HELLO and welcome to the 345th installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can know more about sugar! This “column” is less queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.
The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.
feature image by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
How Starbucks Came Undone
steffi cao // slate // december 2025
It’s rare that you can see a case study where the cause and effect and impact are so clear and obvious as they are with Starbucks — and it’s very true that it was, once, a place we resented for it’s corporate footprint but was a normal place to study and work and meet other humans, and it hasn’t felt like that in a really long time.
Reading Is Hip Again Because Nobody Can Read Anymore
erin // discordia review // december 2025
“Because the barriers to listening to certain music have been effectively shattered by stuff like TikTok, because it takes very little effort to listen to twenty seconds of a song and like it and virtually any song can be pulled into the mix, betting on your music taste to keep you cool and relevant or forge your countercultural identity is now a little like investing all your money into a business operating out of one of the most politically-unstable countries on the planet. You have to find something else. But what provides a safe investment now? It has to be something that can maintain its inaccessibility to the “normies” in the face of open internet access to basically everything and the ability of social media to channel that everything to a wider audience.”
My Misadventures in Gentle Parenting
kayla huszar // macleans // september 2025
We’ve heard a lot about this approach and I’m admittedly skeptical about it — now I can replace all of the abstract knowledge I had about it with this one article specifically, which I will henceforth use as the Reason for all my ensuing parenting choices.
The Polycrisis: Why Can’t We Stop Talking About Nonmonogamy?
brandy jensen // the yale review // april 2024
I feel like this piece does communicate something I’ve observed anecdotally in various poly queer communities, the idea of polyamory as not just a lifestyle but sort of a hobby, that the friends of mine who seem most happy within it are friends who really enjoy talking about sex and relationships and the various practices and dynamics wherein. Anyhow I really related to this sentence in the piece: “I often find myself confused when people want to have a discussion beforehand in which everyone says exactly what they like and don’t like, as though desire were something to satiate rather than create.”
How My Trip to Quit Sugar Became a Journey Into Hell
caity weaver // new york times magazine // january 2025
Did you know that approximately one year ago, Caity Weaver wrote an article about going to stay at a luxury resort in Austria to quit sugar because she loves sugar so much, pretty much exclusively when it comes to foods? And that it is full of laughs, as you can imagine?? Well now you do! Now I do. Now we all have an opportunity to embrace joy: “Acknowledging the chasm between what I prefer to eat and what every adult I know prefers to eat is unnerving, in the same way it is mortifying to peer into the Grand Canyon.”
Control, Compassion & Social Change
kai cheng thom // letters from an extremist for love // march 2025
I love to hear Kai’s thoughts on leftist community dynamics always, and here they get into a progressive left which associates itself with compassion logic when it comes to solving societal issues, but also tends to “contradict ourselves when it comes to social problem solving — we get confused and reflexively return to the logic of control, rules, discipline and punishment.”
The Chainification of America
eater // 2024
This isn’t just one piece it’s a whole suite of pieces about chain restaurants in America, from Sweetgreen to “superfans who make one chain restaurant their whole personality” — the design of the whole thing is so good! There’s also a fun timeline of chain restaurant history and some info on places poised to be the next big one. Gosh I love it.
Can Anyone Afford a Job Around Here?
beth greenfield // the cut // december 2025
The cost of childcare in New York City has risen at twice the rate of inflation — and as a person with a child in Los Angeles, it sure feels like it’s pretty high here too! And what’s worse is that childcare providers are still extremely underpaid.
Also I wrote a thing about Heated Rivalry if you’re into that sort of thing.
Also just a reminder that if you enjoy reading, you may enjoy our print magazine! There’s TRULY never been a better time to support a queer and trans-owned company, if u know what I mean!!!
Comments
TIRTIL with Caity Weaver! Yes please
That gentle parenting article is bananas. We do some version of gentle parenting, but the scene at the pool where she says that her 6 year old wouldn’t understand that trying to hurt their parent is wrong is… bizarre. If the aim is to raise kids who are happy and kind and thoughtful and gentle (and have friends and function in society), then it seems logical to set expectations around considering other people. Anyway, I wouldn’t take that one article as a guiding light on how not to parent!
ok noted! thank you for telling me i will now augment my knowledge from that piece with your comment and find out more about it!
admittedly my previous knowledge was just from another family i know who does it and it takes 75 years to get out the door because they won’t firmly tell their child to put shoes on
I was coming here to say a similar thing! Also, the person who wrote this article seems somewhat confused about what gentle parenting actually is and admits at one point that she was sliding in to permissive parenting (which she absolutely was). Which is somewhat concerning given that she’s a therapist and theoretically had training in childhood development. And the idea that there isn’t a lot of research on parenting isn’t 100% correct. While there isn’t necessarily a ton of research on parenting philosophies, there is a lot of research on child development and the impact parenting has on development. Another (perhaps less confusing) name for gentle parenting is authoritative parenting.
If you’re looking for some books or instagram accounts (depending on your capacity for consuming information with a small child around) I’d be happy to share some that I have found helpful! For context, I’m a clinical psychologist who studied child and adolescent development, and a parent of a toddler.
(that’s eris, not erin btw)