow competitors raise her up and offer bubbly to celebrate. Elyssa Goodman
Man at Home in the Kitchen Preparing Vegetables in the Frying Pan (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | HMVart)
Adorable couple enjoys cooking together in their well-lit, modern kitchen, playfully sharing bites of food (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Natalia Lebedinskaia)
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