I have been unemployed for six months, during which time I’ve faced a tough job market with few interviews and no offers. Now I’ve been offered a senior executive role in an industry that is, while legal, known for exploiting financially vulnerable people through predatory practices. The role comes with …

A Frugal Way to Flirt I come from thrifty stock. We wash Ziploc bags. Repurpose dehumidifier water. Laugh at expiration dates. I got hives first entering my now husband’s house, where paper towels reigned and there was nary a dish towel in sight. Listening to water running while he brushed …

What do you call a scone crossed with a jam cake and a cinnamon roll? The first time I tried it, I called it a Franken-scone. The pastry flattened, and the jam oozed like gloppy magma, burning at the edges of the pan. I had to resort to a butter …

Susan Hirsch was visiting her father in the hospital where he was recuperating after a fall and was shocked to find him — long devoted to her mother — flirting with a nurse as if he were “17 and in the Navy again,” she said. Ms. Hirsch, a 67-year-old memory …

In the haze of a fall sunset, dozens gathered at a jungle gym at Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx. The sun crept below the horizon, casting an amber hue over the more than 50 people there, some doing push-ups, others pull-ups, a handful running laps around a track in …

It wasn’t enough for Ricky Choi, the co-founder of the clothing company Nice Laundry, to make high-quality socks, underwear and lounge attire. He wanted to deliver those goods in sturdy, chic packages, something his customers would appreciate and remember. In its first years, Nice Laundry, a direct-to-consumer brand, hired a …

The Los Angeles home where the “Friends” star Matthew Perry died last year has been sold. Mr. Perry was 54 when he was found unresponsive last October in a backyard hot tub at the property, which was one of a handful of homes he owned. His death was initially classified …

If I stared too long, the glossy, petrified tree trunk seemed to pulsate energy through the roof, down into the walls and past the fragile washi paper screens. “The house breathes,” Akihiro Tokunaga, the building’s owner, explained, snapping me out of the hypnosis. “You can feel that this tree is …

Imagine strangers dropping by to smoke weed in your yard, throw a pizza on your roof or pose on your porch with a pumpkin. That’s the reality for the residents of houses appearing in the movie comedy “Friday,” the AMC series “Breaking Bad” and the horror classic “Halloween.” These and …

Maura Finkelstein, an anthropology professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, was an avid poster on social media. She called a fund-raiser for the Israeli war effort “students raising money for genocide,” and she frequently ended her posts with the words “Free Palestine.” After complaints, federal civil rights investigators and the …