Tag Archives: 365 Project

The Iceman Cometh

15 Oct

It’s cold.

I know, I know – I asked for this.  I praised autumn in a post that could have inspired people to fashion little idols of autumn and worship them in their backyards.  After autumn comes winter, so by praising one, it implies that I am encouraging what follows.

To be clear, I’m not.  I hate winter.  I used to like it back when it was 1/4 of the year, but now it’s half and it makes me want to die.

I usually don’t mind the autumn chill; I’m more than happy to have an excuse to bust out the scarves a little early.  But I have a small problem.  My landlord isn’t turning on the heat.

I’m not sure what his rules and regulations are.  I don’t know what temperature it has to get to for him to decide it’s inhumane to give us the gift of fire, but sometimes it gets pretty darn cold overnight and there’s nothing I can do but fashion a cocoon of blankets and hope til morning. 

It’s kind of a strange retribution, you know?  I went all summer long without air conditioning in order to save money and to cater to my occasional need to indulge my hippie sensibilities.  Maybe my landlord (let’s call him Smee) caught wind that I was torturing Dave and my cats and now he’s going to teach me a lesson.  Maybe Dave called Smee and asked him to teach me a lesson.  

After all, men are furry.  They can endure the cold.  I’m naked as a baby mole rat from my head to my toes; there’s no hope for me.

I try to combat the chill by baking and cooking a lot.  I threw a few potatoes in the oven the other night just to fire up the gas.  Our gas bill is included in our rent, so I can use all the oven time I want.  I wasn’t really hungry, but like the late Mitch Hedberg said: “It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes, I’ll just throw one in there, even if I don’t want one. By the time it’s done, who knows?”

I like to take my life advice from comedians.  Sometimes that can be problematic.

As it turns out, I didn’t want the baked potato when it was done.  I don’t really like them.  But I was warm.

I have a few poorly constructed plans for how to endure part of the winter should Smee refuse to loosen the purse strings.  Most of them have to do with funneling the heat from the oven into other parts of the house with Dr. Seuss-like contraptions.   That’s probably a fast track to a fiery death.

At least I’ll be warm when I go. ♣

 

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Zooey Deschanel Is Mocking Me

14 Oct

Zooey Deschanel and I are kind of fighting right now.

I say kind of because she doesn’t know who I am, even though she is obviously playing out my entire life on national television.

For those of you who don’t know who I’m talking about, allow me to post a picture of enlightenment.  But I warn you: she’s totally cute.  So if you’re a guy and you don’t already know who she is, prepare yourself to get a little excited by her adorableness.  And if you’re a girl who doesn’t already know who she is, prepare to feel inferior.   Not inferior in a ‘wow she’s hot’ kind of way.  Inferior in a ‘man she’s really lovely and looks like she’s probably a nice person too.  Sonuvagun’ kind of way.

Look at her basking in her awesome life. For the record, I got this image from a site that claimed to have gotten the image from another site. So to go ahead and bypass all that mumbo jumbo let's just say this obviously isn't mine and you can click on the image to find lots more pictures of her that aren't mine.

 You might recognize her face as the crazy girl from 500 Days of Summer.  Or maybe as the crazy girlfriend on Weeds.  Or maybe as the crazy roommate in Failure to Launch.  Or, most recently, as the star of the show ‘New Girl’, which was stolen from the transcripts of my life.

I was first made aware of this travesty when one of my older brothers texted me telling me I had to watch it right away because it was me.  The premise of the show is that the lead – Jess, played by the offender in question – has just been cheated on and moves in with a houseful of guys, where she talks in crazy voices, does stupid things, and makes up her own jingles.  And with only a few almost unnoticeable adjustments, this is my life from college.  Except New Girl replaced all of my awesome guy roommates with bad actors.  Also, I’m not as attractive as her. 

