Dear Darling Ones,

I spent the winter of 1996 binge-watching “Twin Peaks.” I got to binge it because my brother-in-law got the Twin Peaks box set on VHS for Christmas 1995. I promise this is not a post about Twin Peaks or how, five years later, I’m still mad at that shitty, confusing season three. Nor is it about how a lot of people declare things great art rather than admit something is baffling or perplexing or just generally make no damn sense.

Now that we got what this isn’t going to be about out of the way, are you ready for the actual topic?

Cereal and aging and hexes. Obviously.

For a long time my favorite way of dealing with annoying, rude, hurtful, or harmful people is to hex them with minor inconveniences. I used to say I cursed them, but then I read up on the difference between jinxes, curses, and hexes. As much as I hoped turning into a Spinster Bog Witch would give me the most powerful of powers, it turns out I’m not comfortable wishing even minor inconveniences on people for entire generations. So hexing it is. I like the idea that the hex lasts until the hexee learns a lesson. Don’t cross me, motherfuckers.

As I have mentioned before some of my favorite hexes of inconvenience are:

• Never hitting a green light again
• Inability to walk past furniture without stubbing your toe
• Getting the cuff of your shirt wet and it never drying
• Always forgetting to shake the ketchup and/or mustards so you get that watery squirt of ick all over your food
• Unsatisfactory orgasms
• If you wear a long-sleeved shirt under a hoodie or sweater, one arm will always scrunch up to your elbow and you will be unable to fix it
• Shoes that refuse to stay tied
• Unable to remember the reason you picked up your phone in the first place
• They will stop making your favorite food/beverage

The last one is the worst, because it will happen to you whether you’ve been hexxed or not. It’s a natural part of aging and capitalism. I still mourn the loss of my much-beloved Diet Coke with Lime and, until lunchtime today, Multi-Grain Peanut Butter Cheerios.

A quick aside, one of my sisters interviewed for a job at General Mills earlier this year. When she told us about it my first response was, “make them bring back PB Cheerios as part of your benefits package.” At the same time another sister was typing, “tell them I want more king-sized froot by the foot.”

My family has our priorities straight. She didn’t get the job (boo), but today I found a replacement for PB Cheerios (yay!).

I don’t know how long it’s been since they stopped making PB Cheerios. Years. Maybe a decade. It feels like about a hundred years. I ate these things every day for breakfast for a very long time and then they were gone from store shelves without any warning. I didn’t have a chance to horde them or to say goodbye. If I had known my last bowl was gonna be my last bowl I would have enjoyed it more.

General Mills replaced my PB Cheerios with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios I have two words for them. Eww and gross. Chocolate-flavored cereal are an abomination against god and you can take your Cocoa Pebbles and Coco Puffs and go right to hell.

I was bereft for a long time and tried other PB cereals in search of a replacement. Nutter Butters Cereal was too sweet. PB Chex were not peanut buttery enough. PB Cap’N Crunch was the closest I could get, but it was not the same.

Anyway, to make what should have been a one-sentence revelation 500 words longer, I have found a suitable replacement in the form of Hy-Vee One Step Peanut Butter Multi-Grain Tasteeos Cereal. Can you hear the angels rejoicing?

I had no idea these existed until last week. I usually avoid store-brand or generic cereal because I am convinced it tastes bad. They subbed in store brand toaster pastries for Pop Tarts once and I’m still not completely over it.

However, since I started the #BarsOfSummer project I’ve been using the cheapest/store-brandiest ingredients I can find. This way, if the bars are an utter failure I don’t have the food waste guilt on top of the waste of money guilt.

So anyway, I now have a replacement for PB Cheerios after years & years of failure and that, my Darling Ones, is an utter goddamn delight. Now I have to resist the urge to by 948 boxes to last me the rest of my life.

Stylin’ in the best way,
Jodi

P.S. Last night I had a dream that I was sleeping in a coffee shop where there was a party in my honor in full swing. So basically while I was sleeping I had a dream about sleeping.

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Hi Darling Ones,

I can already hear the complaints. “ANOTHER listicle, Jodi Chromey? We do not pay you for pointless listicles. We demand high-quality, gut-wrenching yet ultimately life-affirming content or we want our money back.”

