Hi Darling Ones,

I was eight when John Lennon was killed outside The Dakota in December, 1980. I do not not remember a lot about his death, though I do have vague memories of reading about Mark David Chapman and his obsession with Catcher in the Rye in an issue of People, my mom’s favorite magazine.

The Beatles meant nothing to me at that age. Not a lot of things did, I was a pretty oblivious kid. My favorite song at the time was probably “Boy From New York City” and I thought that Fonzie and Richie Cunningham were actual people who lived in Milwaukee, whose lives we got to see once a week. Yes, as a child I thought all TV was reality TV.

I only became aware of John Lennon and his death when I watched the video for Elton John’s song “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny).” Having lost my own grandfather shortly before seeing the video for the first time, I paid extra attention to it because the VJ introduced the song by saying John and written it about his friend John Lennon who was murdered, etc. You know the story. New grief, I was absolutely mesmerized by the idea that you could take your sadness and make into something for your dead friend.

For that exact reason I’ve always had a soft spot for Paul Westerberg’s “Good Day”, which I wrote about last year for Valentine’s Day.

Are you sensing a trend? Do you know what’s coming?

I’ve been obsessed with Frank Turner’s song “A Wave Across a Bay” for nearly a week now. I listen to it roughly seven times a day. I sing it to myself as I’m getting ready for bed and when I wake up in the morning.

It’s the soundtrack to these lingering days of COVID-related low-energy and unending congestion. I really thought once I got my taste back this COVID nonsense would be over. I was wrong. I feel like this is never going to end. I decided I was all better this morning and went about my pre-sickness routine. My body was pissed off about that and so I spent a lot of the afternoon tipped over on the couch wondering if I would ever get back to normal or if I would just die instead.

This song wrecks me in the most excruciating way. There are certain deaths by suicide that squeeze at my heart and make my stomachache in an anxious sort of way — Sylvia Plath, Robin Williams, Anne Sexton, David Foster Wallace. Scott Hutchinson, the subject of this song and the lead singer of Frightened Rabbit, is also on that list. I’m not sure why these people’s deaths feel extra painful to me. I did not know any of them. However, the way they turned their pain and inner turmoil into something tangible and beautiful makes their deaths seem extra-sorrowful. It’s like Turner sings, “You had something in your soul that we could recognize.”

Can you think of a better, finer tribute than that line? I can’t, at least not at the moment. Isn’t this what all artists want? Someone to recognize something in our souls?

Unrecognizably yours,
Jodi

The post The COVID Diaries: Lingering, not Malingering appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I really want to crow about how we made it through this interminable year, but I don’t want to jinx anything.

People magazine jinxed the shit out of Betty White turning 100 in a couple weeks and we all see how that turned out. On top of that, my niece and her boyfriend thought they were gonna make it out of Minnesota yesterday after a few delays only to get to Rapid City, South Dakota where the plane turned around and brought them back to Minneapolis. They’re hopeful they’ll get out of here tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for them. They really miss their cats.

Speaking of Jaycie’s boyfriend, he’s a reader, which means I already adore him. Because he’s a reader we’ve spent a lot of the past three days talking about books. Amor Towles is his favorite, which means my goal in 2022 is to finally read A Gentleman in Moscow, which the Tea Ladies have been telling me to read for literally years.

He, along with most every body I know, is super impressed that I read 180 books this year. At face value, it sounds impressive and makes me seem like a super smarty lit person. If you look at that fun fact too long you can see the darker side of it.

You couple this with with a few other fun facts, that my most listened to records were “Midnight Organ Fight” by Frightened Rabbit and “Little Oblivions” by Julien Baker, and you’ll see that I had a dark, dark year that involved a continuous effort to escape my circumstances.

Franky, I am surprised I made it through 2021. While I wasn’t actively suicidal, there were more days than I can count where I thought, if I died right now laying on this couch that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

This year broke me in ways I am not ready to face. Simply thinking about 2021 makes my eyes sting with tears. I went thirty-two days without human contact, and I don’t think I can recover from what that says about me as a person.

As someone who has been a pretty sensitive crybaby my entire life, I am more fragile and brittle than ever before. It’s as though my emotional filter was deleted and I’ve lost the capability to deal with, well, anything. I’m either ice robot or sobbing pile of good. There is no in between, and I hate it. It sucks. Hard.

Despite all that I remain ever hopeful. I know this brittleness is temporary and I will likely feel something new sometime soon. Maybe tomorrow with a fresh new year? Maybe next week?

Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t die on the couch and made it through this wretched year. Thanks for making it through with me,
Jodi

The post The Struggle Was Real appeared first on I Will Dare.

So Darling Ones,

Because I had an overnight houseguest last night I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday was my favorite night of the year. The overnight houseguest was Sister #4 who came in from Brookings because she had a company meeting/holiday party in town. I wrote that first sentence in such a way as to make you think I might have gotten laid and was going to dish some juicy romantic details.

Alas! You should know, getting laid would be a reason to make a day my favorite day of the year. However, I’m talking about Spotify Wrapped day, where Spotify dishes all the juicy music details of your year in listening. I love Spotify Wrapped day because I cannot get enough useless data about myself. Also, it gives me a chance to be smug, sanctimonious, and a smidge sheepish.

