Hey Darling Ones,

It’s surprisingly hard to feel good about yourself when you’re not able to make enough money to support yourself. Not impossible, just difficult. I blame capitalism and the patriarchy. To be fair, those two along with racism are to blame for most problems.

Since I’ve made $0.00 so far this year I’m struggling with what exactly the point of me is, which is sad in more ways than one. Was the point of me pre-stroke to make websites for people and pay the mortgage? How gross.

Now that I’m disabled and unable to work enough to support myself I need to figure out what I want from my time left on Earth. Before the stroke I was too busy working, surviving, and feeling bad about living up to my potential.

One thing I have managed to figure out is that I don’t want to spend any more of my life feeling bad about myself. So, I’ve found new things to feel good about.

These things usually fall under the umbrella of “spinstering.” These are activities that I’ve decided are extra spinstery (reading*, crocheting, talking to my cats, etc.)

On days when I spinster hard I feel extra good about myself. Like maybe the point of me is to do stuff that makes me happy?

Today I spinstered my ass off.

• Made no-knead bread dough for tomorrow’s Easter Dinner.

Prepared most of the mise en place for aforementioned dinner.

• Repotted ALL of the Sadness Garden while
• listening to Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams.
• Ate a healthy salad for dinner.

It doesn’t sound like much, but between unpotting, repotting, and clean up, the Sadness Garden was a multi-hour endeavor.

Now I’m plum tuckered out and pretty satisfied even though I didn’t earn a dime.

Pointlessly yours,
Jodi

P.S. I cleared up SO much space on the Sadness Garden cart that I can get more plants. Feel free to send me some cute ones!

 

*I exclusively listen to audiobooks now because the distorted vision makes reading a book with my eyes too difficult.

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Dear Darling Ones,

I’ve worked in marketing for the better part of twenty years. One of the side-effects is being inordinately invested in redesigns and rebranding. Also, being a sucker for good packaging.

This is kind of annoying because I long to be an anti-capitalist renegade, and not an “oh! that’s pretty I must have it” tool. Holding two diametrically-opposed opinions at the same time is one of my superpowers. Geminis represent!

Another thing about me, which has nothing to do with working in marketing and everything to do with being a bitter, jaded harpy, is I hate motivational platitudes and positive affirmations. I loathe them much the way I hate Gwen Stefani, mushrooms, and republicans.

These little bits of word vomit bandied about so freely on the internet always feel super obvious and condescending. Have they ever in the history of modern language motivated someone or made them feel better?

Maybe girl bosses who are always hustling, who wake up and slay, and who lean in have been motivated by this stuff. Not me!

I am only motivated & positively affirmed by one saying, and you should know his by now, that I have written in every journal, notebook, and planner I’ve had since 1991.

“Day time, night time, any time, things go better with rock. The only time I turn down is when I’m sleeping it off.”

Just kidding, it’s this, from e.e. cummings.

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

I love this because it speaks to my innate sense of being other and also can be read as kind of anti-capitalist and anti-conformist, two things that make my heart go pitter pat.

So, this brings to me why I tell my toothpaste to fuck off every night.

My beloved Tom’s of Maine recently redesigned their packaging. I was all in, because I love that shade of aqua blue and the contrast of magenta. I like the subtleness of the brand qualities that look like they were stamped on tube. What I hate, what annoys me every god damn night to my very core, is the stupid “Do a little good today” bullshit that’s given second-billing on the package behind only the corporate logo.

UGH. BARF.

Really? Really? REALLY? Do I (or anyone) really need toothpaste to remind me to be a good person. Why does my toothpaste think this is a role it should play in my life? Why is my toothpaste offering me any advice that is not related to maybe flossing more or changing my toothbrush more regularly?

The toothpaste is just one example. I’ve been attacked by cough drops and there was a time where Always maxi pads were wrapped in pithy sayings about the positivity of being a girl.

Are we so broken as a society that we look to products to positively affirm us and remind us to be good people?

Fuck.

Yes, this is exactly what I want to do with my one wild, precious life.

Bitterly yours,
Jodi

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Before I begin, I’d like you to take a gander at the situation I’m writing from right now. Pictured below is Memphis, curled up on my arm, Wendell who is playing with his best friend, a beige pipe cleaner, and finally, Cade mining and crafting on the other end of the couch.

So you wanna hear about the first plan I tossed out the door once life on Earth sideways? Of course you do, what else do you have going on? Really, let me know. I’m curious.

I started 2020 with a real plan to be super conscientious and thoughtful about the stuff I brought into Supergenius HQ this year. I didn’t want to be a tool of patriarchal capitalism and just buy a bunch of pretty garbage to fill up the hole in my soul. I did pretty well up until the end of February, when I cracked and had to buy a lovely, vintage yellow enameled baking pan. From FRANCE! So you know it’s fancy. Then there was the Candy Dish Incident, and I never even mentioned how I pre-ordered all the Funko Pops from The Good Place.

So maybe I didn’t do that great. But I didn’t buy any stupid shit from Target and I was trying really hard to get books from the library or on my Kindle. Baby steps right?

That idea went right out the damn door the minute COVID hit. I’ve been panic shopping to support artists and panic donating like I have an endless supply of money and don’t have to refinance this joint at some point in this, the year of holy shit will we even make it to 2021.

Wanna know what I’ve gotten thus far in the panic? Of course you do.

