Hiya Darling Ones,

How goes it?

Here in the North Star State we’re in for a blizzard that could drop anywhere from 4-22 inches of snow on us according to the weather terrorists. Of all the things I’m good at, hunkering down is probably what I’m beat at. An introverted spinster who’s lived alone for 25+ years? I am the Serena Williams of hunkering down.

My hunkering plans include catching up on my many ignored crochet projects. I’m a month and a half behind on Temp Blanket 2026 and the less said about the State Fair one the better.

I’m very much the distracted boyfriend meme and Art Practice is my new obsession.

Do you know you can put colorful blobs and squiggles on stuff and be released from all that ails you for a brief and glorious moment? YOU CAN! It’s astounding.

Right now I’m copycatting things I see on Instagram (see above), doing the watercolor sketchbook, and working through a YouTube drawing class.

For the most part, I’ve been arting at least once a day. This week hasn’t been the best with the time change & an especially difficult eye treatment, but I still squeezed in some.

Taking up art feels like the best thing I’ve done for my poor damaged brain and janky body since I’ve existed.

Pre-stroke writing and reading were my favorite form of escape. I could go someplace else, immerse myself in someone else’s life. Post-stroke it isn’t the same. While I’m most grateful for audiobooks and the library that lends them to me, it’s not the same as reading a paper book with your eyes. The experience, for me, isn’t as immersive. I’m still aware of my body and its surroundings. This holds true for writing too. Even as I type there’s a part of my brain constantly noticing the tension and heaviness in my right side.

When I’m painting or drawing that noticing is much less frequent and I’m able to be more forgiving with myself. The heaviness and tremor are still there, my scoop will forever be floppy. But my brain is also noticing how the color looks on paper, how the watercolor moves across the surface. It’s thinking about what I should do next, what color, what blob, what squiggle. I can go entire minutes without thinking about my scoop or noticing my distorted vision. It is the best. THE BEST!

I’ve had a fraught history with my body. Last summer Sister #2 made a comment about how she could tell I don’t feel safe in my body. I don’t know if I responded, but I’ve thought about that phrase a lot, “safe in my body.”

Was that something people feel on the regular? What does it really mean? Have I ever felt safe in my own body? I would tentatively say, no. My body has never been a safe space. It has been a constant source of attention, often cruel and unwanted. I’d venture to guess that part of the reason I’ve chosen to live alone for most of my adult life is to protect me from that attention, even from well-meaning people who love me.

You know what though? When I’m arting I feel safe in my body. Is this how people walk around all the time with their meat sack not causing angst and fear? I hope so, because it’s kind of rad even when I experience it in teeny, tiny amounts.

Mind blown,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Yesterday I got a new set of wheels. The wheels are not attached to the red Jeep Wrangler of my teenage dreams. There was no giant bow. Instead, I got a generic Mediline wheelchair paid for by my poor people’s insurance.

Happy Birthday to me?

My birthday isn’t until next week so technically there is time for my head to clear, my right side to stop being a dick, and someone to buy me a car. But, if I’m being honest, I’d rather get LEGOs, plants, and records for my birthday. Cars are overrated.

Darling Ones, I am struggling with this latest development. My internalized ableism has crashed into my fat-trauma and they have leveled me. I worry people will think I’m too fat or too lazy to walk. Hell, half the time I worry if I’m “disabled enough” to warrant using a wheelchair, which is ridiculous. All of it is. Who cares if I do and why? I don’t scrutinize wheelchair users. In fact, I give them no more thought than I do blondes or someone wearing a hat. It’s something I notice and then move on.

I’m embarrassed that I need one. I feel like I failed. All I’ve wanted since the stroke was to be able to walk again. Well, walk for more than 90 seconds unassisted. You can want something with your entire heart and do everything you can to achieve it and still fail. I know this and yet. . . it still packs a wallop when the failure comes with wheels.

On my less charitable days I call myself lazy. I chastise myself for not trying hard enough. I tell myself it’s all in my head, because it literally is. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m making it all up.

But then I check in with my body and the wooshiness is always there. It’s better on some days than others, depending on how well I’ve slept. The almost dizziness plus lightheadedness and that feeling you get the moment you start to fall is my constant companion. It’s there no matter what I do, even if all I’m doing is sitting in a chair typing.

On my better days I’m in awe of all I can accomplish with this annoying distraction always in my head. I cook and clean and crochet and take care of cats and do laundry and even write all while the weird thing is happening in my head, even while my eyes struggle to stay focused. What I can do is amazing.

