Weekend Reads v. 24.1.2025
So very on brand.
Reader, I write to you from a glam café on a typical mid-week day after what felt like a total miss of a meeting. You ever have those? It seems like you said all the wrong things. Wait, did you really say that? Why did you have to talk so much? Was I too casually dressed? Sigh. TBH, my bumpiness felt so very on-brand of me. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.
As a chronic people pleaser, I’m trying to be better about losing some and just moving right along. I’m also getting much more comfortable with the fact that some people just do not (and never will!) warm to me. This just makes more room for my favorite people to sit in my front row.
Anyway, we made it through the week. That’s a win for us all.
Here are some interesting things I found this week:
One of my favorite books from my high school English class is 100 years old, and somehow it still feels like it could have been written last month. Literature, you are amazing sometimes.
Do you regularly use AI? I don’t really use it outside of Google searches and the occasional interaction with whatever Amazon’s AI platform is called. The thought of using AI to bring you this column, however, makes me feel like a fraud. Therefore, there are no plans to use AL to write this humble weekly newsletter. But there are some Substackers using AI to generate their content. How do we feel about this???
SpongeBob SquarePants and Good Night Moon are getting the VIP treatment from the people at the USPS. Yes, that’s right. You’ll soon be able to send a letter with a SpongeBob stamp.
I’m about to love fries even more after this announcement from Steak ‘n Shake.
Yesssss. Reports from fashion week are back. Here’s one of my favorite authors documenting days 1 and 2 of Paris Men’s Fashion Week.
I love a good boutique hotel. If by any chance at all you are planning to go to western North Carolina soon, please say hello to one of my favorites.
I’m starting to realize maybe I’m not so great at small talk. So much of it feels sorta useless! Maybe this is why this essay making the argument that “good conversation is not small, it’s specific” resonated so much with me.
“It can be hard to bridge the gap between friend and acquaintance, and the difference really is in the details. The stilted awkward conversation you have with someone you see often at gatherings but can never seem to really break the ice with. To this I recommend: fake it ‘till you make it. The mark of a true friend is how quickly you can get down to business of what you really want to talk with. Someone you haven’t seen in months, in minutes it feels like no time has passed. I actually think social media helps with this, covering the big moments so we don’t have to waste time with graduations and weddings and we can really dive in. Don’t give me the top view I want to hear about yesterday’s commute! But pleasantries can sometimes get in the way of making it to this place of intimacy.” Source
Take good care of yourself this weekend, OK?!