Hi Darling Ones,

I don’t know about you, but my Biden/Harris victory glee was super short lived. It lasted from the time my friend EM texted me about it (I was reading the very excellent White Ivy by Susie Yang) up until Maxwell said, “I love you,” before he closed the front door last night.

Last night was the last time I’ll spend in the company of another human until Thanksgiving. I sucked up every single drop of human companionship talking about all the things with The Youth — records, GenX jadedness, what they think will define their generation, their Halloween costumes, the cats, struggles with mental health, capitalism, and how fucking hard it is to be a goddamn human alive right now.

I’m proud to say I did not cry when they left (for the record I sent them home with all the leftover beef stew, two biscuits, two pints of albondigas soup, and two pints of pork tomatillo chili).

Frankly, I’m a little surprised, because I’m crying like a baby now. I’m afraid of being alone this long. In the immortal words of Britney Spears, “my loneliness is killing me.” It’s been killing me and that was with the every-other-week Family Dinner.

We really want Thanksgiving. So those of us who plan to gather have promised to quarantine as much as possible from now until then. The dinner will be tiny by usual standards — just my parents, me, Sister #3, and Maxwell, and still it feels so fraught.

For the most part I pride myself on being a fiercely independent, don’t need anyone, angry hermit. I mean, come on that’s my brand. But this pandemic has made me realize I’m angrier than I thought and not nearly as hermity. I want to go back and kick my own ass for every hang out I skipped, every time I moaned about my family being here hogging up my space for too long, and every time I made coffee at home instead of going to a coffee shop. Though, I don’t think you can really store up human interaction in some sort of loneliness panel located between your shoulder blades. But still maybe the memories of hanging out would keep me warm at night?

Uffda. It’s all just so much all the time.

My plan today was to write about how closely the song “Alabama Pines,” which I’ve written about before, very accurately sums up my feelings right now, specifically I don’t even need a name anymore. When no one calls it out, it kinda vanishes away.

But things never go as I plan. And, anyway, I ran across this line of my own writing and I’m like “damn, girl, you done good that one time*.”

So I’m just gonna live you with that.

If they had Emotional Olympics, I would be the world-record holder in pining. I pine like a motherfucker every damn day.

Navel-gazingly yours,
Jodi

*The fact that I do find myself endlessly amusing is the only solace I’m taking right now in this time of pandemic & infinite lonesomeness.

P.S. I’m gonna make a playlist at some point between now and the pandemic ending about the best songs about loneliness. I feel like I’m the subject-matter expert on this one. That’s right, THE. The one. Me.