A Prison of My Own Device

20 Apr
hamster

Jess Bradley – Hamster Prison (check out her flickr for some great little cartoons)

Let me just bring you up to date real quick here on how my last few weeks have gone since I started to post again.

Week 1: Jackie announces that she hasn’t posted for a long time because there’s been this difficulty in reconciling cartoon-like Jackie from blogland with real-life Jackie from actual-job-I-like land now that her personal and digital circles have intertwined. She declares it a challenge and commits to post every single week in spite of it to see if it kicks it back up.

Week 2: Jackie posts a recent and deeply embarrassing chronicle of how her inability to find the bathroom in a local restaurant lead her on a journey of the spirit (she edited out the part where she shame cried). The same day, her workplace announces on social media that she has been promoted. A surprising amount of people read it and are supportive. They come to her personal page. They see her blog. They wonder how someone who cannot find a public restroom is responsible for running an organization. They make this joke to her in person. She is deeply uncomfortable.

Week 3: …

That’s where we are. We’re on week three: deeply uncomfortable. As in, I announced why this was weird now, I wrote a post to follow that up anyway, and it immediately became extra weird.

awkward giraffe

This is how I feel inside when someone mentions the blog. If you look closely, you can really see the struggle. (photo: Thomas Hawk on flickr)

But I mean, it would be SUPER awkward if I stopped writing now because a few posts ago I was all “Challenge Jackie to the charge!” and three weeks later I’d be like “nah, jk it’s hard and stuff.”

I wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t make those sections on Lollipop Tuesdays and 365 and 30 Day Challenges all over the page.

Dammit.

So here we are, friends. I’m stuck in a prison of my own device, and you’re watching it because Netflix and HBO have taught you that you can actually watch a lot of truly disturbing things and still be kind of okay on the inside. So, welcome to whatever panic train this is all about to be. Thank you for your fascination. ♣ 

This post was brought to you by Halo Top Ice Cream. Perhaps I’ll begin to allow the foods that drive my posts to publish phase to underwrite my blog. Is that how I can get free snacks? Snack sponsors. Yes. For my sorrows. Halo Top Ice Cream: more expensive than Ben & Jerry’s for half the creamy taste and one fifth the post-pint guilt.

I’ll probably have to give a better endorsement than that if I want free snacks, huh?

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14 Responses to “A Prison of My Own Device”

  1. pegoleg April 20, 2017 at 1:11 pm #

    At least you didn’t do that 365 deal again. That was hard on all of us. Don’t get me wrong – I love peaking into your brain. But I don’t even like talking to my husband every day, and I love him.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Jackie April 23, 2017 at 9:45 pm #

      you’re the worst and the best all at once.

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  2. Casey D April 20, 2017 at 1:40 pm #

    I’m waiting for you to turn these into a book! You have a wonderful way with words😊

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    • Jackie April 23, 2017 at 9:46 pm #

      you know, I get this a lot and I have to say that there are very few people who actually want to listen to my rambling for free let alone for purchase 😉 but thank you for being one of them. ❤

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  3. philosophermouseofthehedge April 20, 2017 at 3:56 pm #

    Creative people are always picking up on small details …except where the details are the basic ones like bathroom locations. Nothing as great as brain rambles

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    • Jackie April 23, 2017 at 9:47 pm #

      thanks for attributing it to creativity – it almost makes it sound like a positive thing!

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  4. Ice_Badger April 24, 2017 at 5:51 am #

    at least you are posting things with actual words and sense in them…

    I have already resorted to mainly pictures…

    but in my defence I was in a remote part of scotland with out any phone signal…

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  5. The Good Greatsby April 27, 2017 at 12:37 pm #

    I go through varying faces of enthusiasm. Every time I start up again I feel like I’ve definitely got the energy to be a bit more consistent and start posting once or twice a week again. And I usually make a statement to that effect in the first post. As you can probably guess, the enthusiasm usually lasts a couple weeks.

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    • Jackie April 29, 2017 at 11:05 pm #

      It’s hard to stay consistent. In the year where I did a 365, something that helped the habit was a weekly series and a clear few categories of things I talked about. That said, with all the time I’ve had away from regularly posting, it’s not coming back to me as easily as I’d hoped!

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  6. silkpurseproductions May 1, 2017 at 4:42 pm #

    You are certainly a bright spot in the blogosphere. Congrats on the promotion, by the way.

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