Hi Darling Ones,

Earlier this week when I started watching the documentary series “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” I made a joke about sleeping too well lately being the reason behind watching it.

I finished the show last night and guess what I was doing at 2 a.m. this morning? Folding laundry because I could not sleep. I read the book a few years ago when it first came out and lost so much sleep because it scared the crap out of me. I wasn’t always such a fraidy cat, but being a single woman who lives alone and can go literal weeks without seeing someone has changed that. I’ve pondered sleeping with a baseball bat near my bed, but I don’t have one and instead keep scissors nearby.

The show was a lot. Good, but a lot. The last scene involves a sort of party where the survivors of the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist get together. The women would introduce themselves with their name and number. Like, “I’m Jodi, number thirty nine.” And that number indicted where in his raping/killing span they were. There were so many women and I lost it. I cried for good ten, fifteen minutes straight.

Matters weren’t helped by the fact that earlier this week I watched the Woodstock 99 documentary where a John Scher, a man, said in 2021, on camera, with his actual mouth, “I am critical of the hundreds of women that were walking around with no clothes on, and expecting not to be touched. They shouldn’t have been touched, and I condemn it. But you know, I think that women that were running around naked, you know, are at least partially to blame for that.”

Because, according to this man, the only thing keeping men from groping and assaulting women all the time is clothes? Even though in the very documentary he was participating in about the concert he was producing there were tons and tons of women being groped while fully clothed.

So I couldn’t sleep last night because I was upset about how much men hate women and trying to puzzle out why that is. Also, I was thinking about marriage and my aversion to it, but that wasn’t totally related.

This morning I woke up to the news that the murder two miles from my house was actually a decapitation. A man who repeatedly abused his girlfriend, beheaded her in broad daylight. He cut off her head and drove off with it, leaving her body behind. That’s a lot of hate for one particular woman.

The crime is so ghastly there isn’t a lot I can say. It’s haunted me every time I blink or my brain is quiet for even a second.

Everything feels like a lot today and is exacerbated by the watery-eyes and sore throat caused by the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.

Bleh,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Guess which 6’5″ Spinster Goddess of Minnesota finally landed a vaccination appointment? It’s me! Thanks to eagle-eyed Sister #2 who spotted a tweet from my former (and hopefully future) State Representative Brad Tabke* I scooped up an appointment at Canterbury Park for Thursday.

I am so relieved.

That’s all I got today. My brain is foggy from endless rain and a messed up sleep schedule, so I don’t have a lot of words right now. My whole goal today was to not take a nap in hopes I can get the ZZZzzzs back to normal. It has not been easy, the nap avoidance, even though I slept like ten hours last night.

My big plans for the night are to watch “Almost Famous” in celebration of it all happening and eating a salad. I know, you all wonder how I afford this rock & roll lifestyle. It’s not easy. I’m hard to keep up with.

Tomorrow I might be more interesting. Now we all have something to look forward to,
Jodi

*I really like Brad Tabke, and I’ve voted for him many times. I’m still kind of angry that he lost to a guy who Sister #4 went to high school with and said about, “he’s an idiot!” I hate the dude and every time he acts like a total buffoon, which is frequently, I throw money at Tabke’s campaign.

The post The COVID Diaries: It’s All Happening appeared first on I Will Dare.

Dear Darling Ones,

I’ve suffered with insomnia for most of my life. I had a tumultuous, insecure childhood which made me anxious and unable to sleep. When Ronald Reagan was elected I spent most of the 80s awake in my bed fearing nuclear war. My battles with sleep have been well-chronicled in the pixels of I Will Dare.

Since I was a kid one of my self-soothing, pre-sleep rituals was telling myself romantic stories. It started with Fonzie, of course. As I’ve mentioned before I knew I wanted to make out with boys the minute I saw Fonzie on “Happy Days.” Not gonna lie, I’m still a sucker for a man with good jukebox* skills.

The fantasies I loved to unspool in my unsleeping brain were based on the episodes involving Pinky Tuscadero where I was, obviously, Pinky and Fonzie loved me. Night after night he would rescue me from the hood of my car after I was injured in the Malachi crunch.

I carried this habit up from childhood, Fonzie being replaced by boys I knew and wanted to make out with. My sleepy-time stories are always of a romantic bent, sometimes they’re sexy if I’m so inclined. As I grew into adulthood I favored imaginary love triangles featuring two guys I had a crush on, if there there two. Sometimes it was an ex and the next. Sometimes it was the current and the next. My brain loved the idea that I would get to choose between two men and the internal debate would put my to sleep.