Last night I managed to move my king-size bed about three inches away from the wall so I could fit my stool next to the bed making it easier to put new sheets on. It was so hard and it took forever, but I did it. I did it!

And I will do this too. I will be a wheelchair user and it will be okay. I already went through all the red tape to get it. My mom is thrilled about it. The Tea Ladies can’t wait to pick me up so we can all go for coffee. I know the wheelchair is a good thing and will allow me to get back out into the world, but right now I kind of hate it.

Life would be so much easier if things were more cut and dry. All one thing or another. Maybe that’s what I should wish for. . . but I still think I’d rather have LEGOs.

Your dream on a mean machine with hell in her eyes,
Jodi

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Hola Darling Ones,

Since I learned I was diabetic I have become one of those people who care about carbs and protein. I hate that for me. People who talk about their diet are insufferable. I do not care. Eat what you want.

I’m also not a fan of people who talk about “earning” food or being “naughty” when eating certain foods.

Diet Culture makes my skin crawl and at 52 I’m still trying to get myself out of that toxic quagmire. And now I’m both fat and diabetic. The horror.

There is a large portion of society that believes I deserve diabetes or that I brought it on myself. I do not like those people and wish that when they try to open something where it says “open here” that it never opens there again, ever.

Because I want to continue living and I enjoy when my doctor praises me for having a good A1C I’m conscious of my carb intake and try to cram protein in my body whenever I can.

However, I do love food — making it, watching other people make it, reading about it, eating it, talking about it. All of it. Food is good. And fun.

Now that I’m diabetic I try to be more thoughtful about the food I consume. I didn’t too bad a job pre-diabetes. That’s why I don’t an air fryer because I know I would live on mini corndogs until my heat exploded or my pancreas fell out.

Since I have more time on my hands and little money Supergenius HQ has become more of an ingredient household than it was before.

This is why I’m in the process of making homemade hoagie rolls.

You gotta really want a meatball sub to go through the hassle of making hoagie rolls. Darling Ones, I really want a meatball sub.

Last week I really wanted chocolate cake so I made a chocolate pound cake. My mom & Sister #4 really love this new era of my life because I give at least half of everything sweet I make to them.

They aren’t getting any of these hoagie rolls though. These things are making me nervous. I’m scared any time I use yeast. It makes me feel like a sorceress calling on the dark arts. RISE my dough, RISE!

Baking with yeast requires both magic and faith and I’m not good at either of those things. Not a fan of “trusting the process.” What if the process is bullshit and you trusted it and now you have a lump or crap?

Thank you for reading 447 words of yeast-anxiety. This is what I did while waiting through the first proof.

Your spicy meatball,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

I’ve been thinking a lot about trauma lately.

This might come as a total surprise as I’m such a magnanimous, even-keeled, generous spirit, but I can be pretty judgmental. Thankfully, I’ve matured enough to (mostly) go ahead and shut the fuck up about most of my judgements. Because, who and I to judge, and most of the things I like to judge are none of my damn business. Nobody cares that I get the icks from attractive young couples who have 8 children and do family dances before church to post on Instagram, and yet. . .

When it comes to trauma I also have a tendency to judge. I feel like I should put trauma in quotes because a lot of things people call traumatic just aren’t, but then calling it “trauma” is shitty. Damnit, being magnanimous is hard.

Part of the problem is that we’ve watered down the meaning of the word traumatic by using it for comedic exaggeration. I’m guilty of this. Being funny is fun. But there are some people who describe things that have happened to them as traumatic and again, they just aren’t. Or at least I’m not sure they are.

It’ kind of like people who claim OCD because they like things neat and organized. I particularly hate when people use that term so cavalierly. I have family afflicted with OCD and it’s awful. PTSD is another one I’ve been guilty of using unfairly again for comedic purposes, but it’s not funny. I’m learning to do better and working on removing a lot of the therapy-speak we love to toss around from my own vocabulary.

Which brings me back to why I’ve been thinking about trauma. Specifically, I was kind of marveling at how not traumatic my stroke and its repercussions have been. Make no mistake, this all sucks a bunch. I’m slowly accepting my disability is permanent and not short-term. I’m trying to come to terms with being “disabled enough” to call myself disabled, but we’ll talk about that later.

I subscribe to Bessel van der Kolk’s, author of “The Body Keeps the Score,” theory on what trauma is. If you got 7 minutes, watch this. It’s good.

