Hi Darling Ones,

How’re your hearts and brains holding up while we continue to live through these cruel unprecedented times?

Mine’s okay, mostly because I was able to sleep a bunch last night and I’m doing a pretty good job of staying out of the doom spiral.

Since I’m in a decent mood, I thought I’d share some anti-bummers with you.

1. There’s Mrs. Meyer’s lilac-scented soap in the downstairs bathroom and dandelion-scented soap in the kitchen and so whenever I wash my hands it smells like spring or summer in here.
2. Sister #4 gave me the bitchen Sony cans her new job sent her and they’re fancy. So fancy, I can skip or rewind by swiping on the ear cup.
3. Whenever the current events get too heavy I’ve decided to put down the screens and go make something.
4. Currently, there is cheddar jalapeño no-knead bread resting in my kitchen.
5. Related to the last: I had an apple and sharp cheddar for lunch.
6. I’m in love with Neko Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight the More I Love You. It is beautiful and painful and the writing will stab you right in the heart in the best way.
7. Because I don’t want the book to go by too fast I’m spending part of each day listening to Case’s discography in chronological order. I just reached “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.”
8. That reminds me, I had to turn off the “pause when talking” feature of the cans because it thinks talking and singing are the same thing.

That’s what I got right now, which is a lot considering we’re in the midst of a coup by the dumbest people on earth.

Love,
Jodi

The post 8 Teeny Anti-Bummers, because the Coup of Cruelty appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Were you a fan of the show “Parks & Rec?” You know, Ron Swanson, Leslie Knope, and the gang? I am a big fan, and so is my family. “Parks & Rec” quotes make up a large portion of our family vernacular.

One of the underrated characters is Craig Middlebrooks and high-strung, dramatic, and quick-tempered employee played by Billy Eichner. In the final season Craig gets some therapy from Dr. Richard Nygard. The therapist advises Craig to “take a deep breath and say three great things about being alive” whenever he feels like yelling.

In one scene he chants, “watermelon martinis, exposed brick, Keri Russell’s hair.

Due to the fucking news, I’ve adopted this practice.

Things are bad, man. So bad.

I suppose it’s a kind of progress. Maybe I’m slowly coming out of stroke-related self-centeredness. I’m aware enough to see what’s going on in the world, be horrified, and then long for my tiny stroke-world and the horrors that only I have to deal with constantly.

The news globally, locally, in the lives pf people I care about is giving me a stomachache.

I worry all the time about protest on college campuses and the violence those in power are using to quell them. I worry about my pro-Palestine Jewish college professor sister and her husband who both teach on a college campus. I worry about the holocaust in Palestine. I worry about the ever diminishing rights of people who have uteruses are not cis or are queer in anyway. I super worry the Supreme Court is going to crown a turnip as king and give him unlimited power. I worry about a woman I know being stalked by an ex.

When it all gets too much, after about 7 minutes of reading, I close the tabs and think of Great Things About Being Alive.

A short list.

• Joy Oladokun’s song “Questions, Chaos, and Faith”. I especially love this call back to the Indigo Girls’ “Galileo” I was prostrate, as they say, to higher minds.”
• Plain old-fashioned donuts
• Top Chef
• Yarn
• Hanif Abdurraqib
• Lilac-scented hand soap
• You
• Diclofenac sodium topical gel
• Public libraries

I could type things big and small until my fingers fell off and my bones turned to dust. However, my eyes can only talk so much screen time because while there are a many great things about being alive, some things still suck.

Caustically optimistic,
Jodi

The post Jodi’s Great Things About Being Alive [An Abridged List] appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I woke up at the crack of 10 a.m. this morning to a snowy Monday. It is, for the record, the eleventy-leventh grey day of November thus far. It feels like 10 a.m. all day because the light never changes until it’s dark at 4 p.m.

The dying of the light has been particularly brutal this year for all the reasons you already know. I won’t enumerate them for the eleventy-leventh time.

I’m setting the dreary scene here so you can feel how amazing it was to wake up and not be filled with bleakness and dread.

Make no mistake, I did not greet the day with a cheery smile full of vim & vigor. I would never do that, not even on my very best day. But the absence of dread was a delight.

I got up, ate breakfast, and even did a business. And thank Ellen Willis* for that, because I have shirked my work responsibilities so hard it was becoming a huge ordeal in my head and turning all my dreams into work anxiety dreams.

What makes all this noteworthy is, I did it all without the constant echo of “I am sad. I am sad. I am sad.” reverberating throughout my heart.

Double-plus noteworthy is that I had the emotional wherewithal to recognize it. So in the spirit of recognition, here are a few things, anti-bummers** if you will, that have delighted me in the last few days.

• Cinnamon Tea: I’m not so much of a tea drinker, usually. This stuff is like a not-so-atomic fireball with caffeine. Extra credit for coming in an adorable tin that I use to store my actual Atomic Fireballs.
• Seasoned Sour Cream: Sister #4 has been here a lot due to the double-whammy deaths. One of the recent times we had Champps for dinner because we both were craving their seasoned sour cream. When she was here last night for dinner, I served her a copycat recipe and had to stop her from bathing in it because it was so good.
• The Big Brunch: This is a Top Chefesque cooking competition hosted by the endlessly charming Dan Levy, and like the host it too is endlessly charming.
• Roasting Wolfdogg: I got to make fun of Wolfdogg today for not knowing the lyrics of “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” and realizing that Ashtabula is a real place.
• People Who Show Up: Last night I told Sister #4 how touched I was by people who have unexpectedly shown up for me these past 10 weeks. Not that I didn’t think people would support me, but some people have shown up with a consistency I did not expect. I’m gonna stop typing about this because I don’t want to get weepy.
• Waffles: For dinner I made cheddar, bacon, scallion waffles with real deal maple syrup my friend Josh sent me. Each time I eat these waffles this week (the recipe makes a lot) I’m going to send warm vibes and love and solace to my friend because he needs it and deserves it.

