Hi Darling Ones,

I slept in this morning because there’s been some stuff going on and I’m tired. I woke up in 1972. Fuck.

As you know, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. So not only did I wake up in 1972 now we live in the United States of Forced Birth & Gun Violence. I don’t know if the depths of my despair can get any deeper.

For months now I’ve been talking about how I have zero hope things will get better. I do not believe any form of government on any level in the USFB&GV (formerly known as the USA) will do anything to stop suffering. Instead, they are hellbent on making things worse. I know the cruelty is the point.

When my sisters were here a few weeks ago, we listened to Matthew McConaughey’s remarks at the White House regarding the Uvalde massacre. As McConaughey talked about the coroners staying up all night to try to identify the bodies of little kids, I burst into noisy sobs.

“I can’t take the unending cruelty. This country inflicts so much pain on everyone. Everyone.”

It’s so fucking hard, Darling Ones. How do we keep doing this?

This dumpster nation makes things worse and worse on a near daily basis. Things are so bad in the grande scheme it makes trying to deal with our tiny, individual tragedies impossible. Where do you focus your sorrow and your anger when everything is awful all the time everywhere?

As I am typing this I got a text from MN Governor Tim Walz asking me to donate money in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned. It’s fury on top of horror on top of sorrow over here. The worst kind of sandwich.

I was hopeless before I woke up this morning in 1972, and now I need a new word for that.

And now, because the cruelty is never-ending, I need to go work. I need to build stupid little websites and write stupid little copy so I can pay to continue living in a country that doesn’t think I’m capable of making decisions regarding what happens inside my own body. I need to do the work to earn the money because we cannot for one single second take time off to acknowledge our own humanity and how fucking broken everything is.

Your favorite fury (Allecto, unceasing in anger),
Jodi

The post The Abject Cruelty of Living in Unceasing Unprecedented Times appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

The worst part of living in a white supremacist capitalistic christian patriarchal oligarchy is that you’re expected to carry on like nothing is happening when something is happening all the time. And not like piddly navel-gazing petty drama shit. And not even serious, life-altering personal shit. But like catastrophic, apocalyptic, life-ending shit. It’s been happening off and on since like 2016, but has really pushed the pedal to the floor since 2020.

Ok, the cruelty towards everyone who is not a white cishet male is the very worst part, but the carrying on is right up there.

Today I felt a little bit like I did after Coup Day. What is one supposed to do as their bodily autonomy perches on the precipice of obsolescence?

Fuck if I know, which is appropriate. It’s the answer I gave my female friends who kept asking, “What do we do now? How do we fight this?”

How did you spend your day waiting for your rights to be taken away?

I spent a lot of time doomscrolling twitter watching people turn themselves inside out discussing their abortions while the dudes I know tweeted about the Weird Al movie or retweeted the thoughts of people without uteruses who might be marginally inconvenienced by more than half the US population losing the right to decide what’s best for thier lives.

I listened to Tori Amos’ “Silent All These Years” about fifteen times. I did this mostly because the boy you best hope that I bleed real soon line. But also because this song reminds me of being twenty-two and curled into the front seat of my friend Whitley’s Escort? Camry? Accord? I only remember it was a tiny car unsuitable for my 6’5″ frame. Also it was a stick shift she had only recently learned to drive and she was driving us to McDonald’s for hot fudge sundaes that cost like a quarter back in 1994. We listened to this song as we sat in the parking lot eating our ice cream.

Most of my day was spent reading the super engaging yet horrifying We Are Watching Eliza Bright, which was like The Virgin Suicides + Ready Player One – 80S Dude Nostalgia + Gamergate.

I also ugly cried into a giant bowl of leftover pasta while watching “Julie” on HBOMax. I ugly cried for three reasons.

1. Paul, Julia’s husband played by David Hyde Pierce aka Niles Crane really loves his wife
2. Julia’s dad can’t see it because Julia does not fit into any box people would label feminine.
3. It’s been a rough day.

Now here I am typing listlessly into this box because I feel the need to document this cruelty, this hopelessness, this abject failure of the US Justice system.

This sucks. My soul is exhausted. I’m existentially burnt out. As a white middle class woman, I’m very near the top of the social food chain and I’m not sure how much longer I can carry on like normal. I cannot even begin to understand what those more vulnerable and marginalized are going through every fucking day in this country.

Despondently yours,
Jodi

The post What Do You Do While Waiting for Your Rights to Be Taken Away? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Fucking A, Darling Ones,

What the fuck is with this garbage country and the Supreme Court? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

Read the Politico story about the overturning of Roe v. Wade if you need to catch up. Do not tell me to calm down. Do not tell me that it’s a draft. For your own safety, do not tell me anything because I am incandescent with rage.

I cannot comprehend the forced-birth movement at all. I know they call themselves “pro-life,” but they don’t actually care about people’s lives, and definitely not the lives of children. The whole thing is a bullshit way to control people with uteruses and punish them for having sex. You never see a “pro-life”/forced-birth person who is also pro:

• sex education
• free birth control
• universal healthcare
• better parental leave
• broader welfare accessibility
• subsidized childcare

You never see these yahoos campaigning for laws on penises. You never see them protesting wanton sperm producers. Without sperm there can be no pregnancies. It takes two to tango, but this country only wants to force laws on those with the uteruses.

Were you called hysterical in 2016? How about when Kavanaugh was confirmed? Coney Barrett? Did you cry a river of tears when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died? Me too and if I could go back and bite every single one of those dudes, I would. It might make me feel momentarily better.

I cannot believe I live in a dumpster nation that believes it knows better about what is right for my life and my body than I do. This Supreme Court seems to think the rights of a hypothetical child is more important than my rights as fully-formed human being.

What happened to the popularity of my body, my rules that the anti-vaxxers were all hyped up about? Are those motherfuckers gonna show up in droves to complain? They fucking should.

Oh, I fucking hate it here. I hate this timeline. I hate this country and its ineffectual leaders. I super hate Republicans and conservatives.

I wish I had something smart and thoughtful to say. I wish I had a rally the troops mentality or an optimism that we can come out better on the other side of this. I got none of that. I’m angry and I don’t know what else to do.

Jodi

The post I am Hysterical appeared first on I Will Dare.