He talks about the difference between stress and trauma, how the body remembers trauma, and how what might be traumatic to you might not be traumatic to me. He says, “one of the largest mitigating factors against getting traumatized is who is there for you at that particular time.”

And it’s that last bit that made me realize I need to cool it with the trauma judging. The epiphany came when I was rehashing the diet talk I had with my neurologist. I’m still irked about it, and last night I realized, it’s the trauma, dummy.

The two most traumatic aspects of my life have been growing up in poverty and being fat. In both those situations I had no support or safety net. Like most fat kids in the 80s, the bullying came from inside the house as well as from school, the media, etc. There was no support for being fat, and only constant shaming from doctors and my parents. The summer I was 12 a well-meaning aunt offered to give me $1 for every pound I lost. I could give you a million examples, but you get it.

I’m 52 and writing about or discussing my weight is fraught and brings up so many feelings. I can rarely do it without crying. I’d say the body-shame is even worse than the poverty-shame, because growing up poor wasn’t my fault, but everyone thinks being fat is my fault.

With the stroke I’ve had endless support — financially (thanks your readers who recently sent money, I appreciate it so much), emotionally, in all the ways people can show up for you. And it’s all the people — friends, family, Darling Ones, strangers on the Internet — who have showed up.

The stroke’s repercussions will definitely be more far-reaching and life-changing than being fat for growing up poor, but I don’t think it will have as much emotional baggage. At least that’s what it feels like right now. That could change.

In other news, I learned to make sticky buns yesterday because they are delicious and the name makes laugh.

Butts & Boners forever,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Some days I am not in the mood to hear how lucky and fortunate I am. Being the chirpy, very special episode guest star sucks and sometimes I don’t want to play the role.

Yesterday at the neurologist’s office I couldn’t fake it. Hot on the heels of the disability denial, I was not having any of Dr. S’s A++s and Gold Stars. I did not want to hear how excellently I’m doing. How I’m doing all the right things and need to keep on keepin’ on.

No.

I wanted to hear how to fix my brain. My magical thinking makes me believe that if I can explain what my head feels like, my swimmy vision, and the tension in my Floppy Scoop in the exact right words, I’ll unlock some magical solution. The doctor will be all, “Ohhhh, so your head feels wooshy whenever you’re upright and your eyes are swimmy too? Well, then you just need to this and your balance will return and so will everything else.”

Magic and medicine are not the same, but it’d be a lot cooler for me if it were.

I was also not in the mood for the weight-loss discussion, and for the first time in my 52 years I fought back.

“Diets don’t work,” I said. “Doctors put me on my first diet when I was four.”

She winced. “So much of it is genetic.”

“I’m trying Ozempic. I AM trying.”

“Is it working?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t ask for numbers. I just want to feel better.”

Ugh. It’s so fucking frustrating. Does she really think I’d do all the things — the medications and tests and therapies and exercises — and just opt out of trying to lose weight? Like it’s one thing I’m unwilling to try. I’ll do anything to get my “normal” back, but I won’t do that!

She was delighted that my A1C was 5.4 and my blood pressure was under control. And I didn’t have the energy to explain that the diabetes has been the easiest part of all the things that happened in March 2023. It’s almost like you can have a fat ass and a really good diet.

“Will my head ever feel normal again?” I asked for the 905th time.

She shook her head no. “It’s just your brain. As, you know, brains are very slow to heal. Most people plateau nine months to a year after their stroke.”

And here’s the thing. This is the epiphany I had today listening to Kate Yeager’s song “Fat.”

She sings, “I didn’t know to hate myself until I learned it from somebody else.”

I learned to hate my body right round 1976 when they put me on that first diet. However, I never hated my brain.

My brain was my best friend. It made smart and funny and able to use words to convey how I feel. It’s good at storing lyrics, random trivia, and memories.

Right now, I’m struggling with not hating on my poor, beautiful, damaged brain. I want it to start acting right. I don’t like being mad at my brain. I’m used to funneling all that rancor at my unruly body. Now, the whole operation is in chaos and I’m unhappy about it.

I know, I know, I know. I should be thankful that my brain did not kill me. Dr. S reiterated the many ways in which I am very lucky and I heard her.

But, damnit, I am not in the mood. What am I in the mood for? A cheeseburger, $100 worth of new yarn, and a LEGO typewriter.

Instead me and my busted brain and unruly body and my $0.00 will pout here with the yarn we already have and eat some leftovers.

Wallowingly,
Jodi

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