Hi Darling Ones,

Happy Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz for VP Day for all those who celebrate.

My body is having a really hard time accepting this feeling of optimism. My inherent cynicism is rejecting it like a bad organ transplant.

I’m not a big fan of identifying with groups. I wasn’t much for school spirit and I have zero percent patriotism in my body. However, the two things I belong to that I really dig and have shaped my personality are: GenX and Minnesota.

It wasn’t until I spent five years in Wisconsin that I realized I had such a strong streak of Minnesota pride. Minnesotans and Wisconsinites have a constant battle over which state is best. And in the early aughts I was always doing battle with coastal elite who loved calling Minnesota provincial, backwards, and fly-over country.

They’re all wrong. Minnesota rules! Here’s a few reasons why.

Duck, Duck, Grey Duck
The rest of the country plays a boring, unimaginative Duck, Duck, Goose. Minnesota children practice their colors and the powers of trickery playing Duck, Duck, Grey Duck. Nothing feels better than psyching someone out with a well-placed “Grrrrrreeen duck.”

Hot Dish
Cream of Soup + Vegetables + Protein = BOOM, dinner.

Old Dutch Potato Chips
The best accompaniment to hot dish.

MN State Fair
I love what Minnesotan singer and writer Dessa said this morning, “It’s like Coachella except carbs instead of ecstasy.”

Music
The Replacements, Prince, Bob Dylan, Hüsker Duluth, Soul Asylum, The Jets, Babes in Toyland, Bully (if we can claim Dylan we get Alicia Bognanno too. First Ave.

Writers
Louise Erdrich, Charles M. Schulz, Kate DiCamillo, F. Scott Fitzgerald, David Carr, August Wilson. The Loft Literary Center. A ton of grants for writers.

Amenities
Beautiful libraries, abortion rights, gun background checks, free lunches for school kids, 10,000 lakes, a legal refuge for trans people, legal weed, money for education, and good insurance for poor people (of which I am a beneficiary).

I could go on and on and on — Walnut Motherfucking Grove, MN High School Hockey, our soon-to-be new Governor Peggy Flanagan, the first female Native American governor, the Coen Brothers, Paul Wellstone, Post-Its, Jucy Lucys — but my eyes are getting tired and I have a neurology appointment tomorrow to think about.

Enjoy the optimism while it lasts!

Happily yours,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

My stomach hurts.

Today in #BigBlizzardInMyBackYard hijinks I made some Big Blizzard Bars (Corn chex, peanut butter, chocolate topping). After a failed nap, I decided to give a little taste while putting them away.

They are fucking delicious. So delicious I ate about seventeen tiny slivers of bar in about 55 seconds. Then, because I needed some balance in my life, I also shoveled down a handful of Doritos. And thus, a stomachache is born.

Currently, I am regretting everything. In my defense, multi-day weather events are nothing if not a holiday from regular life. That’s what I keep telling myself to justify a multitude of poor behavior.

For instance, this morning before getting out of bed I googled “How often does a human have to bathe?” Turns out I am well past the time when I should have last bathed.

I should have just showered this morning because the dream I was having when I woke up was about being annoyed because I couldn’t shower. i could shower because Sister #4 was hiding from my cousin Karen who kept ringing the door bell. And my dad was complaining about poor sleep but refused to let us give him a better bed.

Anyway, I’ll shower tomorrow. Probably.

Yesterday in #BigBlizzardInMyBackYard hijinks I made meatloaf and potatoes au gratin (because I had a bunch of half-and-half that was two days past due). I also fell down a capitalism hole and when I got out I discovered I was soon to be the not-entirely proud owner of:

1. The new Jason Isbell record “Weathervanes” that is coming out right after my birthday.
2. A bunch more Girl Scout cookies even though I have not finished the first batch I bought.
3. Not one, but two (TWO!) Dolly Parton Funko Pops.

I say not-entirely-proud because I’m working on reigning in my conspicuous consumption. I’ve done a mediocre job so far. I pre-ordered a bunch of stuff, which doesn’t feel like buying things even though I know it is.

Unfortunately, that’s all the hijinkery I’ve managed thus far. Despite wanting a multi-day weather event to be a holiday from real life, real life does not always cooperate. I’ve got a big work deadline that is taking up a lot of my time.

