Hi Darling Ones,

A lot of my friends laugh when I tell them the exact last time I got shit-faced drunk. It was the night in August 2008 when Barack Obama accepted the democratic party’s nomination for president. For some reason I decided that would be a good occasion to drink a lot of gin and then type words to the Internet. It was not pretty and point I confessed to twitter that I was eating lunch meat out of the fridge with my pants unzipped.

As regrettable as that whole thing was, the next day was worse. I had never been so hungover in my entire life, and I spent most of the day whining to Wolfdogg on Google chat.

“I’m dying.” I said.
“You aren’t dying.” He said.
“Bring me a moolatte,” I said.
“No.”
“I’m dying.”
“Go get a moolatte and some French fries and you’ll feel better.”
“I can’t I’m dying.”

Imagine that conversation over and over for hours until I finally got myself a moolatte and some French fries and surprise! felt much better. Imagine that conversation and ponder why Wolfdogg continues to be my friend.

At some point either during the drunkenness or in the aftermath I tweeted about how I was full of gin and regret and he said that should be the title of my memoir.

Since I have no plans to write the boringest memoir to ever exist (this here website is probably enough), I did take Wolfdogg’s advice and called chapter 18 of the beast Gin & Regret.

Even though patron saint of all that is good and holy Dolly Parton said in her book Songteller that nobody gives a damn about your creative process, I’m gonna tell you a wee bit about my process today.

Today I experienced a kind of consecrated convergence of creativity, music, and motivation and it was as close to a religious experience as this agnostic was gonna have. I put on the Smoking Popes’ very excellent 1997 album “Destination Failure” and got to typing. Since I was using a Pomodoro-kind of app to help limit distractions things were going pretty well, but then “Pretty Pathetic” hit and I think I was moved my the holy ghost or something.

The song was emotionally exactly what I was trying to accomplish in the chapter — a sad ending that happened unexpectedly when a character least expects it. It was fucking amazing. The next two-thousands words just fell out of my fingers so fast I could hardly keep up.

It was glorious and marvelous and I just wanted to tell someone.

Please forgive me Dolly for I have sinned,
Jodi

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Even though I have not forgiven Coca-Cola or myself (because I only drink maybe two cans of soda a month) for the discontinuation of my beloved Diet Coke with Lime, I have recently dipped my toe back into the flavored Diet Coke ocean. It’s an ocean because there a floppity-jillion varieties of Diet Coke. Thus far, I have tried three: ginger lime (meh), feisty cherry (super barf), and Zesty Blood Orange (surprisingly pleasant).

I like the Zesty Blood Orange flavor because, as I mentioned on the twitters, it tastes like a combination of regular diet coke and St. Joseph Aspirin for Children. Trust me it’s good.

You should also know that as a I toddler I once overdosed on St. Joseph Aspirin for Children because that shizz was delish. I ate an entire bottle of that stuff. I think I have vague memories of doing this. Climbing onto the bathroom sink in the trailer we lived in in Blaine until I was five. I remember sliding open the mirror-fronted medicine cabinet and just popping those suckers like candy.

I don’t remember how my mom busted me, maybe I confessed. Maybe she caught me in the act. According to her she rushed me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. Lucky? for me I barfed my brains out before they could do any of the pumping.

As my mom tells the story once we got home she took the rest of the bottle or maybe there was another bottle? Anyway she took a bottle of the aspirin, shook it in my face, and asked me if I wanted more. I said, yes. Because, as I said before, that shizz is delish. Somehow my mom did not murder me on the spot, and as far as I know I did not grow up with a bottle children’s aspirin lodged inside my body.

My lesson was not learned, and still some 43 years later, goes unlearned because I like this Zesty Blood Orange Diet Coke only because it reminds me of that aspirin.

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When times are trash and I’m full of despair I like to buy things to shove into the hole in my soul. Usually, I’m much too broke to do this. However, since I spent the entire summer working my ass off and now I’m working about 30 hours a week for my old company, I’ve got two nickels to rub together.

I spent those nickels on a new coffee maker because I hated my old one, and life is way too short to use something every day that you actively hate. I’m the Goldilocks of coffee makers and the $20 I bought last year was not cutting the mustard.

I hated it. It’s been demoted to back up in case of emergency status. It didn’t beep when it was done. The coffee was never hot enough and it didn’t have cool blue lights. Plus, I couldn’t tell if it was all set for the morning by looking at it from the stairs as I went to bed at night.

So far, I love this baby even though I’ve had a bad experience with this brand before — Cuisinart. I’m coffee maker cursed and I’ve bought like seven in my 16-year coffee making career.

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The sun is mostly set, though it’s not wholly dark out. It’s 64 degrees out and the breeze coming through the open window a few feet away is cool, but I have socks on so it’s not too bad. Plus, I can smell the fire someone outside has built. Aside from the waning sunlight the only other light in the living room comes from the illuminated screen of Enid, my laptop.

I’ve done the dishes and put away the leftovers. The coffee maker is ready to do its thing in the a.m. On my knee is a chocolate Tootsie Pop still in its wrapper. On the table next to me, a sparkly gin & tonic with Hendrick’s and a lime so juicy it was worth the second mortgage on Supergenius HQ.

My ears are ensconced in my very favorite headphones. The lime-green $30 cheapies that I can wear for hours and hours without issue. They don’t rub against the top of my head or pinch my glasses between my ears and my head. These are very important traits in headphones. The only thing that would make them better is if they had a coiled cord. Alas, life is not perfect.

Funneling from my very favorite headphones to my ears is The Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown.” Next will be “Honky Tonk Women.”

This is a long way to say that I’m listening to The Rolling Stones in the dark with the window open. It is so fucking wonderful I had to tell someone about it.

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