Dear Darling Ones,

One of the benefits of being poor is the insurance, or at least it is right now. Who knows what the future holds for poor people insurance? Probably nothing. The only thing America hates more than black people, anyone not generally white passing, LGBTQIA+, and women, is poor people.

This country hates poor people because, like the good capitalist robots we are trained to be, we equate wealth with intelligence, hard work, and moral superiority. Only stupid and lazy people are poor and they deserve to suffer for their stupid laziness. Naturally.

When I was younger people were often surprised to learn I grew up in poverty, a thing I mostly kept a shameful secret, because I was so smart. As if I couldn’t be poor and smart.

Well, here I am again – poor and smart.

Believe it or not, bellyaching about poverty is my point today. My point right now, in this moment, is about how I am content and happy and it’s due to my poor people’s insurance.

My insurance has a bunch of incentive programs to make their clients “healthier.” Through this Healthy Benefits program they’ll “pay” you for doing things like getting a mammogram, getting your A1C checked, and other things I can’t remember because I don’t think they pertain to me.

The more cynical corners of my mind think they offer this program because they think poor people are too dumb to do this. Really, it’s probably a good investment. The healthier their clients are the less they have to pay. It always comes down to the dollars.

As a poor & frugal person I got my mind on the dolla dolla bills too, y’all.

My idea when I first discovered the Healthy Benefits program was to use the money for co-pays and prescriptions. Seemed like a good idea to me. Only thing is that was not allowed. The Benefits had to be used to by “healthy” food at specific stores. Because, of course.

Since I can’t drive anymore this made using my Benefits tricky. In fact, a bunch of my money expired before I could use them. I didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with it, Not so this year. This year I made it a mission to use that $80 (I got $50 for a mammogram and $30 for my A1C).

After much digging through the shitty Healthy Benefits website and even shittier app I learned I could use Uber Eats and their ridiculously inflated pricing to get groceries delivered. I have been in battle with Uber Eats for weeks because every time I tried to place an order the app said it could not use my S3 Healthy Benefits card right now.

Why? I don’t know. I even called the Healthy Benefits support line to see what I was doing wrong and they were literally like, “we’re here to help people add the card to their Uber Eats wallet.” Not so helpful to those of us who know how to work phone apps.

For someone with zero patience, I am also incredibly stubborn. I have been trying to place that order and get it to charge that stupid card every day for like two weeks. Today it worked. My frugal persistence paid off!

I was able to get all the Thanksgiving food for our tiny Thanksgiving. It’s just me, Sister #4, and our mom. The West Coast fam stays over there for Thanksgiving.

The amount of pride I have right now is incalculable. I’m so happy I get to pay for and prepare dinner for my fam. My mom and Sister #4 do so much for me and never complain about it in front of me. So many appointments (four in December) and checking the mail and taking out the garbage. They’ve never once asked me for gas money or anything like that. And while I cook and bake for them all the time (last week was chicken soup with homemade biscuits and scotcheroos), this is special because it feels like I got all the food for free.

The only thing I love better than paying less for stuff is not having to pay for it at all.

Yay!

Poor but happy,
Jodi

The post The Healthy Benefits of Poor People’s Insurance appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

When it comes to holidays, Thanksgiving ranks pretty low on the list. The tops are Christmas, My Birthday, Rex Manning Day, and National Donut Day (which sometimes falls on my birthday).

Thanksgiving is a dud for me. I haven’t eaten Thanksgiving Turkey in 25 years and I hate pie and football. This is not a holiday designed for me. What I usually like about Thanksgiving is how much my brother-in-law loves it. He loves cooking the dinner and eating the dinner. The one thing I do like aboutThanksgiving is that it’s the gateway to the winter holidays.

I know going into this holiday season things are gonna be odd. It’s the season of firsts. . . first Thanksgiving since my dad & Danny died. First Christmas. . . etc. And I expect there will be a lot of reminiscing about the lasts. . . last year Danny did this or Dad said that.

Even before my Dad & Danny died, this Thanksgiving was gonna be small. The West Coasters planned on skipping the MN trip this year. It’s an expensive flight for just three days.

It was gonna be me, my mom, and Sister #4 for dinner. I planned on making a chicken with all the trimmings instead of a turkey.

Then Sister #4 got the COVID. She texted us this morning with the news. So far, those of us who were around her last week have tested negative.

So now it’s Thanksgiving for two: the widow and her spinster daughter. That sounds so grey and sad, doesn’t it? It’s not. I promise. There are about 100 other people who would gladly have us over for dinner. But I’m not gonna put on uncomfortable clothes to go to someone else’s house to not eat turkey or pie.

No thanks.

My mom and I agreed to have dinner together at Supergenius HQ. We’re gonna have chicken wild rice soup (her choice) and I’m gonna make some monster cookies (my choice). I’m sure at same point we’ll FaceTime with the West Coast and Sister #4.

Of course, that has not stopped a Rosie O’Donnell “Beautiful Girls” monologue from running nonstop in my head.

