February Recap
Wherin I was busy, became gainfully employed, and men were disappointing as usual
If January was the month that had other plans for me, February was the month I actually got to show up. It was busy, but mostly the good kind—the kind where you get to the end of it and feel like you actually lived in it rather than survived it. After the January I had, I’ll take that.
1. I got the job
This newsletter started in March of 2025, about seven months after being laid off from my job. I wasn’t planning to start a newsletter. I was trying to process a lot of change at once, and one of the hardest parts was losing my work identity—the version of myself that had always been defined, whether I liked it or not, by what I did for a living.
I have come a long way on that front. There’s still road ahead, but that’s not the point here.
The point is: I got the job.
After 18 months of unemployment, freelancing, inconsistent paychecks, borrowing money from friends, and doing things with credit cards I will not be elaborating on—I’ve been offered a full-time position as a consultant at a firm I’ve been contracting with for a while now. It’s a good company. I’m surrounded by smart and talented people and the work has (overall) been genuinely fulfilling without being all-consuming.
I am so relieved I could cry.
The things that have kept me up at night for more than a year—consistent income, benefits, being able to actually save money again—are no longer things I have to white-knuckle through. And the unexpected part? Losing my job gave me a lot. New creative outlets. A healthier relationship with my own body. The experience of figuring out who I am as Shelly the person rather than Shelly who exists to serve the org chart.
Now I get to take all of that with me.
2. How’d I do on my February goals?
At the top of the month I posted my February to-do list on Instagram, so it feels only right to report back.
Get back to the gym: Not exactly. I actually cancelled my F45 membership, which genuinely makes me sad because I love it—but my new role comes with a lot more client-facing time, travel, and responsibility, so a class schedule just isn’t realistic right now. I’ve been working out at home in the meantime, and once a few new paychecks kick in, I’m going to look into a 24-hour gym and local trainers so I can keep up with the strength work. It’s a detour, not a stop.
Watch all the Best Picture nominees: I have watched three out of ten. Hamnet (loved), Sinners (absolutely incredible), and Frankenstein (meh). The Oscars are next month. I am choosing to believe watching the remaining seven is still achievable, and I will not be taking questions.
Give myself a spa day: Done—and it was heaven. My best friend got me an incredible birthday gift card, and I used every cent of it without a single moment of guilt.
Galentine’s Day with the bestie: We cancelled. We are, objectively, the lamest. But we did spend Valentine’s Day together watching hockey, which I would argue is more romantic, anyway.
Help Mom set up her new place: This one I nailed, and it’s been one of the genuinely lovely things about this month. My mom has never had a space that was fully hers to decorate—not once—and watching her pick things out and get excited about it has been really something.
3. Goodbye to my garbage trash show
Tell Me Lies has ended, and I am genuinely bereft.
I have lovingly referred to this show for its entire run as my garbage trash show filled with garbage trash people, and I say that with my whole chest as the highest possible compliment. I do not know what will fill this void.
I know the finale was controversial—specifically how things ended with Stephen and Lucy—but I thought it was incredible. Hilarious. Kind of perfect. My only real issue with the whole season was the time gap. Six years is way too long to still be in touch with people you actively hated in college, let alone to be invited to their wedding.
As for the ending itself: I understand why people are frustrated that Stephen essentially gets to ride off into the sunset after humiliating Lucy yet again. But I also think a dramatic takedown or him finally being held accountable for Macy’s death would have been ridiculous—even for a show operating at peak ridiculousness at all times. Creator Megan Oppenheimer has talked about this, and she said it better than I can:
[We wanted to make] sure that the consequences were imperfect and incomplete …[Stephen is] never going to actually be happy. Being Stephen is a punishment in itself. You see him realize that this season where he starts to have this spiral, when he no longer has his relationship with his sister, he can no longer control Wrigley, he can no longer control Evan. He’s spiraling because he’s a deeply unhappy person. And yes, he gets these like minor, temporary, destructive wins, but then he’s immediately bored afterwards.
I think that’s exactly right. Imperfect consequences are still consequences. Life is annoying that way.
Also: Wrigley is perfect and has always been perfect and will continue to be perfect in perpetuity. He is the only person in this entire show who deserved anything good, and the finale delivered. There were two moments where I nearly stood up and applauded. (Ok, I may have actually done this after Stephen’s Yale acceptance was revoked and it cut to Wrigley.)
IYKYK.
If you’re not at peace with how things ended, Betches did a rewrite of the finale where these shitty ass men don’t find happiness, and honestly it’s worth a read. I cackled at their rewrite of Chris.
4. What I read in February
A good reading month! Here’s the quick version.
A Year of Nothing by Emma Gannon: A fast read that I genuinely enjoyed, though I was hoping for a little more introspection about her relationship to burnout and work. Still, I highlighted more than a few sections, which is always a good sign.
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk: Weird, original, and unexpectedly poignant. Full review forthcoming!
