Hey Darling Ones,

Did I ever tell you about the time back in aught-something when I ghosted a man I had been seeing for months on Valentine’s Day? Of course I didn’t because that awful woman ruined the sharing of romantic entanglements for the lot of you.

Ghosting someone after Valentine’s Day is a dick move. I am not proud of it even though I had good reasons for ending the relationship. In hindsight I should have handled it better in the moment.

I can’t remember how many months I had been seeing this guy by the time Valentine’s Day rolled around. Six? Five? Nine? It was a lot of months, especially because when it comes to romantic relationships I’m ol’ Jodi Fortnight. I can’t remember the exact reasons why, but I made it very clear to the dude that I did not want to celebrate or recognize Valentine’s Day in any way, shape, or form. No flowers. No candy. No dinner. No hanky panky. In fact, I’m pretty sure we didn’t even have plans to see each other that entire week. It must have been one of those years where I was anti V-Day. Sometimes I’m very pro V-Day. It all depends on my fickle moods.

So imagine my surprise when dude shows up at my place of employment with flowers, candy, and a stuffed animal. Did I say surprise? I mean my utter fury.

I remember walking with my friend Gage from the lobby to my desk. He was helping me carry all the crap.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Gage asked in a sing-songy, grade-school voice.
“Not anymore,” I said.

The guy had made a habit of crossing boundaries I put up. And there were a lot because I have a defensive fortress around my heart. Still, he was one of those guys who would show up where he was not invited. First Ave shows. Bars. Etc. I frequently gave him a pass because I knew he was really into me, but come to my work was not cool. So I just stopped. Shitty. So shitty of me.

The dude forgave me somewhat because we hooked up a few times after the ghosting. So it was only a semi-ghosting, I guess? The first time we slept together after the ghosting he was all, “It was Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it? I knew that was a bad idea.”

A couple years ago when I was re-doing my dining room Sister #2 found that stuffed animal in a box of toys the niblings used to play with when they were little. I was debating on whether to keep all the toys, some of the toys, or whatnot because they reminded me of the nibs.
“This is cute,” she said, turning the monkey around in her hands. “You should keep it.”
“I got that for Valentine’s Day from a guy and then I dumped him.”
“Donate,” she said, tossing it into the box and shaking her head in disgust.

For Valentine’s Day, Darling Ones, I made you another mix tape (I even figured out how to make YouTube playlist, special for you). Last year’s was Paul Westerberg’s 13 Best Songs of Love & Longing. My plan was to tell you about these songs, how if I had the courage I would send this mix to all my crushes personally, but I am a coward and so am sending it to them generally through this post. I was gonna tell you why I love “Bittersweetheart” by Soul Asylum so much.

But this other story popped out instead.

Hauntingly yours,
Jodi

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Will you be my Valentine, Darling Ones?

Whenever I think of Valentine’s Day I think of one from 1994. It was late on that day and my friend, Baltus, found me sitting alone in the newspaper office. I must have looked sad because he cocked his head at me, smiled, and said, “It’s okay, Chromes, I will be your valentine.”

It was the sweetest thing ever, made even sweeter by the fact that he said it to cheer me up because neither of us had romantic feelings toward each other at all.

I always have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. I have loved it and loathed in equal measure throughout my life. This year, I don’t really care either way. I think 2020 sucked all the care I had for any holidays right out of me. They’re all dumb excuses capitalism uses to make us buy more crap. I like to buy crap because I am sad and not because some dumb holiday told me to. Take that capitalism!

Since I Will Dare dot com has been a lot of sadness and gloom due to our unending pandemic, my inherent lonesomeness, February, mercury in retrograde, and the cowards that inhabit our government, I’m gonna share with you some things I love.

