Hello Darling Ones,

I can’t remember which Westernerd put Marah’s “Why Independent Record Stores Fail” on a Mix CD for me, but it is a song that went straight to my heart the moment I heard it.

This was also the song playing on a loop in my head the past two days as I got a head-start on my 2023 intentions by moving my records from the dining room into the living room.

If you don’t know the song it starts with the line, “watch you run your bony fingers through my 45s. . .” I’m kinda glad it was that song bouncing around my noggin and not that scene from “High Fidelity.”

While he was here, my brother-in-law hung the Portal to Doom on the wall, and I must say it looks much less doomy nestled amongst all the other crap.

My goal for 2023 is simple, I want to lighten my load. This means a lot of vague things at the moment. It includes lightening my load physically (move my body more) and emotionally (get rid of old crap that’s weighing me down) and mentally (work on being a little kinder to myself).

The great record migration fits into this whole scheme in ways that make sense to me, but is convoluted to explain.

I also want to buy less stuff (aside from records, because I put them all in the TV stand and there’s room for more. Plus, I got a record rack for Christmas and it is empty, so obvs. Feel free to give me records for any reason and all occasions).

So, I’m keeping it simple for 2023. I did not do well on all my lofty ambitions for 2022.

As much as I’d like to hold myself accountable, 2022 was rough, man. There was the COVID and then all the dying. . . Jodi Hanson’s mom in August, my dad in September, my Uncle Danny in October, and Betty in December.

Typing all that out kind of amazes me. That’s a lot of people to lose in a short span of time. How did I survive so much loss? My heart is one resilient motherfucker.

Anyway, I’m easing my way into 2023 in hopes it will be a little kinder to me and mine. I’ve spent the day re-reading The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, listening to Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” (which rudely turns 20 this year), and napping. There’s pizza in the very near future and another entire day off tomorrow.

I think we can do 2023, Darling Ones.

Jodi

P.S. I am 100% convinced that I will have COVID by the end of the week just because I got it last year after the holidays. My brain weasels refuse to accept any logic or recognize how I did not get it from Sister #4 or my mom even though I was with each of them the day before they tested positive.

The post I Guess We’re Doing 2023 Now appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I always want to be the kind of writer who is constantly scribbling down ideas and sentences whenever they strike me. However, I also don’t want to be a pretentious asshole who stops conversations, calls attention to themselves, and then writes down whatever word barf occurred to them.

Dilemmas, amiright?

However, today when I heard the song “Alabama Pines” I decided to add it to my 14 Songs note (see below). While looking for the note, I found all these other notes, and I realized, I AM that kind of writer.

I jot down ideas all the time. My planner is full of them too. Maybe I’ll show you or maybe I’ll continue to wander around in a dark, gloomy 1992 of my mind. Who knows?

Anyway, here are some of my ideas that never really saw the light of day. Until now.

February 10, 2022 at 3:14 PM
He does mention Matt Dillon

I applaud whatever dude I was referring to here for mentioning Matt Dillon. I love Matt Dillon.

August 19, 2021 at 9:35 AM
60 Songs

He never gets into how the songs explain the 90s.
He used the word incendiary 4 times in the Hunger Strike episode.
If he doesn’t do Misery by Soul Asylum this whole thing is a sham.

Obviously this is about my beloved 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. It is the only podcast I listen to and will continue to listen to even though I had to break-up with my imaginary boyfriend Rob Harvilla since he answered the Reality Bites question wrong, lauded Chuck Klosterman’s shitty 90s book, and repeatedly pronounced Winona as Why-nona. He also said he didn’t like people taller than him, and I am taller than him.

July 29, 2021 at 9:00 PM
Joni Mitchell said if you find me in my work I haven’t done my job but if you find you in my work then I have.

“The rock and roll culture is so male dominated and it also seems to be dominated by some hostility toward women,” Linda Ronstadt.

I dunno, probably just inspiration.

December 6, 2022 at 12:16 PM
14 Songs

1. Can’t Hardly Wait or I Will Dare
2. Supernova, Liz Phair
3. Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
4. Someone to Pull the Trigger, Matthew Sweet
5. Solitude Standing, Suzanne Vega
6. Still Rock & Roll to Me, Billy Joel
7. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
8. Alabama Pines, Jason Isbell

I wanna write a book of essays or memoir about 14 Songs that explain my life or something. It’s vague right now. I haven’t even finished the list.

October 31, 2022 at 2:21 PM
Write about the weird dream you had where you explain John Irving novels in chronological order to a romantic interest.

Why I can’t get laid even in my dreams is a mystery to me. What more would a romantic interest want? Is there anything sexier than Jodisplaining John Irving to some dude?

