Hi Darling Ones,

Last night I had a sex dream for the first time since I had the stroke in March. It was weird. The sex in the dream wasn’t weird. It was frustrating and with a man I dated about 1000 years ago, and the only way I could come is after he claimed he could fix Jane, which was apparently what I had named either my dishwasher or my air conditioner.

Sure, it was an unfulfilling sex dream, but a sex dream nonetheless, which is reassuring. Maybe. I’m not entirely sure.

I’ve been struggling with the idea of having a post stroke sex life, with sexual desire, with feeling desirable, with all of it.

At this point, nearly nine months in, it feels frivolous. I feel as though me and my body should have better, bigger concerns, more noble concerns, perhaps than orgasms and sex. Maybe you know, I should concentrate on being able to walk without a walker, or strengthening my knees, or balance. You know, something important like being able to carry something and walk at the same time

Yet, much likes the Lydia Loveless song, all I ever think about is sex and money. And not just because I’ve been listening repeatedly to “Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again” in its entirety every single day.

For real, all I ever do is think about sex and money, which is not entirely unusual. Pre-stroke I thought, read, and wrote about sex a lot. The money part is new and sucks. And some days I worry I’ll never have either of them again.

Not being able to work very much for eight months and surviving on the kindness of strangers and my nearly depleted savings has not been fun. However, once I get my vision back, I’m confident I can make money again.

But sex? I wonder how I will navigate sex with another person in my new body. I wonder if I will be able to put away the constant thrum of my brain that’s always shouting Oh my God, it’s so weird in here. We had a stroke and now everything is not right. This is not right. Our body is not right.

Will I be able to put that away long enough to have sex with someone else? Will I be able to feel desire for another person when I’m in their presence or will I spend the whole time worrying if my Floppy Scoop will be a boner killer?

It’s a lot to contemplate and it’s not anything I’ve written about because it feels embarrassing. Like I should be above this.

Whenever I start to feel guilty for thinking about sex, for wanting sex, for wanting to be desired again I remind myself of Gina Frangello’s excellent memoir Burn Your House Down. In it, she writes about having breast cancer and one of the medicines she has to take robs her of her orgasm. Her doctor chastises for wanting to stop the med because her orgasm is important to her and you know sex is important to her and the doctors like Really? and she’s like YUP!

I want to be like that.

I’ve thought about my body, being in my body, what my body can and cannot do more in the last eight months than I did in the previous 50 years in which I’ve lived in this body, which is saying a lot. As someone who is extremely tall and fat and deemed other because of this unusual body, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.

And yet there’s more to think about, and different ways of thinking about this faulty, ramshackle body.

Love,
Jodi

P.S. For the record, I have not named my air conditioner or my dishwasher. But I do say, “thank you, refrigerator raider,” every time the fridge makes ice.

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Hi Darling Ones,

During the uprisings in the summer of 2020, Sister #2 made a game of asking people if they’d loot big box stores if given the opportunity. If you answered yes, she’d ask you what you’d loot.

It was a pretty fun game in a very dire time.

When I gave my answer she blinked at me in silence for a minute. “That is the most off-brand, uncharacteristic answer,” she said. “I would have never guessed that. You don’t even like watching TV!”

I contain multitudes, Darling Ones. My answer to the looting opportunity was a giant, fucking TV. At least that was my answer in the summer of 2020. Now that I am the owner of a giant, fucking TV I kind of want to take it all back.

Last week I became the not-quite-proud owner of a 58″ Portal of Doom that now sits in the middle of my living room waiting to suck the soul right out of your body. Or open the hellmouth. I’m not entirely sure. For sure if I had a daughter named Carol Ann she’d have been slurped right into this big black rectangle to the netherworld.

I had very good reasons for wanting a giant, fucking TV.

1. My eyes are old and tired and I can’t read anything on my old postage stamp TV.
2. I’m a literal 6’5″ giant and having to bend my neck to look out the tops of my progressives at the TV was a literal pain in the neck.

Okay, I had two good reasons.

My end goal here is to mount the Portal of Doom onto the wall, and then bring my record player and records into the living room to take up residence where the Portal is now.

I’m getting a mount for Christmas (thanks, Mom) and my brother-in-law gets to spend Christmas night mounting the Portal to the wall. It’s my gift to him. He likes to be helpful!

