Hi Darling Ones,

Over the weekend I finished reading Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe. It was a total snooze. I do not recommend. I stuck with it because one of my favorite genres is “when bad things happen to rich people.” Give me a murder mystery set in some English hoity-toity boarding school and I’m happy.

The best thing about “Astor” is it kept reminding me of an argument we had during Rock & Roll Bookclub Dirty Santa this year.

We were playing some kind of “Would you rather” game someone won earlier in the night. One of the questions was Would you rather be rich in the olden days or poor now?

“Rich olden times,” I shouted without a moment’s hesitation.

Most of the room scoffed derisively and chose poor now. I shook my head at their foolishness.

I don’t know if it was Wolfdogg or my brother-in-law pointed out there would be no rock & roll or internet.

“That’s fine,” I said, “I’d make a kick ass Harriet Oleson, running the Mercantile, judging Caroline’s eggs.”

That’s right, the richest, old-timey person my white-trash, tv-rotted brain could come up with was Harriet Oleson from “Little House on the Prairie.” I didn’t think of the Astors or the Vanderbilts or the Gettys or the Morgans or any of the other bazillionaires who took advantage of the working class in the olden days.

I went right to Mrs. Oleson, and I stand by that.

“Okay, transatlantic slave trade,” Wolfdogg said.
“Harriet employed the only black lady in Walnut Grove,” I argued.

Eventually, I did win Sister #2 to my side. The rest of the group still think I’m full of shit, and for that I’m not gonna let them buy anything on credit from the Mercantile. I might even under price their stupid eggs.

Jodi

P.S. This is the one thing my brain seems to be dwelling on. To be fair, most of it has turned to mush after spending 2.5 hours getting my social security disability application started. Plus, you know, current events continue to be unprecedented.

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Well, Well, Well, Darling Ones, we meet again…

After sleeping until 10 a.m. this morning and taking two naps, I’m happy to announce I have survived the holiday social gauntlet thus far. I have not spoken to a human in the last sixteen hours. While I’m not quite back to my usual fortysomething in late-stage capitalism during an unceasing pandemic levels of tried, I have stopped praying for the sweet relief of eternal sleep. In fact, my throat kinda hurts a little today and I’m actively hoping to not die.

Darling Ones, how are your holidays thus far?

Mine have been surprisingly delightful. Despite the post-Thanksgiving sister fuckery, things went really well. There was no petty bickering or awkwardness or passive-aggressive snark. We had a really good time up until we realized we forgot to get our mom the new smart TV we promised her for Christmas. Oops.

We are awful children. Thankfully our mom has a good sense of humor and found pure joy in our horrified reactions once Sister #4 said at 9 p.m. on Christmas night, hours and hours and hours after gift opening brunch, “Fuck. We were supposed to get you a TV.”

Speaking of wayward Christmas gifts. . . I got my 23-year-old nephew a whittling kit for Christmas. Maxwell loved it and spent a lot of Christmas afternoon playing with it. He loved it so much that he was in the hospital getting stitches on the 26th. There’s a reason they called me Aunt Bad Lady when they were younger.

The best part of the holiday has been hanging out with my niece, Jaycie. I haven’t seen her since August 2020, which is the longest period of time I’ve gone without seeing her since she was born. She really is one of the Top 10 all-time greatest people I have the pleasure of knowing. For Christmas I got her a Joan Didion print by my friend and fabulous artist, Amy Abts. We both cried when she opened it, with Didion’s December 23rd death weighing heavy on our hearts.

Later that night she explained how much Didion’s Play It as It Lays means to her and how she found the book in a really dark time of her life. I bawled like a baby while continually whispering, “that’s beautiful.”

Last night before Rock & Roll Bookclub, we were listening to the Family Mix playlist on Spotify. It’s the playlist where they shuffle up a bunch of songs you all listening to individually. My brother-in-law Ben had a ton of influence over our list because it was filled with the mope rock her loves — The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths — barf!

We were all discussing the music we like and have been listening to.

“I listen to a lot of Big Star,” Jaycie said.
“What?” I said.
“The band Big Star,” she repeated. “I listen to them a lot.”
“Alex Chilton?” I asked. “Like, I never travel far without a little Big Star?” I sang and Sister #2 joined in.
She nodded her head at me. “Yeah. I really like them.”

My heart grew three sizes that night, and that’s even before Rock & Roll Bookclub started.

Having all of my people in my house for Bookclub is the second best part of the holiday. It was shouty and slightly drunken and very loud. The Dirty Santa game was extra competitive this year thanks to some help from my cousin Cathy (who once again complimented me on how cool by house is) and her daughter, my first cousin once removed, Lindsay (this is the one cousin who is part of our Wedding Party group chat).

Also, thanks to some post-game negotiating I traded some electronic gadget to my friend Atom for eleven wheat pennies.

Winning at being social,
Jodi

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Sometimes I have zero regrets about missing a day. Yesterday was one such day. Mostly, because I realized I’m the only one who really cares. Also, it’s okay to give myself a break and recover from the emotional upheaval of Christmas.

Last night was the Dirty Santa edition of Rock & Roll Bookclub, which really is our finest gathering of the year. We eat breakfast for dinner, drink Bloody Marys (at least BFK and I do), and play games — most notably Dirty Santa. We keep the limit low ($20) to force more creativity and it usually works. This year there was a lot of booze.

I designed the yearly coffee mug and made a Red Owl basket to put it in, and threw in some tea towels (more on that later). It was a highly sought-after gift, stolen a few times. Everyone always wants to be the giver of the most stolen gift.

So, I won on that account, but the real win was stealing the signed copy of Dessa’s My Own Devices from Heather. It might even be my favorite book of 2018. I read a lot though, so I still have to go through the list before making the final determination.

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Last year during A Very St. Martin Christmas it got hella hot in here and my dingdong sisters decided to open the front door a smidge to cool this shizz down. The dingdongs did not take into consideration that the front door is roughly 3 feet from the thermostat. Anyway, we’re not sure what happened but I was without heat in Minnesota for about 36 hours. My Uncle Wayne loaned me some space heaters until I could get things fixed, but then my house healed itself.

ANYWAY, my brother-in-law Ben suggested I get a new thermostat because mine was pretty damn janky. Of course because I’m a bougie princess I wanted the fancy Nest. During Dirty Santa Bookclub Ben & Wolfdogg ganged up on me and tried to con me into getting some ugly Honeywell thing. “You’re just paying for the Nest brand” they said. I showed those fuckers.

I waited nearly a year for the fancy thermostat to go on sale and then I got myself one for Christmas. Last night Ben installed it, and he even admitted it was pretty rad. And because I was grateful for his help I didn’t even remind him about the great shaming of last year.

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I’ve just returned from Rock & Roll Bookclub, which went way way later than I had planned. If I had thought ahead I would have banged this shit out before I left for Sister #2’s house, but I was very busy re-watching Top Chef South Carolina, intermittently napping, and reading a Tana French book.

As you can see, I had important stuff to get done. Also, I bought a pair of buffalo plaid pajama pants so I can be matchers with my sister on Christmas. I’m that kind of dork.

Rock & Roll Bookclub was mostly wonderful. However, Walter totally shunned me to cuddle with Wolfdogg and to say that it made me a little salty is an understatement.

We were supposed to talk about Dessa’s My Own Devices, but since Sister #2 and I were the only ones who read it we mostly just shot hearts from our eyes while murmuring about how good it was while I lifted up my arm to make everyone look at my goosebumps.

Then we watched The Current’s livestream of the Hippo Campus concert and it made Heather and I cry when all the teenage girls sang the words to the song instead of the band.

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