October 19, 2022 at 4:28 PM
TOP 10 Covers

1. Joan Jett, Crimson & Clover
2. Eels, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man</li>

Needs no explanation

April 27, 2021 at 8:45 AM
Panties Vs dainties.

Sometimes I have Siri take a note first thing in the morning so I don’t forget whatever brilliance is on my mind when I wake up.

November 16, 2020 at 8:18 PM
Write about Orpheus over singing the siren so much that they died and compare it to the Joni Mitchell Bob Dylan record listening scene in Lisa Robinson’s book.

I bet this would’ve been pretty damn good had I ever gotten around to it.

I’m full of good ideas and out of ambition,
Jodi

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Hello Darling Ones,

I’m taking time out of my very busy “Succession” obsession to set my intentions for 2022. Why now when I have an entire season and a half of “Succession” to watch? There are three reasons.

1. I’ve watched something like fifteen hours of TV over the past three days and my brain needs a break.
2. I only listened to the Joy Oladokun record once today and I was beginning to feel a little empty.
3. According to the four horoscope meme accounts I follow on Instagram tonight is the Gemini Full Moon, which is a big deal for Geminis astrologically speaking. All the memes said I should set my intentions and also start a love affair.

A sub reason is that I’m a little blue today. I woke up with the melancholy and haven’t been able to shake it. While my brain really just wants to stew in the sister drama and imagine scenarios that make me cry, I’m doing my damndest to focus on something a little more positive like, the future.

For the record, I did only so-so on the 2020 intentions. I’d say I accomplished 3.5 out of 6. Two of the failures are not wholly my fault, because they involved other people and as much as I try I cannot force people to do things. A few of the goals I kind of half-assed and wouldn’t call them a total success (re-writing The Beast and not buying tiny, cute plastic garbage).

Because I suspect the winter of 2022 is gonna be a pandemic-fueled nightmare, I’m only setting a few simple intentions. Are you ready for this?

• Finish The Beast and submit it to a few open calls for debut novelists and agents. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to sell my book and have that be the crowning achievement of my first fifty years on this planet (I turn 50 in June).
• Make a bechamel-based lasagna.
• Spend February reading books with the word “Bookshop,” “Bookstore,” or “Book” in the title. There is a ridiculous number of these books and I already have six of them tagged in my library app.
• Have sex with a man. Hope springs eternal. I recognize that barely leaving my house for most of 2021 put a real damper on this one. I’ll try to remedy that in 2022.

That’s all I want for 2022. Do your magic full moon in Gemini!
Jodi

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So, Darling Ones,

It is, allegedly, the last day of January. As you know it’s been January for twenty-four months so I say “allegedly.” If tomorrow turns out to be January 32nd not one of us will be surprised, will we? If tomorrow turns out to be the middle of Septober* I won’t be surprised.

As today is the last day of the first month of the year I thought it would be a good time to check in on that fortress I wasn’t gonna build around my heart. I thought that was the post where I listed my 2021 resolutions, but it’s not. However, I was already kinda crushing in the idea of calling this post a fortress update so you’re stuck with it. My blog, my rules. Also, I have decided to add the fortress (or lack there of) concept to my resolutions. I’ve added other ones too. When I said I wasn’t gonna make too many because it will set me up to fail, I lied. Oops.

So let’s see how I’m doing thus far.

Revise The Beast
This one was going gangbusters for like a week or so and then I stopped and was thought, maybe I should read this badgirl to see what happens. I finished reading it late last week. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Be better to myself physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Hmmm. I’d probably give myself three out of five stars on this one. I have taken up near daily exercise, which makes my ass hurt. So that’s good. However, I’m still doing a kinda shitty job about feeding my body when it’s hungry though today I made a potato and leek soup. Also, I continue to be kind of a bitch to myself when I’m anything but low-level dissatisfied. This might comes a shock but I have very little patience for my own sadness and loneliness.

Have sex with a man.
Zero things to report on this front.

Buy more plants so I can have a Sadness Garden in my bedroom.
This one is being postponed until spring.

Stop buying so much stuff, specifically adorable plastic garbage.
Epic fail. This was so much of a fail that I’m kind of ashamed of myself. Not only did I buy that Willie Nelson Funko I wasn’t supposed to buy, I also bought myself a new LEGO kit which is going to be my reward for revising the first 150 pages of The Beast. I’m sure I bought other garbage too, but I’ve already forgotten it. I thought buying a bunch of crap was supposed to distract me from the bleakness of my own soul. Capitalism has lied to me.

NEW! Fortress Updates.
As you know, Darling Ones, I am still a sloppy, emotional mess on this, Al Gore’s internet. I think I need to better define what this resolution is about. It has something to do with having my continued existence recognized and also writing down things about each day in my planner. My planner is my BFF and has very little to do with actual plans and a lot more to do with things that happened and whatever my favorite song and/or lyric was that day. I also write down the daily temperature for my temperature blanket project.