My problem is I have no concept of scale or size. I’m a giant, remember? My perception of size is skewed. Whenever I have to buy clothes for or make something (blanket, hat, sweater) for a normal-sized human I’m all, “Is this a sweater for ants?”

Also, I’m a little convinced I’m getting taller because it feels like I can see more of the top of my refrigerator than I could before. This has nothing to do with the Portal of Doom.

So I have a giant, fucking TV. I love it when I am actively watching. It’s enormous and I can read all the things without strain. I only have to bend my neck a little when it’s on.

I hate it all the other times (which is most of the day). It’s a giant black hole in the middle of my living room.

I’m hoping I’ll love it more once it’s on the wall and there’s a bunch of distracting shit underneath it. This story is still developing and we will update you as new information comes in.

In other news, I’ve been watching a ton of TV on the Portal. I decided, late in the game, to make Christmas hats for the fam (four down, five to go) and thus logging ridiculous hours with the Portal.

I watched “Wednesday” on Netflix because I’ve loved the Addams family since I was a kid. When I was a wee lass I though the most beautiful women on the planet were, in no particular order: Endora from “Beweitched,” Mortia Addams, and Wilona from “Good Times.”

I liked “Wednesday” enough that I’ll watch it again to catch everything I missed with my bad-at-tv attention span. I also watched “Snack vs. Chef” on Netflix and it was only okay.

The doom is coming from inside the house,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

From March 9th, 2005 until, well, probably the day I die I will never travel far without a little Big Star. Why is that? Because I got my very first iPod on that day in 2005 (I use the wrong its in that post and I’m not gonna fix it 17 years later, but I kind of want to).

I documented the first days of owning an iPod with annoying frequency. I loved my iPod(s), and because I loved them so much I was mentioned in Kathleen Turner’s memoir. I dragged an iPod, along with some headphones because I hate earbuds, everywhere. I made meticulous playlists and have kept track of my Top 25 most listened to songs since 2005.

(I’m listening to the Top 25 of 2005 right now. It’s super dude heavy with lots of eels, self, and Mike Doughty. Also, I got my heart broken in 2005 and this list shows it.

Since Apple announced today that they were discontinuing the iPod, there’s been some twinges of sadness and a tsunami of nostalgia.

The announcement comes at an odd time for me. I’ve been lackadaisically looking for my iPod off and on for the past two or three weeks now. I want to use it for a post I’m gonna write, maybe. I can’t find it anywhere (or in the three places I’ve looked so far). I did find my Walkman from the 90s though, so not all is lost.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be someone associated with a thing, a product. Like a woman who only carries Coach purses or wears Chucks. However, for a brief time in the aughts, I was an iPod girl. I was so much an iPod girl my friend Seamus dummied up a Shuffle for me when they were first announced to see if I might want to trade in my regular iPod (I did not).

My fondest memory of being an iPod owner is road-tripping to Chicago with Wolfdogg shortly after I got it. It was so new it took us until like Chippewa Falls or maybe River Falls to figure out how to get the radio transmitter thing to work with the radio. This road trip happened like the second or third time I ever met Wolfdogg. He didn’t even try to murder me for making the entire van listen to 67 seconds of every song the entire way to Chicago and then, inexplicably, listen to They Might Be Giants’ “Flood” in its entirety four times in a row on the way back.

Of course, I haven’t listened to my iPod in years. When Cade was here in 2020 he listened to it all the time. I was amazed it still worked. He was amazed I had so much Beatles’ music on there.

So long, iPods, you were very excellent rectangles.

Forever yours,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Back in March I fell in love with The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. It’s one of only thirty-five books I’ve given five stars on Goodreads. That’s out of the 1011 books I’ve read since I started using Goodreads in 2007. I never went back and added other pre-Goodreads five-star reads like A Prayer for Owen Meany or Cat’s Cradle or Bread and Jam for Frances.

If I knew any kind of math I’d figure out the percentage of those five-star reads was. Then I’d say something about my discerning taste and high expectations. Then I would tell you read all those books right now because they are very excellent books.

I don’t know why I continuously feel the need to quantify my love like this. I blame it on being a gemini or having an ice-robot heart.

Now that you know how very much I loved that book, it makes perfect sense why I named my new laptop Angrboda, Bringer of Sorrow, Witch of Ironwood. In the book Angrboda is not just the bringer of sorrow and the mother of Loki’s apocalyptic children. She’s a powerful witch who men cannot kill though they’ve tried more than a few times to do it. I’m hoping the unkillableness of the OG Angrboda bodes well for this electronic Angrboda.