A print from Amy Abts’ Etsy shop. Amy is an amazing artist/singer/reader who is also going through some shit. She recently had brain surgery AND is fighting pneumonia and her brother is fighting cancer. I’ve been meaning to buy something forever, but when Cade moved in I finally pulled the trigger. I wanted him to pick something out that we could have in the house that he liked and would make him feel more like a part of our home. He chose Crows. It’s a big hit with both the nephews.

Then I pre-ordered Samantha Irby’s Wow, No Thank You from Bookbug in Kalamazoo, MI. I was gonna order from one of the Twin City bookstores but the shopping interface of the one I chose was a fucking nightmare and I didn’t have the patience to deal with it. So I saw a link on Nora McInerney’s instagram and just clicked and was done. Nice!

When I read Electric Fetus had to close and layoff a bunch of people, I pre-ordered the new Margaret Glaspy. I’ll pre-order the new Liz Phair too once that gets listed.

Finally, I had to get the Big Coloring Book of First Avenue because I’d have probably bought this even if it wasn’t helping local musicians/artists/people.

What are you panic buying and/or supporting? Got any good coffee recs? Or artists who need some bucks? Put ’em in the comments.

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I have long professed my love for Starburst Green Bag Jellybeans. Why I insisted on calling them “green bag” for so long is a mystery. Perhaps it was an affectation I thought would make me seem adorable. Bleh.

Those candies I love are actually called Starburst Tropical Jellybeans and the bag is now more aqua-colored than green, which pleases me immensely because aqua/teal/turquoise has been my #1 favorite color since 1983 (see most everything I own as proof: as far as my eye can see right now? The two chairs, the couch, the “good” notebook,” the blanket I made, the dining room bench, four skeins of yarn the coffee mug I’m drinking out of, the owl penny bank Sister #4 gave me for Christmas, four pens, one plant holder, and a water bottle).

Did you come here to read a list of things in my living/dining room that are blue? Probably not, but you get more than you bargained for here at I Will Dare Dot Com.

What you came here for was to find out how that lovely, BLUE, vintage, glass covered candy dish pictured above came into my life. I know what inquiring minds want to know.

You see on Sunday while perusing the Target ad, I noticed that jellybean was nigh and I thought that maybe I would like to have some of those. However, my brain decided that if I were to buy some jellybeans I would surely need a proper dish in which to store/display those jellybeans.

Sure, my coffee tables has two receptacles in which to store candy. The gravy boat of my dreams and a lovely square, black dish with turquoise vines on it. However, both of these dishes are more suitable for wrapped candies because they are open and if the dust from the never-dusted ceiling fan rains down upon the candies it is not a big deal. But who wants dusty jellybeans? NOT ME. Also not me, someone who wants to consistently dust the way-up-high ceiling fan (or any ceiling fan for that matter).

So I decided that I simply must have a lovely covered candy dish to display on my coffee table, and it could not the lovely covered candy dish I already have on the bookcase. First of all, that one has a weird screw in the bottom of the dish which attaches it to the pedestal and it would probably be nearly unsanitary to have jellybeans in contact with that weird screw. Second of all, shut up. Third of all, yay capitalism.

ALSO, I could not use the Tupperware condiment caddy that came with lids because that was for M&Ms and only a heathen would use an M&M receptacle for jellybeans. I’m not a total monster.

Now to make a short story even unnecessarily longer, I am now the owner of a lovely blue coverer candy dish that will soon be filled with delicious Tropical Starburst Jellybeans.

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Friday I opened a letter from one of my crooks that own the mortgage on Supergenius HQ and was surprised to learn that on January 1, 2021, I have a balloon payment due on one of my loans. This was brand new information to me as I don’t recall having a balloon mortgage.

I can’t tell if this is sheer stupidity on my part, the not knowing, or shitty shystery shenanigans on the part of the money lenders. I recall the bankers having to do some sleight of hand to get Sister #4 and I to qualify for the loan to buy Supergenius HQ.

If you don’t recall, I bought the house with my youngest sister after she and her fiancee broke up two months before their wedding. They had originally bought the place in May of 2005 with the help of his mother. Once he moved out my sister couldn’t afford the place on her own. I was looking to move anyway, because I’d had one too many random dudes I’d gone out with a few times show up unannounced at my shitty apartment in Prior Lake. And so, I moved here in September 2005. Sister #4 was gone to Idaho by July 2006.

Of course, roughly 10 minutes after we closed the house was underwater, the housing bubble had burst and I was consistently cursing every single person who urged me to buy a house because, “you never lose money on real estate and you’re just throwing your money away when you rent.”

I’d like them to meet my interest-only, balloon-payment mortgage, and then go fuck themselves.

The thing I hate most about home ownership is financing. I hate most things to do with money because I am bad at it. I super hate anything to do with loans and interest rates and percentages. Even trying to research these topics makes me cranky. One time I had to write an email for one of my clients about student loans and financing your education. I lost my shit, because the whole topic frustrates me that much.

So maybe back in December of 2005, immediately after my Aunt Mary Kay’s funeral, I tuned out the part where they said we’d have a $24K balloon payment due in January of 2021. I feel like this is probably vital information they had to impart on us. And at the same time, I feel like this is vital information I would not have forgotten. I’m sure one of the papers I signed said all this, but who reads all of those papers?

Maybe the whole time Sister #2 was selling their house last spring because of their own balloon payment it didn’t jog my memory.

I don’t know.

So, yeah now I get to work through trying to refinance my house as a freelancer. This should be fun.

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