Uffda Darling Ones,

How are your hearts holding up? Are your feet warm at least?

Things ain’t so good here. The US Government continues to occupy Minnesota, killing people and kidnapping anyone who is not white. Not good at all.

I only know this because I keep peeking at the screens that keep me connected to the world. It’s not helping and only makes me angrier.

There’s so much anger inside of me it keeps my feet warm. And when then anger starts to feel a little boring I switch to annoyance and utter uselessness. I tend to cycle through these three on an hourly basis.

Anger at the continued ICE occupation of my beloved state and city. On Instagram someone shared a screenshot of a Threads post where ICE were patting themselves on the back for helping someone in Shakopee, MN jump their car on a cold day. It makes my stomach hurt. The picture they posted was on Marschall & 4th, a few miles from Supergenius HQ, and about a block away from one of the Mexican grocery stores. Incidentally, I worked at that store in the 90s when it was a Tom Thumb.

Annoyance at smug city dwellers who like to lecture “white suburbanites” about how they should help by eating at immigrant-owned restaurants in Minneapolis (rather than the ones our own cities, I guess) or helpfully point out the nearest tourist trap from the last execution. These liberal, tolerant assholes believe the suburbs have not changed from the white-washed places portrayed in John Hughes movies. I thought city-dwellers were supposed to be smarter, more worldly, more open than us automaton, cookie-cutter suburbanites. I also have lots of annoyance for grifting influencers and shitty media.

Utter uselessness is directed at myself. I’m homebound until I get a new wheelchair. I haven’t left HQ since January 9th and probably won’t get a chance until March or Ruby Vroom arrives. The walker + my bad balance + ice & snow = a broken hip waiting to happen. Plus, my mom fell and broke her shoulder which means she can’t chauffeur me a round. And because I have $0.00 I can’t throw money at the problem like I did during the uprising after the murder of George Floyd. This all feels like meager excuses for sitting on my biscuit never having to risk it. Maybe they are. Maybe it’s okay to be quiet and afraid and try not to add anymore burden on anyone else.

I don’t know anymore.

Useless & helpless,
Jodi

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Hola Darling Ones,

Well, we made it to 2026 and it’s been a real kick in the crotch, hasn’t it?

On January first I started using this neck & chest firming cream before bed each night because I’m well past my prime.

I have/had a ridiculous amount of creams, potions, and unguents from good ol’2020 when I had more money than sense. I’ve been making my way through them over the past year or so. Most of them are crap because I look exactly the same no matter what I smear on my face.

The package on the cream claims, “97% had firmer skin in just two weeks.” That’s why I started using it on the first, because I’d be able to remember two weeks from the first.

But then monsters decided to up their cruelty and now my state is occupied my hostile forces and so last night as I was spreading the goo on my neck, I said into the mirror, “this is crap. My skin isn’t firmer!”

When I climbed into bed I realized we were only ten days into 2026. Yowza that cream’s got four more days to give me the neck of a 20-year-old.

As for 2026? I don’t know. . . it’s hard out there for a human.

Since I use humor as a defense mechanism and to hide from my feelings, I joked the other day about how I missed the pre-Rodney King 90s when white people like me could live in ignorant bliss about the murderous police and the violence they inflict on people because they feel like it.

The joke did not make me feel better, but I tried.

Can a person even feel better right now? Since the murder of Renee Nicole Good I’ve been quiet. I don’t have any words to help or heal, and no desire to add to the echo chamber that gets more performative with each atrocity. Between the woke scolds* and the creative-types patting themselves on the back for continuing to art as an act of resistance I’m a little more misanthropic than usual.

One of my goals this year is to write more (this has been my goal every year of my entire life), and that gets tougher as the US falls further into fascism. I do not want to write about politics and current events. There are smarter people that are better at that. I want to write about frivolity. I want to compare and contrast the use of sleep in the lyrics of Jason Isbell’s “Foxes in Snow” and Amanda Shires’ “Nobody’s Girl.”

However, that feels not just frivolous but unserious and disrespectful at this moment in time. I’m a generic Allen Ginsburg, “America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?”

Not even close to figuring it out,
Jodi

 
*I just learned the term “woke scold” from one of Wolfdogg’s daughters. She kept calling him a woke scold and it was hilarious because as a 50somoething white guy there about 583 million worse things he could be than a woke scold. Also, he’s right. Spotify is evil.

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Hi Darling Ones,

How are you? I have not been well, hence the extended silence. The triple-whammy of Trump’s victory + my recovery plateau + the dying of the light (erm, time change) has left me. . .

sad?
grouchy?
angry?
nihilistic?
empty?

I can’t finish that sentence and thus I haven’t written in more than a fortnight.

Where do I even being to deal with everything? How do you come to terms with being disabled and even nice than that, how do you get comfortable using that term to refer to yourself? I don’t feel as if I’m “disabled enough” to claim it, which is probably more ableism in action.

How do I hold the uncertainty of what it will mean to be disabled in Trump’s America? Half the country voted to elect a man who very famously, and publicly made fun of people who have arm tremors similar to mind.