It’s been a long time since I had a new laptop so I spent most of Tuesday after transferring all of Gladys’ files making very important decisions like: should I make the pointer a different color and what accent color should I use?

The most difficult decision was choosing a new desktop background. For years it had been Underdog. So many years I can hardly remember when it wasn’t Underdog. Though I know there was a Scott Pilgrim phase and some Where the Wild Things Are years. The amount of thought I put into this inconsequential thing that only I will see was stupid.

On Twitter I said: I’m trying to choose a new desktop picture & you would think it was 1994 and I was trying to choose the exact perfect check design to express my unique personality.

Darling Ones, I took check design as a form of personal expression very, very seriously. Hell, when I switched to a credit union a few year back and bought new checks it took me three days to choose a design (retro cassette tape). I’m not entirely sure checks are still a necessity in life. I’ve written exactly two (one for a plumber and one for a furnace guy) since I got them. However, I saved like $300 bucks by writing a check to the furnace guy.

I spent so much time on Tuesday trying to find the right desktop picture that I didn’t eat dinner until after eight. In the end, I found one I kinda liked and then made it the exact perfect picture to express my unique personality. It’s like a mixtape desktop picture where I’m using someone else’s poetry to express how I feel. In this case, it’s Scott Hutchinson from Frightened Rabbit.

“I’m armed with the past and the will and a brick,” is from the song “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms.” And while it’s not at all about writing, I think of that line as the armor I need when I go to battle with the words. I can conquer any demons my heart dreams up as long as I’m armed with the past and the will and a brick.

Just like another line in that song, I am armed to the teeth and I’m heavy-set,
Jodi

P.S. I am in love with Japanese Breakfast’s cover of “Say it Ain’t So” and have listened to it, no exaggeration, like twelve times today. It makes my heart go zoom. It also makes me wish I learned to play the violin and not the alto saxophone.

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Hi Darling Ones,

Did you know that back in aught-eight I got named-checked in Kathleen Turner’s memoir? If there’s one famous person you think would name check me, the lowly 6’5″ Spinster Goddess of Minnesota, Kathleen Turner is the obvious choice.

Just kidding, Matt Dillon is the obvious choice.

The dumbest thing about being mentioned in Kathleen Turner’s memoir is that I didn’t even come up with the name Kathleen Turner Overdrive of my iPod. It’s a bit from “High Fidelity” suggested by my friend Jason. I stole all his glory.

Up to that point I had named my iPods Roland and Roland II: The Electric Boogaloo*. After Kathleen Turner Overdrive’s untimely demise I had an iPod name Eurydice. I think that one’s still kicking around this joint. At least it was last year when Cade was living here.

I have a history of naming things, not just electronics.

Cars: Grover, The Bitchen Buick with the Cutlass Supreme Door, Sugar, Clyde, Ruby
Pets: Madison, Walter, Mabel, Sully, Wendell, Franklin (only two of these pets are/were mine)
People: BFK, TTHM, Peabo, The Grad, Bitchface, Wondergeek & Webboy, JTo, Wrath
Plants: Hugh, Benjamina, Trevour, Muriel, Neko, Joan, Janis, Beverly, Stan, Roger, et.al.
And, just because the list feels incomplete without it,
iPods: Roland, Roland II the Electric Booglaoo, Eurydice, Kathleen Turner Overdrive
Computers: Owen, Otto, Oberon, Jed (technically hellojed for the if you know, you know crowd), Gideon, Enid, Gladys

The chronicle of names for things that don’t usually get names is on my mind today. Tomorrow I get a new laptop which means ol’ Gladys here will be put out to pasture. While I got the sticker situation locked in, I have not thought of a name. Do I go literary (Owen, hellojed, Enid)? Obvious pop culture (Otto, Gideon)? Off the top of my head (Gladys)?

These are the questions that have popped into my mind while I procrastinated and plowed through a thoroughly boring book about rock & roll.

Also on the twitters I said “Soul Coughing was having a tiny renaissance in my heart” and that’s the best sentence I’ve written in a month. I’d name the new computer Doughty but I have a plant named that and also the OG iPod’s name was based on the Soul Coughing Song “Rolling.”

Maybe it will come to me in a dream.
Jodi

 
*I use this sequel construction a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. It makes me laugh.

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