So far, so good?
Jodi

*Please recognize my sly Westerberg reference, thank you.

The post The COVID Diaries: Updates on the Fortress Around My Heart appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Do you remember way back in 2017 when all we had to rage about was this country’s slow descent into fascism? Back when we thought it was gonna be bad after the Fascist Turnip was elected but really we had no fucking clue?

I do!

At some point in that first year of Turnip’s reign The Black Sheep, my writing group, met. I don’t know the exact context of the conversation but I do know I was raging and whining about raging and struggling with writing because I was spending all my time raging. My so wise and brilliant friend Kelly said, “You have to turn your rage into art.”

This resonated with me right to my marrow. So much so that I made it my phone’s lock screen and every day for the last three or so years I see that phrase about 8274 times. Before that it was an adorable aqua & red thing with penguins and hearts that said “Be bold. Concentrate.”

Did I listen to her? Of course not. I never listen to anybody. Should I have? Yes, and not just because since then she’s won a Newbery and published more books. Kelly is smart and wise and generous and I should always listen to her. We all should.

To be fair to myself, I have turned a lot of rage into art the past ten months or so. I frequently act like writing for I Will Dare is a none thing, and I have to remind myself that it is. It is a thing I choose to create on a nearly daily basis. When it comes to this website and the craft behind it I keep going back to an excellent quote by Terese Marie Mailhot, “someone might call my work raw and disregard the craft of making something appear raw.”

The entire point of this long preamble is to say my #1 overarching goal for 2021 is to turn my rage into art. My plan to do this is to re-write The Beast because the fifth time is the charm, but mostly because the story won’t let me go and I had a bunch of good ideas on how to make it better.

The Beast, if you don’t know, is a Rock & Roll novel I wrote in 2013, and then revised for the next three years. There was a smattering of agent interest but no real takers and then I put it away for a long, long time. Instead of writing, I made a lot of blankets, read 100s of books, fell in (and out of) love, and survived the hellscape that was 2019-2020. And that’s saying a lot considering my dad nearly died all the time at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. Fuck man, my life has been a tragic mess since the Turnip was elected. He really did unleash some bad vibes on the world, didn’t he?

My revision of The Beast begins in earnest tomorrow because I do not like to make sudden moves and also I enjoy productive procrastination. Today I had to print it,* continue fixing the playlists, and read some of the various notes I left myself in many stupidly named text files.

All the procrastination is done, now I have to do the work. And the work is terrifying. I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up, this book nobody wants to publish. I’m afraid I’m gonna get lost in my own imagination and become untethered from earth because I spend so little time with actual people and so much time with imaginary people. I’m afraid I’ll finish it and nobody will want to read it. However, I will not let the fear stop me. I will be bold and concentrate. I will turn my rage and sorrow and loneliness and desire and longing into art.

My other goals intentions for the year, which I wrote down because I think that’s how you manifest shit are:

• Be better to myself physically, emotionally, and mentally.
• Have sex with a man. I had one in particular in mind when I made the list but I’m 98% sure I messed that up already by being too Jodi. I would like to point out that I did not apologize for it. Thankfully, he isn’t the only man on earth.
• Create something new and cool with my friend EM.
• Buy more plants so I can have a Sadness Garden in my bedroom. My heart is so horny**for a bedroom tree it’s almost ridiculous.
• Stop buying so much stuff, specifically adorable plastic garbage. Obviously this does not include plants and/or records because, who am I kidding?

That’s it. I try not to set too many intentions because Sister #2 says the more you make the more likely you are to fail and then lose all hope. She’s smart and probably the person I listen to the most (which is still not very much).

Being bold,
Jodi
 
*My revision process involves printing the entire manuscript (300 pages) and retyping it, revising as I go. For some reason having all the words already makes it harder for me to make cuts/changes.
 
**I’ve been thinking a lot about my love/hate relationship with the word horny. I’m kinda convinced it was a word made up by the screenwriters of Porky’s. And saying, “I’m horny” is the absolute unsexiest thing ever. However, saying your X is horny for Y cracks me up all the time. I blame the TV show “The Good Place.”

P.S. The picture in the header popped up in my timehop yesterday. It’s from the year where I copied my friend Elisa and wrote down all the good things that happened when they happened and tossed them in a mason jar to read on January 1st. I did not keep up that habit. I’m kinda doing it this year in my planner. We’ll see how it goes. It was so nice to see those words from Vodo, my friend and former writing teacher, especially because Vodo was hard on my writing when he was my teacher.

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