Please accept my dearest and most sincere apologies for being so fucking annoying. While I thought it was great fun to stand in the front yard or someone’s driveway and sing quite loudly (and if my present singing aptitude is any indication of my teenage talent that singing was horribly off key and quite shrill).

I’m not entirely sure how often we subjected you to hours of “You Can Call Me Al” interrupted occasionally with fits of giggling. Was that better or worse than when we became obsessed with Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me?” I’m sure it was sheer hell for everyone within earshot.

While I’m here I should also probably just get on with apologizing for how we, Jenni, Ericka, Jodi H, Kathy, Dawn, Vicki, and I, brought the annoying to entirely unforeseen levels of annoying once a male teenage specimen was in the vicinity. I cannot even imagine how often you must have rolled your eyes as you listened to half of our crew turned into coy, flirty, eyelash batters, and the other half feigned disinterest with shouts of “immature” at the flirters.

I am really, truly sorry. Especially if you were a grownup who had gotten up early and worked all damn day.

If it makes you feel any better, I am now suffering a sort of comeuppance at the hands of teenage girls just like me and my friends. They’ve been outside on the driveway next door for five hours now. Intermittently, screeching about a boy named Jason and singing every Lady Gaga song they know more than four words of. And then when I didn’t think it could get any worse, someone’s brother showed up with a friend. I have to admit it does bring me a modicum of comfort to hear that the mating rituals of suburban heterosexual teens has not changed a lick in the twenty-five years since I annoyed our neighborhood. Does anyone worry about maturity more than a teenage girl? I don’t think so.

Currently they are discussing Justin Bieber while one of the boys keeps rapping, “throw my hand in my pants, ain’t nobody can tell me I can’t. Just lounging on the couch.” See? It could have been worse, there could have been rapping involved. It makes Paul Simon seem positively charming, doesn’t it?

I wonder if you, like me, found it easy to resist the urge to go out there and tell them to shut the fuck up because a big part of you remembers what it’s like to be a pre-license teenager on a perfect Minnesota summer night. And you remember how roasting marshmallows for s’mores and talking about music with boys after the sun had set and the stars had come out felt like a very grown-up and mature thing to do.

Anyway, I’m sorry.

Jodi

P.S. I’m extra special sorry for that one month we were alternately obsessed with “Luka” and “Weatherman Says” too.

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Yes, what Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina did tonight during President Obama’s address to Congress was juvenile. Any adult shouting out the equivalent of liar, liar pants on fire is juvenile no matter where or when it happens. I’m sure the fact that it happened on national televison makes it seem worse.

However, I must take exception with your outrage that Wilson had the gall to disagree with the President in the halls of Congress.

Do you know what Congress does? They make laws. I’m pretty sure there have been uglier, more vocal displays of disagreement in those halls than probably most any place on the planet. I am sure the whole ratifying of the 13th amendment got pretty vocal. Probably the 19th too. Hell, all of them.

So really, while what he did was stupid and immature, that’s only because he shouted out something lame in the middle of someone’s speech. That he did it in Congress is, well, apropos. That building was erected to protect his freedom to be a dumbass to dissent and argue. It’s one of the founding tenets of our country.

Get a grip.

Love and lollipops,
Jodi

The post An open letter to the people who have forgotten what our country is all about appeared first on I Will Dare.

I have written many letters to your slutty younger sister 6:30 a.m. about how much I detest her. I didn’t think it was possible, but I think I like you even less. For as long as I can remember (which is probably like three or four days) you have been messing with my internal clock telling it that 6 a.m. is a jim-dandy fine time to get up in the morning. And really, 6 a.m., I probably wouldn’t mind so much if my clock was all, “Hey 11 p.m., let’s you and I get some shut eye.”

But the clock is not a fan of 11 p.m. The clock is more a fan of 11:30ish, 12ish with a good chunk of time spent reading before the eyes droop closed.

So what the fuck 6 a.m.?

You know, there’s nothing that great about you. It’s early. The internet is boring. TV is awful ( I saw the “Saved By the Bell” today where Violet Biggerstaff was supposed to save the day and win the big glee club conference that would send the Bayside crew to Hawaii), and I’m not a morning reader. My brain doesn’t function enough at your ungodly hour in the morning to retain anything. So mostly I sit around in a half-brained fog waiting for the coffee to kick in.

