Dear Darling Ones,

Tuesday we celebrated the life of my Aunt Sherry, who died much too young (67) down in Florida where she retired with my Uncle Wayne.

I attended the celebration at the Savage American Legion along with a lot of my St. Martin family, what felt like half of Savage, and, to my delight, a few bowlers from the < a href="https://iwilldare.com/category/work/bowling/">Dan Patch Lanes days.

When Nancy, who bowled the Tuesday Womens’ league along with my Aunt Sherry and sisters, walked in, Sister #4 started hitting me in the should, “Look Nancy Westphal is here!” Then she turned to our mom and did the same thing.

“I’m acting like a celebrity just walked in,” Sister #4 said.
“She is Hot Randy’s mom,” I said.

When I die if I have a funeral/celebration of life that’s half as filled and lively as Aunt Sherry’s, I’ll be pretty damn pleased in the afterlife I’m not sure I believe in.

I’m so happy I went. There was never any doubt in my mind I wouldn’t go, which was also nice. It was the first time I’ve attended a social gathering in public outside my house since the stroke. Also the first social gathering in my janky-ass wheelchair.

This means it was also the first time I’ve seen so much of my family since the stroke. Boy, were they happy to see me, and I was thrilled to see them. What made me happiest of all, on a sorrow-filled day, is that I had zero anxiety about going or seeing any of them in what I often call my “new body and new brain.” Besides being infinitely hilarious, my St. Martin family makes me feel comfortable.

Toward the end of the afternoon I got a chance to talk to my cousin, Chad. He’s Sister #2’s age, about 50, and also uses a wheelchair. Fun Fact: between both sides of the family Sister #2 has five cousins that are her age. 1974/early-75 was a fertile period for the Chromeys and St. Martins.

“Nice chair,” I said to Chad, who has muscular dystrophy.

Even though my mom had told me Chad had muscular dystrophy about a hundred times over the years, I always assumed she meant multiple sclerosis. Everything I know about MD I learned as a child from the Jerry Lewis telethon and I decided it was a disease that affected children. Chad went to college on a baseball scholarship and as far as I know didn’t develop MD until his 30s or 40s.

“Wheelchair’s suck,” Chad said.
“But your’s is so nice,” I said. His had a joystick and glowing buttons and was the Maserati of wheelchairs as far as I’m concerned. Mine has uneven wheels and is the 1999 Chevy S10 of wheelchairs.

We spent a little time swapping stories about how much it sucks to be disabled. That was kida awesome finding someone in my own family who can relate. As they were kicking us out, yes we shut the funeral down, I put my number in his phone. Hopefully there’s more commiseration in the future.

Also, one more thing. My Cousin Jason & Uncle Wayne let me take home the enormous peace lily (pictured above). I’ve named her Sherry, obvs, and she joins the Sadness Garden with Muriel, a pathos I’ve had since Grammu died in 2003 and Eleanor IV, a peace lily that is named after my Grandma Chromey and a peace lily I had from her funeral in 1990 that Paco & Madison murdered in 2006. I’ve replaced her a few times.

Peace,
Jodi

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Forgive me, Darling Ones,

I’m about to whine. A lot. This has been a bummer summer and I am counting down the hours until it is over. Summer officially ends, according to the Jodiann calendar, the day after Labor Day.

How will I be celebrating? With injections in my both my eyes. Staving off complete blindness is fun! At least it means I get to go somewhere.

Oh, Darling Ones, I’m depressed as hell and I can’t seem to climb out of my foul mood.

It started last week when I couldn’t go to the State Fair as planned. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to it until it all slipped right through the fingers of my Floppy Scoop.

Thanks to being an actual giant and the rentable mobility scooters being for normal-sized people I couldn’t go. Sister #2 scoured the internet for information on the scooters. I was all, I checked the weight limit and they’ll carry me. But alas, I was much too tall. I always forget that my height is a thing. Weird, isn’t it? My waist to knee measurement is 11 inches longer than the scooter would accommodate. Fucking rude.

