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

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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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Hello Darling Ones,

Around the New Year, I sent an email to a guy I know thanking him for introducing me to the music of Frightened Rabbit and being very kind to me while I nursed a broken heart.

He was all, “No problem, hope they’re not too sad for you. They are for me sometimes.”

And I laughed.

As if.

Too sad? For me? Jodi Chromey the duchess of anguish & misery? The Internet’s favorite bittersweetheart? The woman who is going to change her name to Angrboda, bringer of sorrows, and become the Witch of Ironwood?*

Is too sad a thing?

editor’s note: actually I replied with an email I thought was kind of sweet and super flirty. I never got a response to it, because of course.

This may come as a surprise, but I love sad songs. Sad songs are the best songs. Way back in the olden days when I lived in that shitty apartment in Prior Lake I used to lay on the floor and listen to Jeff Buckely’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and will myself not to cry. For fun. I want songs that crawl into my ice-robot heart and bring their own blanket, making themselves comfortable while using my own heartstrings to manipulate my tear ducts like a marionette.

Most of my favorite songs are sad songs.
Jason Isbell’s “Alabama Pines,” I don’t even need a name anymore. When no one calls it out, it kind of vanishes away.
Neko Case’s “I Wish I Was the Moon,” Last night I dreamt I’d forgotten my name cause I sold my soul, but I woke just the same. I’m so lonely. I wish I was the moon tonight.
Matthew Sweet’s “Someone to Pull the Trigger,” Cause there’s a hole in my heart getting bigger, and everything I’ll ever be I’ve been.
Lucy Dacus’ “Night Shift,” In five years I hope the songs feel like covers, dedicated to new lovers.

Could I go on & on? Yes. I could start going on and continue going on until the sun chars the other side of the world and comes back to us.**

Sure happy songs are great, and sometimes they make you want to wiggle your butt or shake your hips, but sad songs are where it’s at. Sad songs make me feel less alone. It’s like Jeff Tweedy said in his memoir:
. . . when we experience pain or trauma, we’re acutely aware that something is wrong. You want answers. “What is this? How do I get rid of this? Why is this happening to me? I don’t want this.” That’s why so much art, and music, in particular, becomes a great commiserating balm for pain. Joy doesn’t need to be audited. We’re just grateful to have had it at all. But pain, goddammit, we demand to know, Who’s responsible for this?”

Back to that guy I know and songs that are too sad. Too. Too? I didn’t think that was a thing and then Julien Baker came along with her very pain-filled, painful, and excellent record “Little Oblivions” and she said to me, “Jodi Chromey, soon to be Angrboda, bringer of sorrows, duchess of anguish & misery, hold my lemonade while I show you too sad.”

Hoo boy this record is a lot. Is it too sad? What would that even mean? Would too sad be when you find yourself singing the lyrics, I’ll wrap Orion’s belt around my neck, and kick the chair out mindlessly to yourself and then your heart stutters a little when your brain realizes what you’re saying and you think, ouch that is some dark stuff?

Maybe. Maybe it is too sad. But if it were, would I listen to record in its entirety nearly every single day? WOULD I? Could you do something like if something were too sad?

It is some rough going and beautiful in the way that makes you feel simultaneously seen at your deepest and darkest and kind of glad that it’s not you having to work through all that. But too sad? Unpossible. But damn, if Julien Baker didn’t come close.

Blue is my favorite color,
Jodi

P.S. When I was working on this letter, I listened to Lucinda Williams’ “Am I Too Blue” about 393 times, and then I realized that it comes right after “Passionate Kisses” on her self-titled record. And I decided if I were a 1-2 punch on any album of any time I would be these two songs right next to each other. Damn, Lucinda is one of the greatest of all time.

 
*Whenever I mention changing my name to Angrboda and becoming the Witch of Ironwood my friend EM hoots with laughter. Hoots. And through her gasps she says “is this before or after you become a glassblower?” And then I tell her to shut up and stop crushing all my dreams. I think I left the glassblowing dream offa these here pages, because I’m juvenile and crass and would never be able to resist the glory hole jokes, but yes for about a month there I was really bummed about not being a glassblower.
 
**stolen from the excellent and not really sad Soul Coughing song “Screenwriter’s Blues.”

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