Where's the Beef

And other stuff I ate up this week that I think everyone should be talking about more!

I guess I’ve been back from spring break vacation for almost a week now, but I still feel like I’m getting reoriented. If you want to know my feelings about being a vacation mom, they are complex, but some of them are here (hot weather version) and here (cold weather version).

I toyed with the idea of writing about the amusement-park mom this week, because that’s the vacation we had— one filled with rollercoasters and $5 churros and hyperreal “magic.” But I’m still tossing around in my head what it means to be a roller-coaster-riding-mom. There’s so much about class and race to pull apart with amusement parks. Which reminded me of this episode of Sounds Like a Cult podcast, on The Cult of Adult Disney.

Being a mom at any of these parks is especially weird now, as you have to navigate parks apps while kids are pulling on you and yelling about where to go next and the expensive food item they want and the return of CROWDS— and all of it amid the joy of watching kids’ heads explode with total elation and wonder. So I’ll just say: We had fun. My feet hurt so much. My credit card balance is frightening to look at now. I thought a lot about my own childhood. I held a lot of sticky hands and carried my hot and tired kids like they were toddlers again.

The American Dream / Photo by Thomas Stadler on Unsplash

This week I’ve also been having fun on Notes, which a lot of folks are hoping will be a less grim version of Twitter. I definitely think you should check it out and give Elon the boot while you’re at it. As

Meg Conley

wrote this week, Twitter has mostly turned into a gross frat party anyway.

And: the launch of Notes has brought tons of new subscribers! Welcome! Here's some more about what I do here. With so many new folks here, I am running a little sale for one week, bc who doesn’t love sales. Paid subscribers get weekly recs like those underneath the little paywall below, additional essays, commenting privileges, and more. Most importantly, they make ALL the work I do here paid work.