Syrupily yours,
Jodi

 
*I don’t know about God, but I do know about Ellen Willis and she is my deity of choice.

 
**Anti-bummers are a concept I completely stole without permission from my friend, Carrie.

The post Waffles & Other Anti-Bummers appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

Work was super stressful earlier this week and my brain still hasn’t recovered from spending 48 hours drenched in deadline-induced anxiety. I would explain the ordeal but it’s boring.

Instead I present you with six tiny delights.

1. On Saturday I invented a new project for myself called #BarsOfSummer. Since I am an old Midwestern lady this involves making a new kind of bar each week until I get bored with the project. It does not involve going to a different bar each week like I’m some kind of person who leaves the house to imbibe alcohol with the unwashed masses. So far I have made Scotcharoos and they were fucking delicious.
2. Hugh, my tradescantia zebrina (never a wandering Jew because I found out that’s super antisemitic, which I kind of suspected but googled to be sure anyway), can produce flowers (pictured above). These teeny, tiny delights last like a day, but they make me smile head off.
3. The resurrected ice maker continues to function and every time I hear it fill with water my heart does a jig of joy.



4. A couple of weeks ago I bought a $1.50 bag of lemon drops that I had been craving for about two years. I went looking for them hard that one summer and never found them. The closest I could get was Lemonheads. They were not what I wanted and tasted nothing like Evan Dando. I assumed they stopped making them because that’s what happens when you grow old they stop making everything you love. Finding these at the local Hy-vee felt like the score of the century.
5. At night with the windows open I can smell lilacs.
6. It’s Disco Lemonade season (this is what I have decided to call the drink commonly known as the Arnold Palmer).

And on gross thing.

1. When I stepped outside today to check on my trees (Janine, Janis, and Trevour have relocated to their summer home) a wasp flew into my house. It was a large and angry bugger who tried valiantly to get back outside. I tried to help by opening the door and making shooing motions towards the outdoors. I even popped open the screen on the window it refused to move away from. The wasp was stupid and it ended up dying in the window. Specifically it died between the immovable top window and the bottom part that I open when the weather agrees. It died in the exact spot where it will be squished when I have to close the window. I’m pre-grossed out about this situation. There is no way to get the wasp out without turning it to smooshy wasp goo. Ick.

Love,
Jodi

The post Six Tiny Delights & One Gross Thing appeared first on I Will Dare.

]]> 382720 https://iwilldare.com/2021/10/when-sleeping-time-is-over/ Sat, 16 Oct 2021 19:12:57 +0000 https://iwilldare.com/?p=365090

Hi Darling Ones, Wendell decided at 9:36 this morning that sleeping time was over. You can see I captured the moment for posterity. At first I was affronted by his rudeness and demands for affection....

Continue

The post When Sleeping Time is Over appeared first on I Will Dare.

]]>

Hi Darling Ones,

Wendell decided at 9:36 this morning that sleeping time was over. You can see I captured the moment for posterity. At first I was affronted by his rudeness and demands for affection. But then I realized he was saving me from one of my most annoying recurring dreams, a mashup about my trust issues with my mom and my anger with Sister #3. So, I guess I owe the vengeance demon an extra belly rub.

I did not come here to work out my family issues in letter format to strangers on the Internet. Not that I’m above that, I just don’t feel like it today.

Today I feel like telling you how very much I love October.

First, there is the weather. October gives you the very best Minnesota weather has to offer. Sometimes it’s ass hot, and sometimes it’s fucking cold, but mostly it’s glorious — warm days, cozy, snuggled in a blanket nights.

Second, I love Libras. Two of my all-time favorite people were born in October (Jaycie & Maxwell).

Finally, and most importantly, it’s the light. The sun isn’t punishing like it is in August. Or deceptive like it is in January. In October the sunshine filters through the tree in my front yard and spreads dappled light throughout the living and dining rooms. There’s something soothing and hypnotic about the shimmery leaf shadows on everything the light touches. when I look at the the way the light plays across the crap in my house it’s hard to keep the black scribble in my brain going. To most it would look like I’m vaguely smiling at my coffee table, but it’s more than that.

I’m smiling at the coffee table while breathing in the scent of the chicken stock simmering on the stove. The only thing more wholesome would be some freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. I’m also listening to my new-favorite already defunct band’s 2010 self-titled debut album Allo Darlin’.

Allo Darlin’ fell into my world randomly while I was listening to some Spotify playlist. The snippet of a Weezer song in the middle of “Kiss Your Lips” caught my attention and never let go. Plus, in the song “Silver Dollars” they sing this line, “And though you say we’re just friends and that this love is purely platonic, I’m hoping that you’ll forget after this round of gin and tonics,” which feels lie a line out of one of my journals.

I have more to say about that line and this band in particular, but not today because the one bad thing about October is the light is fleeting. Soon the greyness of November will sap my will to live. For now, I want to spend some more time smiling at the coffee table while I can.

Daydreamingly yours,
Jodi

The post When Sleeping Time is Over appeared first on I Will Dare.

]]> 365090