Hey Darling Ones,

Guess what happened today? Give up? I worked almost five entire billable hours. Just today. This is equal to all the billable hours I worked last week. I almost feel like a contributing member to society again. Yes, it is gross that I feel I have to earn money to be contributing to society. That thought just fell out of my fingers as I was typing. Now I’m angry about it. I hate how much capitalism has infected my brain. Why aren’t these heartfelt letters enough? Why do I need money to be validated? Argh! Am I more valid today than I was last week? Why can’t my brain learn to shut the fuck up when I was gonna post about good things?

Like I was all prepared to not post about the start of the Derek Chauvin trial which I’m trying not to think about right now because it makes me too anxious. And I wasn’t gonna boohiss Arkansas passing a bigoted, harmful, transphobic law that will undoubtedly hurt transkids. I wasn’t even gonna complain about how Climate Change is to fortysomething me as the Cold War was to pre-adolescent me.

Why does everything have to be so much all the time?

Despite all that, I found very many things to bring happiness into my ice-robot heart on this 72º March day in Minnesota, the 382nd day of the pandemic.

Wanna hear them? Too bad sucker.

• The Minnesota Boys’ State High School Tournament starts tomorrow and it is my all-time favorite sporting event and the only one I truly care about with my entire heart.
• Top Chef Portland also starts this week. I love Top Chef so much that it was the only TV show I paid for (until Sister #4 slid me a password).
• I was a little bummed that Thursday night was going to involve a decision between Top Chef and The Tourney and I was not looking forward to it. But guess what? For magical reasons I can only assume have to do with my happiness, The Tourney isn’t on TV Thursday. Hotdog!
• Waxahatchee released a cover of Lucinda Williams’ Fruits of My Labor bringing us one step closer to my Traveling Wilburyesque super group dream: Neko Case, Lucinda Williams, Waxahatchee, Lydia Loveless, and Kathleen Edwards. I’m gonna put this idea out into the universe as hard as I can.

That’s only four things, not too shabby for a random Monday when it’s evident the earth is dying.

Look at me looking at the bright side of things,
Jodi