The problem with these kinds of fantasies and my brain is that often I’d trip into the past where the monsters lie. My not-sleeping brain is a huge fan of recounting every shitty thing I’ve ever done to another human being at any point in my life and then shaming me for it. A few of its other greatest hits include: chastising me for poor decisions and regretting every chance I did not take because I was scared.

Oftentimes my self-soothing fantasies are a total fail. Would I rather lose sleep over current woes or past ones? Not the kind of triangle I wanted to be a part of.

For the most part I had left insomnia behind when I quit working an office job. Without a wake-up deadline I slept much easier. Then came all the suicide attempts of 2019 and out went sleep. I’ve said before 2019 was a motherfucker and a large part of that was how four people I love tried to end their lives and one more contemplated it. As you know, 2020 wasn’t much kinder, and while we’re only ten days into 2021, things aren’t looking too peachy.

Enter Frightened Rabbit.

They are the new musical love of my life. I am obsessed, and I’ve kind of kept a lid on it because I’m not ready to share the whys and hows of this new love. Also, I don’t feel like listening to everyone tell me how late I am to this party. I know that already. I am late to all the parties. I didn’t find The Replacements until 1995. I didn’t discover The Rolling Stones until the mid-aughts. It’s more shocking when I discover a musician early and not when the party is long since over.

What I will say is that while I was in the deep, dark depths of mourning my last relationship, a friend told me to listen to Frightened Rabbit and I finally listened. I found a new musical soulmate.

I’ve watched this video of a 2012 performance of “Keep Yourself Warm” so often I’m officially married to the kid in the striped shirt next to arms-crossed guy. His name, I decided, is Fergus and we’re very happy together because he brings me chocolate chip cookies while I’m writing. Do I fantasize about imaginary Fergus to help me fall asleep at night? Nope, because instead I listen to Frightened Rabbit’s album “Midnight Organ Fight.”

One night in the pits of sadness and despair and exhaustion I remembered the two years my family lived in a big house on Court Street in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. I think we moved into the house in October of 1990 after a summer of what was basically homelessness. My three sisters shared a huge room and I slept in what was essentially their closet. It was a magnificent closet with built in shelves and cupboards, a window that overlooked the backyard, and just enough room for a twin-size bed and a table that held my stereo. Every night for about two years I listened to one-side of a mixtape I made from a record I checked out of the Chippewa Falls library of Beatles love songs. If I thought about it long enough I could probably remember all the songs on that one side, but I can’t right now.

When I remembered that mixtape I thought, Yes! That’s the cure for my insomnia.. I didn’t settle on “Midnight Organ Fight” right away. I tried Waxahatchee’s “Saint Cloud” and Phoebe Bridgers’ “Punisher.” I even gave Liz Phair’s “Whitechocolatespaceegg” a shot for a few nights. None of these worked. I don’t know why, but at the end of each of those albums I was still awake.

Since I’ve started listening to “Midnight Organ Fight” as I fall asleep I’ve become the All-Time Queen Champion of Sleep (yes, I’m worried writing about this is a goocher, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take, obviously). It’s become part of my sleep ritual. Turning on this record and setting Spotify’s sleep timer is the last thing I do before I take my glasses off, rollover, and close my eyes.

It is such a sad and lovely record. I’m comforted by the sadness in the songs. The lyrics make me feel less alone for the most part, though the ending of “The Modern Leper” sometimes hits me hard. You should sit with me and we’ll start again, and you can tell me all about what you did today, what you did today. Because yes, dearly departed Scott Hutchison that is exactly what I want, someone to tell what I did today. On the many, many, many nights where I’m going to bed after not having spoken to a single soul, this one gets me a little choked up.

Thankfully, it’s the first song on the record and it moves quickly to other songs that don’t hurt as much. What I like is that the lyrics and the music are interesting enough that when my brain tries to sneak off to where the monsters lie it’s pretty easy to make it pay attention to the song.

I know the first ten songs on this album by heart. Every note. Every word. But only the first ten because I’m usually asleep before “Keep Yourself Warm” (the tenth song). There’s many nights where I don’t even make it to “Bright Pink Bookmark” (the seventh song). It is wonderful.

How do you sleep at night, Darling Ones?
Jodi

*This wasn’t originally meant as euphemism for my lady parts, but rather I meant it sincerely as men who have good taste in music, but now it cracks me up and I will henceforth refer to my genitals as the jukebox and much like Dawson Leery’s cryface it will never not make me laugh.