It’s a day where my emotions run the gamut. It bums me out because so many of the men I like had lists that were completely made up of male artists, proving for the one millionth time that men do not value art made by women. It also bums me out because people are assholes right out loud judging people for using Spotify, for sharing their Wrapped lists, and in general not appreciating music the right way.

Spotify does suck and vastly underpays artists. I cannot argue against that. However, just because a person uses Spotify does not mean they don’t listen to music in other ways. I have bought (and pre-ordered) an embarrassing number of records this year. Some through Bandcamp, others from the artist’s website, some through record stores. I use Spotify as a try before you buy kinda situation. Just like I use the library to read a book before I buy it. I’m almost fifty, I’m tired of inviting untested garbage into my house.

Because I spend a broad swaths of time completely alone and frequently in a world that isn’t entirely real, Spotify Wrapped feels like a nice check-in that the year actually progressed the way I thought it did. I went through my Wrapped list and was all, “yep, yep, sounds right, makes sense, that’s embarrassing, yep, yep. right on.”

Spotify said I listened to something like 90 hours of Frightened Rabbit, specifically the song “The Twist.” This makes sense because I listened to Midnight Organ Fight every night before bed for months on months on months.

Julien Baker made my Top 5 list. Of course. I listened to Little Oblivions on repeat to see if a song could, indeed, be too sad. And The Marfa Tapes record is in there under Jack Ingram’s name. This might be my favorite record of 2021. With the Julien Baker, the latest Liz Phair,a nd Lucy Dacus’ VBS coming up close behind.

If you are so inclined you can peep my Top Songs of 2021 Spotify Playlist, which includes, much to my amusement, “Just What I Needed” by The Cars, “Magic Man” by Heart, and “Into Your Arms” by The Lemonheads.

Always in love with that song,
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.

The post She is Angrboda, Bringer of Sorrow, Witch of Ironwood appeared first on I Will Dare.

Dear Darling Ones,

I am not a joiner. Like Groucho Marx, I don’t want to be a part of any club that will have me as a member. Some of this comes out of self-preservation, rejecting people before they can reject me. Some of this comes from snobbery. I tend to think anything that is wildly, insanely popular across a broad range of people is bound to be mediocre.*

Because of this I rarely take part in the reindeer games that flit across social media. I don’t quote tweet and answer a lot of those questions designed to get a lot of tweets. I don’t share every astrological thing that personally victimizes me by being so damn accurate. I don’t share pictures of me as a child fashion icon or the last pic saved to my phone that’s an accurate representation of my mental health or the last meme or whatever.

I also try not to judge the people who do all those things all the time. I constantly have to remind myself of two of my life’s mottos:

1. You can go ahead and shut the fuck up.
2. People are not required to use social media/conduct their lives the way you want them to.

It’s surprisingly hard not to be a total dick all the time. I have deleted so much snark it cannot be quantified. A lot of times typing it out is enough for me because by the time I get ready to click post my “Go ahead and shut the fuck up” directive has kicked in.

So last night I went against my better instincts and played the latest Spotify reindeer game. This one involved them telling you about your unique musical tastes. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, and when my niece shared that her #OnlyYou Unique Artist Pair was Liz Phair & The Weeknd.** My heart exploded and I wanted in. I mean, come on? LIZ PHAIR! That’s all me, Darling Ones. My influence. Mine.

Even with Jaycie’s influence I still hesitated, watching the little Spotify story on my phone. But then it said something like my unique moment was playing “The Modern Leper” by Frightened Rabbit at night. Seeing that pop up felt simultaneously like someone reveling my deepest, darkest secret and also like, “hey, we see you Jodi, doing your best.”

It made me both happy and sad. I still listen to “The Modern Leper” most every night, because it helps me sleep. Doing this also makes me feel a little bit like a psychopath or maybe someone who still sleeps with their security blanket from childhood. Admitting this is weird and makes me feel vulnerable.

For awhile I tried to listen to The Marfa Tapes before bed, but the laughter and banter between some of the songs would shock me awake because I thought someone was in my room with me.

So I posted it to my Instagram and of course the first thing I see when I jump to Twitter is a bunch of people reposting some guy making fun of people for doing exactly what I did. My first reaction was, “aww man, I knew it was dumb to share that.” My second reaction was, “Fuck you, why you gotta be such a dick?” My third reaction was, “Oh, aren’t you just super cool and unique shitting on something people are having fun with?”***

This is why I hate people. They are the worst. Zero stars.

In happier news, there’s a new member of the Sadness Garden. His name is Cub (after my Grandpa St. Martin) and as you can see above he came in a yellow pot because I am still knee-deep in my Yellow Period. I put him next to Muriel (named after my Grammu) and they both live on top of the bookcase that was my Grandpa’s. I got Muriel when my Grammu died in 2003 and that means that I’ve kept her alive for eighteen years and I think that makes me the Greatest Sadness Gardener of All Time.

Masochistically yours (because I love modern lepers all the time, it’s a reference to the Frightened Rabbit song),
Jodi

 
*See: Twilight, Any singing competition, All the Law & Orders, Arcade Fire, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Lana Del Rey, that book about Crawdads, BLTs, any author whose first name Jonathan, Radiohead, National Honor Society (I only joined because my English teacher made me because she said it would look good on college applications), etc.

 
**My unique artist pair was Soul Coughing and Taylor Swift.

 
***A little too ironic, and yeah I really do think

The post I’ve Got This Disease I Can’t Shake & I’m Just Rattling Through Life appeared first on I Will Dare.