Hi Darling Ones,

Even though I present myself here as a flawless Spinster Goddess comprised of warm soup, soft breasts, and sparkles, I do have. few flaws. Amongst them is procrastination and impatience. Oh, and hypocrisy.

Yesterday my mom texted me while I was making lunch (breakfast burritos, if you must know). After I was done chopping, sautéing, seasoning, scrambling, and shaping my burritos, I noticed her text. She wanted to know if she could come over because she needed me to do something with her phone.

I decided to eat my lunch and then deal with her. No such luck, Darling Ones, she called sixteen minutes after her text because I hadn’t responded and she wanted to make sure everything was okay. I resisted lecturing her, though I was a little huffy when I shouted into the phone, “I WAS MAKING LUNCH!”

This is no exaggeration when I saw my mom has been to my house just about every three or so days since my vaccine went into effect. While I love my mom, I am also annoyed by this dropping everything to do what she needs.

When I was a child my mom was the ultimate procrastinator. Couple this with her frequent forgetfulness and you can see why I had a lot of anxiety growing up. She forgot or procrastinated on everything that was important to an elementary-school aged kid — lunch money, signing permission slips, school supplies, field trips, class plays, when you needed new gym shoes, all the things. My stomach hurts all over again thinking about it. When I was in high school she forget to send in the check that would reserve my space in the freshman class, which is why I had to take a semester off before college. She also never told me this until I figured it out on my own.

I gots some mom issues and they’ve all been rearing their ugly heads lately.

Like me, my mom is also impatient and now that she’s not in charge of children she’s also forgotten how to procrastinate. Now she’s all about get it done right now. How about now? NOW! Which is all fine and dandy, because I get like that too when it comes to some things. But, boy howdy, am I resentful when the NOW involves me and has to be done on her timeline.

So yesterday’s urgent task that could not even wait until I was done with lunch was unsubscribing her from Apple TV, which she accidentally subscribed to on her shitty Apple TV remote. This whole ordeal made me crabbier than I already was and wasn’t helped by the fact that I had to change my clothes before she got here. My mom is also a fat-shamer who believes thin people are morally superior.

Because it was ass-tastic outside yesterday I was scantily-clad in the hope of not owing $582 to the electric company for copious use of the air conditioning. Yep. I am forty-nine years old and I’m afraid of being fat-shamed by my own mom.

Since I am a good daughter, I fixed all her iPhone problems and didn’t lecture her at all about being intrusive or impatient. I wanted to, but I also didn’t want to be smushed under the weight of my own hypocrisy.

When I started this letter my plan was to write about how awfulmazing it is when you procrastinate hard on a project and then complete it easily with much time to spare. I feel like maybe I should not be rewarded for this behavior and yet, all the rewards keep coming my way.

Like mother, like daughter,
Jodi

P.S. the picture above is what my amazing dining room chandelier looks like when you’re sitting at the table.

The post Nearly Crushed Under the Weight of My Own Hypocrisy appeared first on I Will Dare.

I talked with my friend EM, who lives in Madison, tonight. I bragged to her about how I was blogging again and how I had done it for TWELVE DAYS IN A ROW. I blathered on about how I love the constraints and whatever.

After we got off the phone, I opened up Gladys to get to blogging and promptly spent two hours surfing the internet mostly looking for things I can do with 88 pounds of squash and zucchini. And looking for a new, perfect wallet with everything I want at a price I think is worth it. Apparently around $15, because I’m cheap. Then I spent some time playing with this goofy new font I got and was gonna write about, but changed my mind. I tried to spend time on Twitter, but I ignored it most of the day due to work and I had no clue what was going on.

I spent an hour debating if I was hungry enough to make some toast and whether it was too late for toast. I really wanted some peanut butter because I didn’t have any at all today and a day without peanut butter is like a day without blogging.

The post Day 13 of 200: The Peanut Butter Toast Chronicles appeared first on I Will Dare.

1. Spent three hours trying to get my three-year-old printer to connect wirelessly to my wireless network so I could print out the CSA registration form.
2. Spent at least 20 minutes pouting about my wireless printer’s inability to connect to my wireless network.
3. Set 82,192 curses upon the heads of the people who made the Brother Printer user interface and an additional 281,282 curses on the heads of the assholes who write their “help” documentation.
4. Print my stupid form un-wirelessly like some kind of Edwardian chump.
5. Made eggs for lunch.
6. Watched last night’s “Mad Men.”
7. Went in search of two envelopes, two stamps, and my checkbook, because if I’m gonna be an Edwardian chump, I am going to chump all the way.
8. Wrote checks for aforementioned CSA and one for dryer vent cleaners.
9. Watched the latest video update from that new Mike Doughty Soul Coughing thing.
10. Shuddered in horror at the Garfield stuffed animal featured prominently in so many of those video updates.
11. Stalked my newest imaginary boyfriend DJ Good Goose who is working on that new Mike Doughty Soul Coughing thing. He is totally adorable.
12. Read about the latest State Arts Board grants.
13. Registered to apply for a State Arts Board grant.
14. Signed up for NetGalley so I can read Carrie Mesrobian’s book Sex & Violence.
15. Pretended like I was a person who reads books electronically.
16. Signed up for Zinio so I can check out digital magazines from the library.
17. Spent 10 minutes singing the praises of the library.
18. Downloaded the latest issues of The New York Review of Books, Poets & Writers, dwell, and Elle (not because those last two rhymed, but because Adele (which also rhymes) was on the cover).
19. Pretended like I was a person who reads magazines.
20. Brought the dirty dishes to the kitchen.
21. Brushed my teeth.
22. Started emptying the clean dishwasher.
23. Made this list.

Now, I suppose I’ll try to finish that fucking scene that has been plaguing me for a week and a half because I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it and why it isn’t fitting.

The post A Not-Very-Short List of Things I Did Today to Procrastinate appeared first on I Will Dare.

I hop the newness of Franklin wears off quickly because I’ve done not a lot since he entered Supergenius HQ. The whole point of getting Internet TV besides telling my $162-a-month Comcast bill to suck it, was to cut out a lot of mindless TV watching.

But then I signed up for Netflix streaming, and it just may be the death of my already meager productivity. How can I possibly write or read a book or cook a meal when the entire series of “Quantum Leap”* is just waiting to be watched? And “3rd Rock from the Sun?” And “Parks & Rec?” Sitcoms and movies I’ve already seen are my weakness, because it allows my to half-brainedly watch and fart around on the Internet at the same time. Yes, this totally defeats the purpose. One of the hidden, not talked-about goals of Internet TV was to make TV/Movie watching a mindful activity, something I did with intent because I wanted to watch something.

But right now it’s like Napster all up in this hizzy. You remember what it was like in the early MP3 downloading heyday, don’t you? It was where you downloaded any song or album you could think of not because you really wanted it, but simply because you could. That’s where I am now, watching my favorite episodes of 80s and 90s TV not because I want to, but because I can. Who doesn’t love John Lithgow as an alien?

*I really do love Quantum Leap. It’s why I named my iPhone Ziggy and if I ever send you an email from my phone the signature line says, “Sent from Zigg, an iPhone, who is hopping the next leap will be the leap home.”

I am a nerd.

The post Franklin’s disruptions appeared first on I Will Dare.

Of course now I’m taking a little break for Rock of Love. Like Jello, there’s always room for Bret Michaels. And in this episode Bret spends a bit of time sans bandana/cowboy hat and his hair is totally fake.

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