The post The COVID Diaries: How Do You Sleep at Night? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Ya girl is back. Can I pull of “ya girl?” I tried to pull off “hella” this weekend and I don’t think it worked. I’m not sure if girl works either. I’m a forty-eight-year-old woman and even when I was a girl nobody treated me like one. Being a 5’4″ seven year old does that to you.

So, I saw a human yesterday. It sucked, but I did not hate it. My nephew Max stopped by to pick up some stuff he had shipped here and to wrap some Hanukkah gifts for his girlfriend before joining her family for dinner. It sucked only because I was the kind of tired that makes your brain foggy and has you hating everything. We FaceTimed with the Portland people and I bah-humbugged all over the situation.

“You really are a grinch this year,” Sister #2 said. Usually I’m Christmas as fuck making hats and special treats and generally being giddy about this time of year. This year for a special treat I’m bitter and resentful and don’t want to do anything that doesn’t involve sitting on the couch alternately daydreaming and hating everything.

While I’m still cranky and annoyed with everything I’m doing it with a bunch of joie de vivre today. Why? Because I cratered into sleep at 8:45 last night and did not wake up until 7:30 this morning. I’m like a new woman. I’m like a recent convert to some religion and I want to ask everyone, “have you heard about sleep? It’s amazing!” Because I took a mittfulla melatonin on my way to the sleep crater I had roughly 29 weird dreams. The best one was where I was a really good singer and I convinced these dudes to let me join their band. Also, I downloaded the audiobook version Daisy Jones & The Six from the library and listened to it before I fell asleep.

Hours later. . .

Seems my body has decided we’re going to catch up on every single grain of missed sleep today. I did the very smallest amount of things, ate a couple of tacos, and then my body was ready for a nap. And it worked! More often than not I fail at napping. Now I’m trying not to be anxious about the nap ruining tonight’s sleep.

While I’m still livin’ la vida vivre* here’s four other good things.

• I showed Maxwell my cool, new rechargeable candle lighter and he was as impressed & amazed by it as I am.
• I picked up groceries today and I got a bunch of donuts.
• Burning candles is my new thing (kinda like lipstick) and I finally finished this giant, stinky bath & body works candle I bought 82 years ago and now I have one that smells like cinnamon and cardamom and if this candle were a man I’d change my facebook status to in a relationship.
• I spent most of the afternoon while not napping listening to Soul Coughing and it has made me nostalgic in a very sweet way.

My words burn the air like the names of candybars,
Jodi

*Yeah, I know that makes no sense. I got 780 days of Duolingo Spanish and one semester of 8th grade French from 1986 in my brain. I’m no dummy.

The post The COVID Diaries: I Saw a Human Yesterday appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Before I get into it, I just have to say the light outside here at dusk the day before the apocalypse is exquisite. It’s that purple tinged with orange sunsetting kind of light. If I weren’t committed to being a silver fox (with a lavender rinse at some point) or had any hair, I would dye it this color.

How are you handling the day before? I’m not doing well! My anxiety is at a fever pitch and it’s made me super manic. And let me tell you, manic on four hours of sleep is a new kind of hell. My attention span is already nonexistent due to the insomnia and then add this and well. . . I picked up my phone three separate times to air drop a picture to my laptop and got distracted each time.

I’ve been up since 7:15 this morning and I have accomplished very little. I worked for about an hour and a half, failed at napping twice, ate a turkey burger, read 3/4 of a mystery (will finish tonight), started working on our Christmas hats, and contemplated buying some stuff to soothe my anxiety. Here’s an abridged list:

• The LEGO Bookshop
• Some more plants for my Sadness Garden
• “The Midnight Organ Fight” by Frightened Rabbit on vinyl
• Super Mario LEGO
• A new wooden cutting board
• A mustard-yellow cardigan
• A table-top Norfolk Pine
• Four bottles of nail polish (I’ve painted my nails exactly once in 2020 & it wasn’t me, Jaycie painted them for me)
• 400 thread count sheets
• A V-neck short sleeve pajama set (I don’t wear clothing to bed)
• A weighted blanket
• Pomegranate & Fig cuticle oil
• A SAD lamp
• Victrola Vintage 3-Speed Bluetooth Portable Suitcase Record Player with Built-in Speakers

And Darling Ones, I’m proud to admit I bought zero things. I’m reigning in my rampant spending because I keep buying stuff and still feel shitty. Hmm. It’s almost as if capitalism is a lie and stuff doesn’t make you feel better. Weird. Instead of buying things I annoyed everyone I know by begging for attention and then being super sad when that attention was not received exactly 3.92 seconds after I asked for it.

One more day. We can do it.

Jodi

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