Hi Darling Ones,

So yesterday sucked. Today’s a little less sucky because everyone on Minnesota Twitter talking about the yellow skies kinda made me happy for a hot minute, but today still sucks.

I was really rough on myself yesterday for my shitty mood and inability to do anything at all besides read a book and watch TikTok. I am often rough on myself if I’m not blandly content or if I cannot pin my mood on reasons. As if there are no reasons to be fucking any kind of way right now. The constant low-level pandemic anxiety. This country’s continued descent into fascism. The election fuckery. Take your pick, Jodi Chromey, any one of these reasons is good enough to be in a shitty mood. Yeah, in my endless internal monologue I hake taken to calling myself by my first and last name. My inner voice has gotten super formal.

You wanna know what a crappy mood I was in? So, I’m reading Willie Nelson & Bobbie Nelson’s memoir Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band. I kinda love it and it’s a little boring at the same time, mostly because I read Willie Nelson’s It’s a Long Story a few years back. And by a few years back, apparently I mean five years ago. It doesn’t seem that long ago.

But I digress.

So the new memoir is 50% brand new information and 50% I already know that. However, yesterday I got the part where Willie talked about his dad buying him his first guitar out of a Sears & Roebuck catalog. This is what he said:

I took to guitar like a duck to water. I knew the guitar had a voice. I knew that box of wood could sing. I knew by holding it against my chest it was hearing my heart. It became a part of me.

I read that and promptly burst into tears. I’m kinda tearing up again just rehashing it. When he talks about holding the guitar against his chest knowing it could hear his heart, it was like someone put into words the exact feeling I had when I first read the Beezus & Ramona books 40 years ago. It’s a feeling I still get today with certain books or songs. While I realize he’s talking more about creating than consuming, the quote still spoke to my childish, book-loving heart.

So, anyway. . . how are you? I bought a bunch of new sadness stuff including a fabled red lipstick that is alleged to look good one everyone with any kind of skin tone. So that’s gonna be fun once it arrives.

The good times are killing me,
Jodi