You know what 6 a.m., even my favorite cooing neighbor’s-tree-dwelling mourning dove isn’t awake at that time.

So really, I beg of you, knock it off. I love 7:30 a.m. He’s the only time for me, a perfectly logical, reasonable, and wonderful time to get up and embrace the day.

I thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Sleepless in Shakopee

The post The disorder that dare not speak its name appeared first on I Will Dare.

If you don’t knock it off soon, I am going to have you arrested. I have kindly asked you to fuck off before, and you did not listen. You know, 6:30 a.m. I was just starting to groove on 7 a.m. (even though my heart still belongs to 7:30) and then you came along to screw things up.

6:30 a.m. there is nothing good happening at your time in the morning. Hell, the sun isn’t even up yet. Nobody likes 6:30 a.m. Nobody. So why you gotta be all up in my business every damn day this week? It’s not as though I invited you over for breakfast by going to bed at 10 a.m. or something crazy like that. No, no, I’ve been doing my usual midnight or so bedtime. And yet there you are all hey, let’s get up and go to the bathroom. Let’s start the day, let’s sing a little song called “Hey ya.”

But 6:30 a.m. you and I both know that my brain doesn’t really start kicking until at least 9 o’clock and that’s only after two cups of coffee and a lot of rock & roll. Only then, am I ready to function.

So you see 6:30 a.m. you aren’t doing yourself or me any favors. It’d behoove you to leave me sleep until 7 a.m. a time that I don’t necessarily appreciate but will tolerate for the sake of paying my mortgage.

Kindly exit stage left, or else.

Sincerely,
Jodi, who needs as much beauty sleep as she could possibly get

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Dear Authors,

Listen to me. If you were smart you would write interesting Largehearted Boy Book Notes essays about your book and include good music. I cannot count how many books I have read because of the author’s Book Notes essay. Wait. I will count a few just so you know how many I’m talking about: Sabotage Cafe, Personal Days, The Monsters of Templeton, Throw Like a Girl (and there are eight others on my shelf that I bought but haven’t gotten around to reading yet).

It was Michael Kimball’s Book Notes’ essay that led me to pick up Dear Everybody (specifically his mention of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love”).

I ain’t kidding.

Love,
Jodi
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Readers,

Michael Kimball’s Dear Everybody is a novel about weatherman Jonathan Bender told through a series of suicide notes he wrote before he killed himself. It’s a sad, sad story that unfolds. Jonathan wrote notes to his mom, his dad, his brother, his ex-wfie, ex-girlfriends, old neighbors, Santa Claus, and the people who watched him on TV. A lot of the notes are apologetic and kind of heartbreaking.

In one letter Jonathan apologizes to some neighbors for hiding out in their garage to hide from his abusive father. Some of the letters are funny, especially ones where Jonathan thanks old girlfriends for having sex with him.

Jonathan’s story is further fleshed out with entries from his mom’s diary, transcribed talks between his dad and his brother, and various school and psychology reports.

It’s a testament to Kimball’s writing that even though Jonathan’s obituary is on the first page of the novel, as the book goes on you still find yourself rooting for Jonathan and hoping for a different outcome. Even as Jonathan’s depression grows darker and his actions more desperate you still want him to snap out of it.

My only complaint about the book is with Robert, Jonathan’s brother. Robert has a lot of built animosity towards Jonathan, and even after Jonathan’s death treats him with great disdain. I didn’t get why, and it really bothered me.

But other than that, the novel is spot on. It amazes me that a writer can build suspense in a story where we already know the ending. It’s kind of awesome. In fact, I enjoyed this book so much I did something I never do. I wrote the author a fan letter.

So dorky, I know! But really, that’s how good this book is. You should totally read it. I would never lead you astray.

Yours ’til Niagara Falls,
Jodi

P.S. My dorky fan letter is below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Michael,

I just saw the cover of your book on my friend David’s (the Largeheartedboy) Facebook page and wanted to tell you real quick-like that I really liked your book. It was sad and funny, and I loved the idea that as a young boy Jonathan thought the weatherman would protect him.

Nicely done.

Thank you,
Jodi

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