• “Valentine” by The Replacements. Obviously.
• This cabbage tree.
• When I sit up in bed in the morning Wendell, my cat, jumps up next to me and rolls on his back so he’s resting against my thigh with his paws in the air. That means it’s time for the Belly Rub Agenda. This is when I sing/chant “Belly rub agenda, belly rub agenda, oh-ho-ho-ho, belly rub agenda” while rubbing his belly. I sing the oh-ho-ho part in a deep voice. We do this every day.
• When people have really strong opinions about pens (or snack foods).
• My twitter feed. I only follow like 200 people. They are some very high quality humans and the other day the dudes kept talking about Matt Dillon. My Matt Dillon and that made me very happy.
• Whenever someone starts a conversation with “I’ve been listening to. . .” Sign me up. I do want to hear all your thoughts on music. I’m not kidding. This isn’t sarcasm. However, I also love to tease people about their taste in music so there’s that.
• Poetry. I’m not sure if I should call it love yet, maybe a serious crush. I’ve been inviting more poetry into my life since I fell in love with the “lovely as lust, but fickle as the moon” line. Today it was this poem by pavanna reddy that got me.
• Radishes. I cannot get enough. I eat more radishes than one probably should and I only feel a little guilty about it. See also: breakfast burritos, jalapeños, and doughnuts.
• The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys. I have to listen to this song at least once a day. Usually twice.
• When someone is super passionate about some specific thing and they give you a mini-lecture about the thing and then stop and apologize when they realized they got a little carried away. Ugh. My favorite.
• This sandalwood & whiskey candle from a local candlemaker.
• “I read that book you mentioned/suggested/were talking about.” Thrills me to the moon every time.
• Every time a woman gets excited about pockets. As someone whose had to wear men’s clothes for most of my life I had no idea that pockets were such a thing.
• Orange soda pop.
• When people know all the things about their astrological sign. It’s so adorable.
• Even though I don’t care about either of these, I love when men really love baseball or when women really love Joan Didion. I find this endlessly charming. Only baseball and Didion. It doesn’t work for other sports or authors. I don’t know why.
• Anytime anyone says “I thought about you. . .” because I am fragile and think I’m forgettable.

If you were a pill, I’d take a handful at my will,
Jodi

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“If you were a pill, I’d take a handful at my will and knock you back with something sweet and strong”

Lately, The Vodo has been begging me for Replacements’ bootlegs and Westerberg rarities. He alleges that this is to help set a mood for a story he’s working on, but I think he just likes to challenge me. So far, I have not failed him. At least I don’t think I have.

So, I’ve had ‘Mats on the brain for the past few weeks. The irony here is that they are my all-time favorite band and yet I hardly ever listen to their music. I’m not sure why this is. Every once in awhile I’ll cue up “Let it Be” (arguably their best) or, more likely, my playlist featuring 26 versions of “Can’t Hardly Wait” (because I am nothing if not obsessive), but mostly I skip by their music because I just don’t feel like listening to it. Or I feel like I’ve listened to that song a million times. Familiarity breeds contempt?

This morning as I was trying to cleanse the Juice Newton from my brain, I decided to search for the word Valentine in honor of the holiday. I was curious to see what would come up. In my head, I guessed Tom Waits’ “Blue Valentine” and that’s about it. My brain, after all, was sticky with the non-stop Juice.

As soon as I spied “Valentine” by The Replacements, I was all hell yes, I love that song. In fact, I had totally forgotten the song even existed which is too bad. This is one of the song that made me fall in love with Paul Westerberg’s writing.

“Valentine” is, for me, one of the forgotten Westerberg gems. Even if I were to rifle off my favorite ‘Mats songs, I don’t think it’d make the cut. Plus, I often never finish the list after I get past the Holy-Triumvirate (Can’t Hardly Wait, Left of the Dial, Bastards of Young).

But you got to give “Valentine” props. It’s so clever. Most people laud the “you wished upon a star that turned into a plane” line. Which, you know, is good but kind of pedestrian. And then there’s the whole pill metaphor. Which is great. . . what with all that pills can imply, imparting both relief from pain/illness or death.

But my favorite line of the song is: “Trouble keeping your head up when you’re hungry and you’re fed up.” I just love the play of hungry and fed up. It’s so damn clever and such an apt description for that kind of exasperation and desperation. It’s the kind of wordplay that made me fall in love with Westerberg’s music. Such a nice thing to remember today.

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Usually I celebrate this day by sending out frilly pink cards to all the people who make my heart soar. This year I had the best intentions. There’s a box of glittery pink and brown cards along with some featuring Dwight K. Schrute sitting on top of the bookcase. I think I even made it so far as to address one of the cards. But that’s where it ended.

I’ve been preoccupied and spend most of my time hiding in books. To put together the cards would mean I’d have to spend time thinking about how I feel about the people in my life and that would only lead me to start thinking about how I feel about my current situation, and we can’t have that. That would interfere with all the denial I’m so good at.

Even though the cards sit unsent that doesn’t change that today is Valentine’s Day and in some fashion we should all share the love somehow.

Here’s how I’m doing it. By sharing a great song by my favorite singer, and he’s wearing red pants so that’s like extra double plus bonus valentine’s points. Right?

It’s the thought that counts. And what I think about the people that come here everyday and read these words, the ones who share their ideas in the comments, well when I think about that I get all teary-eyed and smooshy. So I’m just going to stop with that because I got to get back to denial, it misses me.

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