Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us.

Hey, did you read: 
• About the woman who wrote a smug essay about her neo-Victorian lifestyle and the hilarious responses to it? —Aimee Levitt

• This rumination on the middle-aged white male poet who found it much easier to place his poems when he adopted a Chinese nom de plume? —Tony Adler

• The origins of the 1930s catchphrase "free, white, and 21"? —Aimee Levitt

• That National Geographic sold its magazine to Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox? —Deanna Isaacs

• About Indiana's Fair Oak Farms, one of the nation's largest dairy operations—and a sustainable one that "reuses everything in sight"? (It's also a tourist attraction.) —Kate Schmidt 

• That you can buy vacant lots in Pullman and Roseland for a buck? —Gwynedd Stuart

• About the new mural in the south Loop that supports a woman's right not to smile whenever a catcaller asks her to? —Aimee Levitt