These are the complaints of the imaginary people who care about what I write here. They’re kinda assholes. Good thing I don’t take their money.

I always feel kinda shitty when I do too many listicles in a row, like they’re gonna take away my writer card. My gut tells me to make a joke about getting my writer card taken away and instead being given the Best Blogger of the Year trophy, but we’re probably past the weird writer vs blogger thing.

Did I ever tell you about the man who in the year of the Hefty Trashbag with Force Flex Technology* (2020? 2021?) mansplained to me, Jodi Chromey Supergenius woman with a two-decade-year old blog, author of many unpublished short stories and one novel, the difference between writing and blogging. He did! I promptly put a hex on him so that his penis would cease bring him pleasure until he stops mansplaining.

Anyway, I keep writing in listicles because I don’t want to fall out of the blogging habit while I’m struggling emotionally. I have many very good ideas for very good essays, but I do not have the emotional bandwith or brain space to give these topics the energy and time they deserve.

I’ve chalked up quite a few Ls lately both personally and professionally. From being ostracized by my dad for Sister #3 related fuckery to last week’s suicide attempt by someone I love dearly to some work that was not as well-received as I initially thought, everything is certainly not coming up Jodi Chromey. Rude.

Things should always be coming up Jodi Chromey.

Despite that fat pile of garbage landing on my psyche, along with the Supreme Court being the absolute worst, I’m not feeling depressed so much as kinda numb. Why? Because I’m doing things to numb myself. And those things mostly involve crocheting while watching endless episodes of “Top Chef” and occasionally reading books (remind me to tell you about Flying Solo by Linda Holmes, which really hit me in my spinster feels).

Because of the numbness/distraction/whathaveyou I’ve decided to count anything that makes me grin as a W. I’m starting to rack up some Ws. Wanna hear about them? I know you don’t we already discussed your boredom with listicles.

• Remember how I mentioned making tacos? I made them tonight and they were muy fucking bueno. I made ground beef and black bean tacos, guacamole, and esquites. I’m gonna have puffy jalapeño lips for the rest of the night, and I don’t even care.
• I’m working on a new crochet project and it involves a stitch I call “criss-cross applesauce.” This stitch was so hard that it took me nine tries to get the first one done. NINE TRIES. Even after getting the first one done it was hard and it would take me an entire night to get one square done. But I stuck with it and last night/today I finished four squares.
• My old Vox nemesis, Hotrod, is digging through my Instagram leaving the comment ‘This is pie’ on all my good pictures or any picture he feels like commenting on. It makes me smile every time. We have a decades-long argument about which is better pie or brownies (the only answer is brownies), and some how that evolved into him needing to tell me all the foods that I like/make are pie (they are not pie. pie is dumb. fruit should not be hot).
• I got an email from a friend I’ve had a crush on for twenty years talking about a Frightened Rabbit song I love.
• This week’s #BarsOfSummer involved a food processor, 21 Oreos, a mixer, and ten tablespoons of butter. I’m surprised I had the attention span to finish them. I don’t yet have room in my stomach (see tacos bullet) to try them, but I’m pretty sure they were worth the effort.

I hope to keep stacking up these small Ws to combat the big Ls until I can write something meaningful again.

If I were in my full brain I’d make some sort of play on the I Will Dare “ain’t lost yet so I gotta be a winner” line, but my brain refuses to be witty.

Wishing you all the Ws and none of the Ls,
Jodi

 
*I hope you can see that subsidized time from Infinite Jest is the part of that novel that’s had the most lasting impact on me,

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Hi Darling Ones,

After a seven-month absence I am very displeased to announce the return of my period. Six days ago. It’s still going strong, with zero signs of letting up.

This is a real deal, crime scene in my underpants, cramps, cravings, and murder on my mind kind of period. Not the kind of spotty, wimpy, last gasps of an aging uterus my previous period was back in September. Instead, I’m dealing with the menstrual monkeyshines of a uterus that thinks it’s still young & virile and primed to pop out some progeny.

Silly uterus, those kinds of tricks are for kids.

Every time I get my period after I reach the six-months without an incident mark I feel like I’ve failed at spinstering. Menopause is the last thing I need to check off the spinster list.