As my family trundled off to the Fair sans their favorite burden (me), I tried to console myself with the delivery of my “Hooray, you did the thing!” gift. Times is tight, but I wanted to celebrate the victory of submitting something to the creative arts competition. So I allowed myself $20 to blow on something pretty.

I decided to blow my money at Succulents Depot. Big mistake. Huge.

When you only have four figures worth of dollars to your name and no money coming in on the horizon, $20 is a lot!

If you look above you can see the sickly Tradescantia Zebrina & Tradescantia Nanouk they sent me. All I wanted was a tiny, pretty thing to gaze upon and find joy, but NNNNNnnnoooooOOOOOO.

So to my State Fair sadness I have added all the other bummers from this summer:

• Janky, not very helpful wheelchair
• Climate change limiting my time at Sister #4’s Blue Ox Oasis (70 degree highs in August? So much smoke in July? Wah!
• Social Security Disability rejection #3
• Procrastination and hubris-related State Fair blanket failure (they didn’t even display it!)
• And my garage door broke a few days ago meaning I’ve got a $500-$800 repair in my near future

And this is how I’ve worked myself right into a thick, depressed funk.

That’s how I’ve spent my summer, Darling Ones, how about you?

Feeling better now that I wrote about it,
Jodi, Queen of the Bummers

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Hey Darling Ones,

It’s surprisingly hard to feel good about yourself when you’re not able to make enough money to support yourself. Not impossible, just difficult. I blame capitalism and the patriarchy. To be fair, those two along with racism are to blame for most problems.

Since I’ve made $0.00 so far this year I’m struggling with what exactly the point of me is, which is sad in more ways than one. Was the point of me pre-stroke to make websites for people and pay the mortgage? How gross.

Now that I’m disabled and unable to work enough to support myself I need to figure out what I want from my time left on Earth. Before the stroke I was too busy working, surviving, and feeling bad about living up to my potential.

One thing I have managed to figure out is that I don’t want to spend any more of my life feeling bad about myself. So, I’ve found new things to feel good about.

These things usually fall under the umbrella of “spinstering.” These are activities that I’ve decided are extra spinstery (reading*, crocheting, talking to my cats, etc.)

On days when I spinster hard I feel extra good about myself. Like maybe the point of me is to do stuff that makes me happy?

Today I spinstered my ass off.

• Made no-knead bread dough for tomorrow’s Easter Dinner.

Prepared most of the mise en place for aforementioned dinner.

• Repotted ALL of the Sadness Garden while
• listening to Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams.
• Ate a healthy salad for dinner.

It doesn’t sound like much, but between unpotting, repotting, and clean up, the Sadness Garden was a multi-hour endeavor.

Now I’m plum tuckered out and pretty satisfied even though I didn’t earn a dime.

Pointlessly yours,
Jodi

P.S. I cleared up SO much space on the Sadness Garden cart that I can get more plants. Feel free to send me some cute ones!

 

*I exclusively listen to audiobooks now because the distorted vision makes reading a book with my eyes too difficult.

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Hola Darling Ones,

How are you? It been ages since I’ve written. My silence is funk related. Current events + personal economic insecurity makes Jodi a dull girl.

There’s about three half-written posts in the hopper, but I haven’t mustered up the gumption to finish them. I will though, because I’ve been spending every afternoon for the past two weeks arguing with Jason Isbell in my head and the world needs to know about it. Plus, maybe if I get it out of my head maybe I’ll stop.

But that’s not why I’m here today. Today I’m gonna tell you about two things I’ve started doing again. These were things I did all the time pre-stroke and it it’s taken me two years to get back into the habit.

1. Listening to music on my headphones
I mentioned how Sister #4 gave me some bitchen Sony cans. What I didn’t mention was that I stopped listening to music on headphones for a long time.

Whatever the stroke did my brain it interfered with my ability to enjoy music being pumped right into my skull. Part of that was due to people stopping by unannounced right after my stroke and scaring the shit out me because I couldn’t hear the garage door over the music. Part of it was just because — maybe it was too much?

