The Best of February
What I read and enjoyed, what made me laugh, and what I think you'll like, too.
Good morning and welcome back to our newest monthly feature, The Best of the Month, in which I share the funniest and most thought-provoking stuff I’ve come across in the last four weeks or so.
If this section of SFST irritates you, feel free to unsubscribe from this section specifically and just receive the regular essays & articles!
Let’s start with tweets. (I will forever call them tweets.)
Tweets
(Remember that you can click the images to go directly to the source.)
And I don’t usually include my own stuff here because that seems very self-serving but I got featured on I Might Be Funny this month so I had to give that a little shout-out.
Articles, Newsletters, and Essays
The Imprudence of ‘Dump Them’ by Clare Coffey in Christianity Today. Technically this is from November 2023 but I read it in February so I’m going to go ahead and share it anyway! “Online pop psychology has a simple solution to every relationship problem. Love and prudence call us to something messier—and better.”
My Child’s Valentine Goody Bags Will Destroy You by Katie Burgess in Frazzled. I’ve been reading Katie’s humor writing for years and this one about parents who do The Mostest really tickled me as I helped my 3-year-old make preschool valentines this year for the first time! “As for the accompanying goody bags, we picked up the cutest wooden puzzles while visiting a Swedish art colony last summer. They transform from Cupids into figurines of famous women in STEM — the Lydia Villa-Komaroff one is nearly impossible to solve, but my baby did it on the first try.”
We Are Your Fancy Coffee Shop - Pretending to Care About the Environment Is What We Do by Eve Schaub in The Belladonna Comedy. This satire of corporate greenwashing actually made me laugh out loud. “Take time to peruse our selection of whole coffee beans carefully picked by people who were very probably adequately compensated and were definitely thinking about endangered species the entire time.”
The Chaotic Loneliness of Parenting by
in Knott, A Newsletter. Andrew really nails a feeling I’ve struggled to put into words: the isolation in the midst of noise and mayhem that comes with being a stay-at-home parent. “Sometimes when I’m bouncing on the trampoline for what seems like the fiftieth time in the day, when the sun drops low and the air feels cool, I become untethered. The laughter and screams drift away on the breeze. The sound of the screeching springs recedes. It feels like it’s just me.”What’s Wrong With Cancel Culture (and What Isn’t) by
in Sub-Creations. I always appreciate Amy’s balanced, thoughtful approach to hot topics (even when I don’t agree with her conclusions, I always come away feeling reflective in a new way). “Cancel culture is a major problem, but not because the concept of cancellation exists. If we are unable to distance ourselves from the problematic beliefs of others in some way, we will not be able to protect those principles that are most dear to us. I happen to believe that the only thing holding certain human beings back from committing certain evils is the knowledge that they will face social penalties if they do so, and a world with fewer evils is a better world.”Housing First Didn’t Fail Us by
in Who Is My Neighbor?. Kevin’s analogy of a practical, relatable hygiene problem at a music festival as a type for the bigger and oft-confusing problem of affordable housing is a great one. “The problem wasn’t the system, the organization, the planning, or the rules—even though tinkering with those things and responding to emergent needs allowed for better access and less suffering. The fundamental problem was there just weren’t enough bathrooms.”If you think I read more essays this month than usual, you’re correct! I’ve been trying to consciously use my time to read more mind-improving content during Lent rather than wasting brain cells on social media, and it’s been a good exercise thus far.
Page and Screen
My husband and I don’t get a ton of time to watch movies together (life with two small kids who don’t sleep much!) but when we do we’ve come up with a method for our forty-five-minute film installment choices. (Watching a whole movie in one evening? What’s that?) We take turns choosing a feature film, with the understanding that the other person has veto power if it’s something they find truly intolerable (I’ve 86'ed a few really bloody war movies and he flat-out refuses to watch The Office), and we have the option of substituting 2-3 TV episodes of equal length to a full movie. This month, I chose Persuasion (1995) and heartily enjoyed its accuracy to the book (after my dismal experience with Netflix’s Persuasion) and the stellar performance of Amanda Root. Rob sat through it. He’s a mensch. ;)
I was a bit skeptical about Rob’s choice of Men of Honor (2000) but I ended up very invested in the mostly-true story of the first black Navy deep-sea diver. (If sailor language is a concern for you, I will note it is rated R for a lot of f-bombs and one rather grisly injury that made me look away.) If you like historically inspired thrillers this is for you!
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng is a novel I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It was a bit heavy-handed on the political dystopia front and the stylistic lack of quotation marks bugged me, but its themes of parental love and the power of storytelling are going to stick with me.
What I Wrote This Month
I did a very detailed breakdown of the pros and cons of writing AND reading articles on both Medium and Substack. It’s available here. It also contains a little announcement that I’m going to say more about in March!
Christmas Decorations, My Mount Everest is my latest essay about parenting. It’s as funny as I could make it, but deals with some very real fears and insecurities too. It does contain one incorrect fact: there are no mouse droppings in our attic. We regret the error. It was included as hyperbolic illustration but it distressed my spouse who does not want people to think we live in squalor, because we do not. Please read accordingly.
I’m reaching my email length limit, so I’d better sign off for now!
Until March,
Amy
P.S. Remember, if you’d prefer to only receive my once-or-twice-a-month essays, you’ll need to visit your Substack settings, scroll all the way down to your Subscriptions list, click “Something Funny, Something True,” and uncheck the option for “The Best of the Month.”
My Child’s Valentine Goody Bags Will Destroy You - I almost died when I read that headline! I am going to read that now. Oh my gosh, the thought, time and money that goes into kids goodie bags, as a mom it kills me! I throw insane parties for my daughter but always skip the goodie bags and the parents look at me like I'm a monster. Look, I just dropped like $800 on a tent, pony rides and a popcorn machine and you want a plastic bag of stickers and candy too? That's hilarious! LOL! I cannot wait to read it.
You don’t always agree with me?! 😱