What about being poor and disabled in a country run by a president in the pocket of billionaires? I’ve only managed to make $5000 so far this year and my savings are rapidly dwindling. I’m still hoping to get on the dole, but social security has moved its decision timing from December to February. Then what?

And then when my brain can’t handle any of that, I think of bigger picture things outside of me. What will happen to my Jewish sister and her vocally-pro-Palestinian community of educators? What will happen to women and trans folks?

People like to label these fears hysteria (of course), but these are the same people who said Row would never be overturned.

Darling ones, I’ve got the mean reds and I could use some cheering up. What do you do to get on more stable emotional ground?

I’ve mostly been hiding from everything by making tiny toys while watching cartoons. So far that has changed nothing. Now I’m trying to write about it because sometimes that helps.

Lost,
Jodisa

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Oh, Darling Ones,

How are your hearts and your nerves?

If you are the type of person who cares about other people, even the ones you don’t know; the type of person who wants to limit suffering and make sure everyone has enough, your faith in humanity, your heart, and your soul took a beating this week.

Mine sure did, and I’ve spent the last few days yelling with people who agree with me.

Something sure as hell happened and it was not good. At all. I’m not in the right head space nor do I have the emotional capacity to dig too deep into an election post mortem. There’s plenty of recriminations to go around. I do lay a lot of the blame at the feet of cis men and the masculine bubbles they live in. Maybe we’ll talk about this more later.

Maybe it’s the near-death experience (sounds dramatic, but strokes kill people all the time) or the fact that we’ve done this before (2016-2020), but this time around I feel more intellectually devastated than emotionally.

I did not spend yesterday in a teary puddle. Instead, I spent the day doing things that make me happy. I ate homemade banana bread (thanks, Sunday me), switched back and forth between listening to Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein and Joy Oladokun’s “OBSERVATIONS FROM A CROWDED ROOM” while crocheting. I spent the evening shouting on the phone to my friend EM about how my new life’s mission is to make men uncomfortable about their casual sexism whenever I can. Men make me uncomfortable all the time. It’s only fair.

Very different from 2016 when I spent most of the day crying helplessly.

I was uncharacteristically optimistic making all kinds of vows (privately and publicly) to love harder, rebel joyfully, and not let the fascist rob of hope. Doesn’t sound like me, does it? But it’s how I feel.

Frankly, I am more selfishly frightened this time around. I’m newly disabled with poor people’s insurance. Things can go pretty bad for me really quickly if I lose that insurance. Even if I had the ability to work full-time I’d never be able to cover the cost of my macular edema treatments. According to my insurance claims those cost $18,089 each time I go. I go every four to six weeks. I won’t make enough money this entire year to cover one appointment.

I’m only getting by financially because I’m draining my savings. That won’t last forever.

So yes, scary as hell. Or at least it might be. Thanks to Lexapro (please don’t take that away RF Brainworm) I can calm myself enough to not worry about it until I know I have to.

Until I have more concrete things to worry about I’m going to love hard, rebel joyfully, and make things to share with people.

It’s okay if you’re not in the same kind of place. We’re in the upside down and nothing makes sense. We’ve been through this before, hopefully we’ll make it through again.

Love, love, love
Jodi

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Hello Darling Ones,

How are you holding up the day before something happens?

A long time ago when I was seeing the TTHM he always dealt with my anxiety over something nebulous and impossible to know by saying, “something will happen and then you deal with it.”

I carry that bit of wisdom with me and probably will forever. Thanks, TTHM.

Here’s what I’m doing while I wait for something to happen.

• Googling: Is it illegal to take a picture of your ballot Minnesota. I filled out my ballot and sent it in awhile ago. It was accepted on October 7th and will be counted according to the MN Secretary of State website.
• Listening to ol’ Pappy John Cougar Mellencamp. The Coug is my sonic security blanket. If things go poorly tomorrow I’ll pull out the Paul Simon and Frightened Rabbit. But for now, it’s all about The Cougs.
• Randomly shouting “PEACEFUL TRANSFER OF POWER” at the cats/
• Checking in on my friends to make they have a snack plan in place. This is not a drill, sweet and salty must be at the ready.
• Making calico beans in the crockpot. This is my new favorite comfort food. I eat it with a grilled cheese. I cannot vouch for that recipe, I didn’t use it. Recipes are for unimaginative fraidy cats.
• Writing this list.
• Last night I bugged my family about getting matching Christmas pajamas. We had to act fast because they were on sale for $5.70. I can’t wait.
• Doing a little bit of work (yay!)
• Soon I’m gonna turn all the rotten bananas in my freezer into banana bread (see how I’m gonna have my sweet snack base covered)
• Reading The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry because a social media friend suggested it. “I come into the peace of wild things
  who do not tax their lives with forethought
  of grief.”

All these things are doing a pretty good job of keeping me sort of focused but unfocused at the same time. I keep reminding myself to take deep breaths, unclench my teeth, and relax my shoulders. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about my tremor which goes off the charts when I’m stressed out. Maybe if there’s a peaceful transition of power it will go away completely?

Be kind to yourselves, Darling Ones. Something will happen and then we can deal with it.

Optimistically yours,
Jodi

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