Hi Darling Ones,

Well, January, all 473 days of it, has been a trip, hasn’t it? M

How are you doing trying to hold on to your humanity and protect your heart in these ever crueler times? It’s hard out here for a human, ain’t it?

One of the things I never thought about in all my history classes (which were crappy, because white supremacy and US education) were people’s daily lives and how hard it must have been to live through history.

Everything feels trivial while the fascists dictate and order and aircraft fall out of the skies. How do you not give in to the nihilism and helplessness? I don’t have the answer.

What I do have is a teeny bit of experience carrying on while absolutely every single thing sucks. That’s what having a disabling stroke is like. A lot of the things suck every single day. My head always feels discombobulated. My knees hurt. I can’t see things sharply. My brain thinks I’m falling. Even right now as I type.

My experience has showed me everything can suck and you can laugh. You can enjoy your people and love your life and read a book and eat ice cream all while the things that suck go on sucking.

You do what you can to alleviate the suck to the best of your ability (sit to stand exercises, calling your senator, or donating to a person or org that could use help) and you carry on.

It’s not easy. Some days it feels like a joyful act of rebellion and others it feels like willful ignorance. We do what we can.

So I’m gonna continue sharing what I appreciated each month. Yes, the world is on fire. I don’t feel the need to hold a social media press conference expressing my rage/sadness over every cruelty inflicted by Trump and his minions. There are better, smarter, more articulate people for that.

I’m gonna stick to what I do best: talking about books, music, and whatever is annoying me at the moment. And butts. Maybe boners.

Romanticism, Hana Vu

I think it was Hana Vu’s song “Dreams” that snagged my attention while mindlessly listening to some algorithm-generated playlist. However, it was this line from “Care” that really made me sit up and play attention: “The more I think about it now, I’m just a book you throw away, cause you don’t know what I’m about.”

I heard that line and was instantly chin on hands, please tell me more. Boy, does she have lot to tell us, all wrapped in shiny, fun indie pop. I’m in love with this record. So in love I’ve listened to the entire thing no less than 16 times this month. You should listen to it too.

There was probably more I appreciated but I didn’t keep good notes and now my eyes are too pooped to keep typing.

Were you able to dig anything this month? Tell us about it!

Jodi