Never-been married — CHECK
No children — CHECK
Greying hair — CHECK
Cat, yarn-based hobby, lives in a house made of cookies and candy — CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK.

I’m 97% sure once I go twelve consecutive months without bleeding I not only get to officially declare menopause, but I finally take my true form as a bog witch.

Spinster bog witch is the ultimate goal. It’s like rescuing Princess Peach, but better because all the hexes and curses I got locked and loaded will be unleashed upon all the fuckers who had the temerity to cross me. Quake in fear termeritites, none of you fuckers will ever have dry shirt cuffs for as long as you live.

Aside: When Sister #2 was here last week and I was whining about my derelict ice maker she asked me who I pissed off and if they might have cursed me with a constantly malfunctioning ice maker. If it was you, I am sorry. Please, please, lift the curse. I beg you.

As my menses continues to annoy the shit out of me after all these months, I keep being a little amazed that I put up with this bullshit for the last 36 years and never, not even once, did a murder. Though, I have committed untold massacres in my heart.

Bleh. I’m gonna go eat a salad and wish it was not a salad and probably sob through the competitive dominoes show because this not-quite bog witch knows how to party.

Your bloody valentine,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

As I type we’re in overtime during the Warroad v. Mahtomedi semi-final game in the 2022 Boys State High School Hockey Tournament. Whenever I worry that I’m emotionally dead inside I need to remember how I feel when we hit OT during holy week. My heart beats faster. I can feel the blood in my veins. I’m anxious and afraid to blink. My heart rate spikes whenever a team gets into scoring position.

Last night, via text, my sisters and I had a mutual triple heart-attack while watching the Andover v. Moorhead game. Sadly, for those bitches the Andovers won and I was victorious. It was exhilarating. The adrenaline rush was so great it took me forever to fall asleep when I went to bed.

It’s not exaggeration when I call this holy week. There is no sporting event I love more than the boys hockey tournament. I have so many warm, happy memories around this tournament that I get super salty whenever people shit all over it. And, because this is Minnesota, it happens all the time. I don’t know about where you live, but in Minnesota whenever something feels like it’s getting a little too beloved people need to come out hard about how much it sucks so you know how superior their taste is and how unique they are. See Minnesotans on: The State Fair, High School Hockey, Prince, Hotdish, etc.

To some extent, I get it. Hockey is a rich person’s game and the tournament often sees the Scrooge McDucks v. the Richie Riches in the final game. Someone could do a great study on the movement of wealth in the Twin Cities metro area from cities to suburbs to exurbs based on teams in the High School Hockey Tournament.

Because I am a mature bog witch, I only put tiny hexes on these naysayers. Mostly, I try not to let them dim my light and love of this tournament.

This tournament has been a big deal to my family since the time I have memories. My parents used to bundle all four of us up and we’d haul ass to my aunt & uncle’s house in Roseville to watch the game with my dad’s siblings and niblings. Even though I did not fit well with that extroverted side of the family, and those kinds of family gatherings made me anxious, I loved listening to my family as we all crowded around TVs to watch the big final game.

It’s different now with the internet, but when I was in elementary school during the 80s our teachers would sneak in TVs so they could watch the quarterfinals during the school day. I claim this is why I can work so well with hockey on in the background. Thanks, Mr. Waugh & Mr. Nagle!

I love everything about this tournament — the petty rivalries (the entire state, even the naysayers, hate Edina), the uniforms, the cheers and tears, the names (last night a team had two Caydens and two Logans), the hair, the utter joy the announcers have for the game, Lou Nanne, and even the game. Hockey is the one sport I actually know, like I know offsides vs icing. I know what high sticking and hooking and slashing is. This always surprises people because I generally think sports are a long, boring fart noise.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week, Darling Ones. I’ve been watching hockey for roughly 12 hours a day since Wednesday. Tomorrow I’m having people over for the big final game. It’s a tradition I tried to re-start like four or five years ago. I had the first one, but didn’t enjoy it because I had to had emergency oral surgery the day before. I think the next one was thwarted by bad weather. Then COVID ruined everything. Hopefully nothing gets in the way tomorrow or I’m gonna have a lot of meatballs and weenie wraps to eat.

Reverentially yours,
Jodi

P.S. Warroad won.

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