This Newsletter Now Brought To You By Melatonin
Some links and thoughts from my jet-lagged brain.
Hello, happy New Year, here we are!
Remain calm, that subject line is a joke. This newsletter is not sponsored by melatonin both because we don’t do that here and because the melatonin is not actually working or my 5-year-old would be sleeping past 2:30am already. But I promise, I did not come here to whine about jet lag! The trip was fantastic and I know we’ll get our days and nights sorted out again in a few more days. If you have questions about travel with kids/packing while fat/traveling as a Small Fat in Asia, drop them in the comments because I’m working on a piece for next week that will be allllll about that.
In the meantime, I’m catching up on reading many things, and wanted to share a few with you:
Happy book birthday to ! She’s on the podcast Thursday, so you’ll hear all of my thoughts about the new book then but goodness, just go buy it already.
If you think you’ll want even more Aubrey and me, I’ll also be joining her for a virtual book talk hosted by Chicago’s Women and Children First Bookstore next Thursday, Jan 19 at 7pm CT. Register here to join us. It’s gonna be good.
In related news, yes, you have the right to opt out of having your kid weighed in school (and that PDF is a fantastic guide to help you do it!).
It was an absolute delight to do this episode of Work Appropriate with my friend
. We tackled your Qs about diet culture and anti-fat bias in the workplace and whew! Just solidarity to everyone going into offices in bodies, man.
Speaking of work: As a perpetually-recovering workaholic descended from a long line of workaholics, I appreciate fellow workaholic Roxane Gay on why our jobs are not all-important.
More good thoughts on fighting hustle culture from
:I talked to Scary Mommy about why your teen absolutely should not do keto.
I also talked to Publisher’s Weekly about the new book. (Their content is paywalled FYI, and mostly for book industry peeps anyway but I really appreciated the thoughtful interview!)
And with Salon about the history of beauty standards.
Love this by
on why she doesn't write during naptime.
Also love Tyler Feder always and especially on the subject of New Year’s No Presh Goals:
And this made me tear up a little bit.
Heads up if you set up a recurring donation to the Burnt Toast Giving Circle: First of all, thank you! And: The Giving Circle is now raising early money for Virginia. There is a special election happening there TODAY, which will be key to holding the VA State Senate, where the right wing is just one seat away from a majority. In the House of Delegates, they hold the majority by two seats. If power shifts in the Senate, there would be a new rightwing trifecta in Virginia. We cannot let that happen.
All the travel details please!
Please help us save Virginia (the Commonwealth)! We have been relying on NoVA to keeps ups blue but that seems less reliable (Glenn Youngkin!) and we really need to flip more ritual voters. (I got my mom to vote blue in a red county. I’m doing what I can.)