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins: Continuing my journey back into the Hunger Games universe, I read this one for the first time and I genuinely don’t understand the hate. The backstory of Coriolanus Snow is fascinating precisely because it’s not a redemption arc—it’s not trying to explain or excuse anything. He was always a huge dickbag, and he went on to be a huge dickbag until he died. What I found most interesting was the information about the early Hunger Games, before it became the spectacle we know from the Katniss era. Looking forward to closing out with Sunrise on the Reaping soon.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson, The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, and Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow: All three were featured in my roundup of contemporary Black authors earlier this month, and all three deserve to be there. Black Cake in particular was a standout; I still find myself thinking about those characters. Full thoughts on all three here.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: A reread in anticipation of watching the new adaptation (an atrocity, from what I can tell). I actually dropped my original rating from five stars to four this time around. I still think it’s an incredible piece of work, but the second section drags in a way I didn’t remember, and I wasn’t as completely enamored as I was when I first read it as a teenager. Some books are meant to be discovered young.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin: More on this one soon, but good lord. The title is not lying to you. I felt like I was having a complete psychological episode the entire time I was reading it. If you like weird, unsettling fiction, this one is for you.
As I write this, I’m reading Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (book club pick) and Restoration by Ave Barrera (a recommendation from Reading Through Life). Two very different books! I’m enjoying both, though I haven’t had enough time to really sit with Restoration yet.
5. We were all rooting for you, Tyra
I watched Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model on Netflix, and I have thoughts. First and most pressing: Tyra’s agent did her dirty. Tyra is the undisputed queen of delulu, but someone in her camp had to know that signing up for this was going to be less of a redemption arc and more of a roast. Bold choice, everyone.
I wasn’t surprised by much, if I’m being honest. Not surprised to learn that reality TV cameras filmed a sexual assault and its traumatic aftermath like a gang of thirsty bloodhounds. Not surprised to learn that a show about modeling gave people eating disorders. And absolutely not surprised to learn that Tyra, when push comes to shove, will always choose Tyra. Some things are just load-bearing facts of the universe.
The one thing that genuinely gutted me was learning that J. Alexander had a stroke. He spent his entire career inventing and perfecting the model walk, training some of the most famous women in the world to own a runway—when the thing you can no longer do is the very thing you built your legacy on, that’s devastating. That one I wasn’t ready for.
I watched every single cycle of this show, including the weird one where they had men and gave a guy a face weave, and I ate up every minute of this docuseries. It needed to be way longer than three episodes. The part that’s hard to sit with is that the thread running through all of it is basically: that’s just how it was then. But as an elder millennial who lived the show in real time...that’s kind of how it was then.
Honestly, this reel is more accurate than the Netflix trailer, and I’m dropping it here accordingly:
6. Men, disappointing me since always
I’ll be honest: I generally find the Olympics to be boring nationalistic nonsense that pits countries against each other and brings out the worst in everyone. I say this with love and a full awareness that I am not the target audience.
And yet. When the NHL announced that players would be returning to Olympic competition for the first time in 12 years, I was genuinely excited. Ten Florida Panthers were going to be competing. I was going to get to watch my guys on the biggest stage in hockey. I was psyched. When the time came, I was even rooting for my country.
I should have known better.
The US men’s team won gold for the first time in 46 years, in overtime, on a beautiful goal that clinched it. I was genuinely excited.
But of course, they couldn’t even give us 24 hours to celebrate. Because men.
What we got next was the team partying with Kash Patel. What we got was Trump calling into the locker room and disparaging the US women’s hockey team and all the guys hooting and hollering along like a bunch of morons.
And then, when asked about it1, what we got ranged from non-answers—
Kyle Connor: “I don’t really have any thoughts on it.” Clearly not.
—to weak claims about how they actually do respect women—
Auston Matthews: “The night we won the gold medal, we were hanging out in the dining hall until like three, four in the morning.” Ah yes, you sat with them in the cafeteria. I see.
—to petulant whining about how people are making things political—
Vincent Trocheck: “It’s sad that it’s getting politicized the way it is.”
Jack Hughes: “Everything is so political.”
This from men who spent two days as willing participants in a political event, posing for photos with Patel—whose actual job is to help Trump operate without consequence—like he’s a frat brother at a kegger. Who donned MAGA hats and posed in photos. Who visited the White House and missed valuable practice and recovery time to attend the State of the Union at Trump’s personal invite.
The US women’s team also won gold. They did not go to the White House. They are now spending their moment answering questions about what the men did.
It’s shameful. The doubling down makes it worse.
I really wanted to be happy about this. But I’m not. In the immortal words of Captain Raymond Holt:
March is already looking busier than February, which I didn’t think was possible. But I’m going into it employed with seven Best Picture nominees left to watch. Worse places to start.
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Embarrassing quotes from hockey players courtesy of The Athletic.
I am also not over the end of Tell Me Lies. I was delusional in my hopes that there'd be a fourth season, even though I was pretty sure there wasn't enough plot to sustain it. But I found the finale to be very fun, if a little uneven. And I will protect Wrigley at all costs.