“You’ll have these visions. Of you alone, 57, 58, walking around, wearing a nightgown, your hair in a bun, maybe you’re a librarian, heating up a can of soup for one, and worrying about the cobwebs that are growing in your womb.”

For the record, I will be making the soup from scratch — stock and all. Also, I stopped worry about my cobwebby womb a decade ago.

While I feel okay about this weird, small Thanksgiving now I reserve the right to turn into a melancholy baby who whines about loneliness at any moment this week.

You’ve been warned,
Jodi

The post The Incredible Shrinking Thanksgiving appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

Now that I’m back I need to get this first shitty post out of my system so I can get back to providing you with the slightly unhinged, occasionally thought-provoking, and mildly entertaining content you’ve come to expect from I Will Dare dot com.

For the record, I never consider what I produce on this website “content.” Barf. I think of it as a writing.

I trust you all survived the holiday unscathed. I almost did. I managed to cut the tip of my left index finger which is making typing super annoying. I also had a small tiff with Sister #2 on Thanksgiving night that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.

My family has this long-running joke about how awful it is to stay at Supergenius HQ and how everything is going to affect my Yelp review. I started this joke a long time ago and I’m regretting it.

This is amusing for a day or two. But after three days of hearing about how there’s too many plants, how it’s too dark, how the Internet was kind of wonky, how there’s Diet Coke instead of Diet Pepsi, how they have to make a second pot of coffee, it gets to be a bit much. It doesn’t help that it’s three against one.

When I woke up from a short nap after Thanksgiving dinner, Sister #2 jumped right on me with how loud I snored. I told her I needed her to back off a little. I explained that as my energy waned my sensitivity increased and the “jokes” were getting to me. She responded by saying sorry and then giving me the silent treatment for the rest of the night.

So that was fun and hasn’t at all given me a shit ton of anxiety about Christmas.

Up to that point, however, we had a pretty good week. The highlight was probably when Sister #2 and I serenaded Sister #4 with an a cappella version of Jeremey Messersmith’s “Ghost.” because of her ability to burn bridges even if she’s standing on them.

Ok. We’re back on the horse now,
Jodi

The post Fading Into View appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

How was your Thanksgiving? Just to get this out of the way, my Thanksgiving sucked and I hated it.

Sure having Sister #4 & Dolly (her Beagle/German Shepherd mix who super hates me as the running joke goes) here for three days was a goddamn delight. We ate pizza, watched obscure game shows from the 90s, bumbled our way through making Thanksgiving Dinner for Maxwell & The Olds, compared loneliness (she too is single and lives alone), and laughed until our throats hurt.

Most importantly, she listened to all my Dolly Parton fun facts and didn’t ghost me after. She didn’t even make fun of me when I cried while talking about Dolly, The Highwomen, and feminism.

I only cried a little bit after she left today. Now she’ll sit in her house for a month and I’ll sit in mine and we’ll do this all over again for Christmas which, prediction: Will suck and I will hate it.

Odds are against the Portlanders coming home for Christmas, which is what makes the holidays sucky and hateable. We FaceTime and group chat on the regular, but it’s not the same. I miss them so much I cry thinking about it. I’m crying now typing about it. Since Sister #3 unsubscribed from the Sister Club, the Portland-contingent’s absence is even harder.

This is all so hard. It’s hard on everyone, I know that. I know it’s hard in different ways, but knowing everyone is suffering doesn’t make me feel any better.

Maybe if I spend $200 on the LEGO Bookshop I’ll feel better? So far buying a new record and a pine tree hasn’t made me feel better.

Tomorrow I will be cheerier, Darling Ones. I promise. Maybe I won’t even talk about crying.
Jodi

P.S. I included a new picture of my Sadness Garden for you to gaze upon. I got a philodendron to replace the dead lavender. He is named Phil (obviously) after the Danny Devito character in Disney’s “Hercules” because I recently listened to 12 hours of classical mythology lectures and now I’m full of Greek myth fun facts, which I also shared with Sister #4 only she did make fun of me for those ones.

The post The COVID Diaries: It Sucked & I Hated It appeared first on I Will Dare.

I’m not a baker. In fact, I loathe it. I like the art of cooking. The science of baking kind of harshes my artistic buzz. I do make one exception to my no-baking rule, banana bread, because I love banana bread and hate wasting bananas.

However, even banana bread gives me some anxiety. The recipe calls for baking soda AND baking powder and it just makes me fell like more things can go wrong.

Today I’ve made a banana bread and a dozen banana chocolate chip muffins. I’m not messing around.

Soon I will be making a brownie-crust mint cheesecake with a chocolate ganache topping. Doesn’t that sound fancy? It’s not really baking, just stirring. The recipe I found called for boxed brownie mix and then just stirring a bunch of shit together and topping the brownies with it. I can stir. There’s no anxiety in stirring. No chemistry. Very little chances to fuck it up.

I’m still a little anxious because this as it is replacing the traditional ridiculously expensive cheesecake I usually buy and bring. Granted, I started bringing the cheesecake because I hate pie, but I’ve discovered a lot of my family really likes cheesecake. And pie.

The post Day 120 of 200: Bakesgiving appeared first on I Will Dare.