Regardless, now whenever I fire up Euryale (that’s my laptop) to work or write I pop on the cans and it is familiar delight. It doesn’t take away the wooshiness in my head or the tremor in the Floppy Scoop, but it does make me feel like my old self.

2. Tending to the Sadness Garden
In its heyday the Sadness Garden contained dozens of plants and took up space in three of of Supergenius HQ’s rooms.

Along with my money and balance, the stroke took a lot of my plants. RIP Peggy, Stan, Joanie, Heather, Heather, Veronica, Ann, Nancy, and Janine. Plus a bunch I can’t remember the names of.

In the early days I didn’t have the capacity to give them the care they required. While my mom and sisters tried, they were more concerned with keeping me alive.

This week I spent some time getting my garden in order. I cut back Cub, the monstera; started what may turn out to be an avocado tree orchard; and gave one last shot at keeping Eleanor IV alive. I don’t have high hopes for her.

I’ve vowed to cool my jets when it comes to plants and keep it contained to the one cart and the two giants (Trevor, the lemon tree and Cub). This means I’m now accepting a Pilea Peperomioides and a Tradescantia Nanouk. Feel free to send them.

In good news, my retina doctor has lengthened the time between the invasive eye treatments. I only have to go every 12 weeks now, which is nice because for awhile I was going every 4 weeks. The bad news is my vision will never be undistorted again. He said that last time too, but I always ask doctors a few times in case they were mistaken the first two times I asked.

Keeping the status quo,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

Sometimes I feel like a special guest star in an 80s sitcom. You know, the plucky, sassy character with some kind of health-related issue. The one with a positive, nothing’s gonna keep me down attitude. She’s always quick with a witty quip about her condition.

Think Cousin Geri from “Facts of Life” or Arnold’s friend Kathy on “Diff’ent Strokes.” She’s there to show you that everything can be overcome with a positive attitude. To teach everyone a lesson about how their problems aren’t that bad, so buck up buttercup.

I feel a kind of pressure to keep up a chipper sort of positivity since my stroke, even if it’s laced with sarcasm and some cynicism.

When anyone asks me how I am I reply, “Well, I had a stroke.” I try to leave it up to the asker to interpret what that means, but the Midwesterner in me usually follows it up with, “I’m good, all things considered.”

Honesty is not the best policy in this situation, because people want to immediately cheer you up. They want to tell you how strong you are and smother you with positivity and self-help aphorisms. They really want you to just be that special guest star.

We don’t sit well with things that make us uncomfortable. We want to get back to comfort as soon as we can.

The mere idea of me, what happened, what I’m going through has made people flee in discomfort. While this is disappointing, it is not surprising. I’ve read a lot of grief memoirs and know people cannot handle facing mortality upclose.

Even those who continually show up, struggle with my ineffable sadness.

When Sister #2 was here a few weeks ago, I tried to explain how I get a little sad when I look at Trevour, my lemon tree.

“Usually he spends the summer outside,” I told her. “And I couldn’t bring him out this year.”

“Do you want me to out him outside?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m sad because I can’t do it and I don’t if I ever can.”

I’ve been grappling a lot with sadness due to the fallout of the stroke this weekend.

The other night I cried during an episode of “Project Runway.” It was the Season 13 Finale. I’ve been mindlessly re-watching every season of PR, and this was the first time I cried.

Weird.

It’s not weird that I cried. I’m a crybaby. It’s weird that it took me so long.

Frankly, it’s a relief. I was convinced post-stroke Jodi wasn’t an ol’ softy. While I have shed many tears since March 6, a majority of them have been out of anger, annoyance, or frustration.

Not many of them were due to being moved to tears by a song, a tv show, or how cute my cat is. Very few of them were shed out of sadness.

I don’t think I really let myself feel sad for too long. It’s partially the Special Guest Star Syndrome and partially that sadness is hard. It makes you feel helpless and like a giant bummer.

When you struggle with low-self worth and low-self esteem, being a giant bummer is something you avoid at all costs.

Unless, of course, you’re typing in your blog you pretend nobody reads. Then you bummer away.

Sadly,
Jodi

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