I’m also working on a Greatest Hits According to Me about Matthew Sweet, which is taking up the rest of my time.

Love,
Jodi

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So Darling Ones,

Allegedly, a metric fuckton of snow is going to fall from the sky and land on the Twin Cities and surrounding areas over the next three days.

The meteorologists say it’s likely 16-20 inches of snow will fall from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday night. Though, I’ve seen some maps that say 25-28 inches is likely in the Twin Cities metro area.

I am calling this storm the #BigBlizzardInMyBackYard.

If you learn one thing about Minnesotans from this blog, please let it be how very much we enjoy talking about weather. I love that for and about us. This means we always, always, always have small talk at the ready for every situation.

• Hot enough for you?
• It’s not the heat. It’s the humidity.
• We really need the rain.
• Cold enough for you?
• It’s so cold the tears froze in my eyes.
• Sometimes it snows in April, Prince even said so.
• If it snows in May I will do some murder.
• October is beautiful and perfect and the only reason to live in this hellscape. That, and the right to have an abortion being law.

See? The topics are endless, as is the fear of impending climate disaster.

Despite being an angry hermit who rarely leaves the house, this kind of weather triggers my severe weather anxiety. I’m all kinds of amped up even though I have nowhere I need to go and nothing I need.

I did some panic grocery shopping and have my kitchen stocked to comfortable levels. For me comfortable levels means I can make bacon and eggs for ten people if I needed to. I don’t even like to cook bacon, and yet I feel best when there are three packs of it in the freezer at all times.

Also, just to be super safe, I have three pints of ice cream, three kinds of bread, and eight donuts (all the same kind, I’m not totally off my rocker).

You can take the food-insecure child out of poverty, but you can’t take that insecurity out the middle-class woman she grows up to be.

Bring on the blizz,
Jodi

The post Just Thinking About the Weather appeared first on I Will Dare.

So I was watching the old Rankin & Bass “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” special on TV tonight, because of course I did. Though as far as the Rankin & Bass specials go, I have to say “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is my favorite not only because ol’ Kris Kringle is a ginger and I love them gingies, but also because I think Burgermeister Meisterburger is the best villan name of all time.

When we were kids and we’d sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” we always added little asides to the song. For instance after the line “they never let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” we’d add “LIKE POKER!” It was usually shouted gleefully.

At the end of the song we’d sing “You’ll go down in his-tor-eeeeee” and add “like Jackie Gleasonnnnnnnnn.” This Jackie Gleason was usually accompanied by some jazz hands and lots of vibrato on that drawn-out Gleason.

So as I was watching the show I got to thinking. Damn, I wondered, do kids still say go down in history like Jackie Gleason, because that’s a pretty dated reference. And then I thought, well that was a pretty dated reference when I was singing the song back in the early 80s. Where in the hell did that come from?

Then I got to Googling and I can’t seem to find any reference to adding that “like Jackie Gleason” to the end of the song. Is this a Minnesota thing? Like how we play Duck, Duck, Grey Duck and not Duck, Duck, Goose? Or was this purely a University Avenue Elementary thing?

So, darling ones, inquiring minds want to know. Did you add like Jackie Gleason to the end of the song?

The post Like Jackie Gleason or is it a Duck Duck Grey Duck Thing? appeared first on I Will Dare.

As someone who refuses to drive while it snows out, you’d think this would thrill me beyond belief. As someone who lives the adage “the bigger they are the harder they fall” and moves like a snail over potentially icy sidewalks lest all 77 inches of me go crashing to the ground like they did that one time on Washington Avenue that I still can’t talk about without laughing and crying with embarrassment, you’d think I’d be kicking up my heels.

The weather is creeping me the fuck out. There’s no snow. None at all. This is infinitely creepier than last year when the snow was so high that it covered half of the downstairs windows.

The strangest thing about the weather is that it reminds me of a Douglas Coupland reading I went to back in 2003. It was a very warm night when he read, and he asked people if they liked the weather. If they were enjoying this balmy evening. Quite a few heads in the audience nodded their agreement about the wonderfulness of 50 degree weather in February.

“Enjoy it now,” he said.”BECAUSE IT MEANS THE EARTH IS DYING.”

So now whenever anyone says anything about the “awesome” weather happening (going on? weathering? what the hell does weather do?) right now inside my head I shout at them “IT MEANS THE EARTH IS DYING.”

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