This makes me upset.  Not just the not-being-as-attractive-as-her thing, but the whole shebang.  Zooey Deschanel is exactly what I’ve always wished I looked like, starring in a sitcom I always wish I could have had.  And guess what: she has a band.  Yeah.  She gets her singer-songwriter on too.  The real kicker is that she isn’t even very good at any of these things. Honestly, she’s not.  I’m not being rude – she’s very lovely and I don’t hold anything against her except that she has entirely and heartlessly usurped my dreams from me by claiming them for her own.  But it’s just an empirical observation that she’s rather average in every area outside of her bangin’ cute looks and soul-slurping doe eyes.   She just tries to be amusing about the fact that she’s average and people like that about her.

She even has likability.

So I keep watching New Girl.  Over and over again.  I don’t even think it’s very good.  It could have been good if they would have called me to get more information instead of just running with the basics.  But they missed a few very key points about the roommates that I’d love to fill them in on.  You know, if they’ll replace Zooey with me.  Obviously.  And they’re going to need a few cats.  The cats are vital. But I keep watching it in spite of its mediocrity because I’m in shock at how much she is like me and how completely annoying I am. 

Look at her. She knows what she's doing. (Photo by Noel Vasquez – Image courtesy gettyimages.com)

 

Really, I can’t stand her character.  I don’t know how people put up with me.  At least when I lived with four guys I could kind of spread my personality amongst them all.  Now that I live with just one – oh man.  How does Dave do it?! Honestly, how does he not smother me in my sleep?

The other day I woke him up with an improvised song about how he was wrapped up in his blanket all funny.  It was called Breakfast Burrito.  And while I was proud of my rendition at the time, I’m now watching Zooey ‘I-steal-your-dreams-and-play-them-out-in-front-of-you’ Deschanel and I’m thinking Woooow.  Someone needs to body slam me until I shut up.

Really.  If Zooey woke me up with a song about how I looked like a breakfast burrito, I’d have the urge to take her out at the knees.

Well, at least maybe then I’ll have a shot at understudy. ♣

 

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An Opportunity for Shenanigans

13 Oct

Tomorrow I have a fantastic opportunity for shenanigans.

Let me lay out the necessary, boring details for you quick like a Band-Aid: I have an all-day mandatory meeting with a large portion of the folks who work for the same company as me.  Though I’ve been here for over a year, I didn’t go last year because I wasn’t yet official in this role.  My boss has folks she interacts with in two places: the building I work in and a building downtown.   Most of the people I coordinate with regarding her are downtown, which means that I’ve talked to them constantly over the phone or through email for a year and they have absolutely no idea what I look like.

Until tomorrow.

I have a lot of ideas.  My favorite involves a pair of cat-eye glasses with the little string of beads that holds them around your neck when you’re not using them.  I’d also like a long, ridiculous skirt, a drab cardigan, and a turtleneck.  I’ll call it “Librarian Chic”.  

I’d also like to adapt a few strange mannerisms.  Talking about myself in the third person is not out of the question.   And since food is always such a big to-do and all office meetings, I could probably get a lot of strange hubbub by bringing a sack of my own food.   Like an entire sack of cold hot dogs.

That might bring about the wrong kind of questions.  Let’s change that to a sack of Twinkies.

I think the overall image will be pretty fabulous.  No one can really say anything to me because we’ve got this whole ‘include everybody, no matter how ridiculous they seem’ HR thing going on right now.   And since my boss has taken ill, there’s a high chance she will not attend.  The best part will be when she goes downtown next week and get a lot of puzzled buzz in the office about her strange assistant.

Of course, I’ve thought about going the complete other way and busting through the joint in a power suit and not talking to anyone.  The urge to treat this occasion as a grand social experiment is just irresistible.  Imagine how different my phone conversations and emails will be if I can create the image of someone entirely uptight/strange/powerful/better-than-thou – I have such a plethora of choices.

Feel free to chime in with one; I’ll throw together my wardrobe tonight. ♣ 

 

 

 

 

 

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Public Enemy Number One: Corn Mazes

12 Oct

Yesterday I lost a little more faith in the human race.

Unfortunately I’m not referring to the college student who ran out in front of the car while I was driving, pretending as if putting his arms up and not making eye contact doubled as a human shield.  Though it comes as another close runner up, I’m also not referring to last evening when I watched Red Riding Hood.

Why did I do that?

No, I’m referring to something much, much sadder.  Something that lowers my intelligence quotient just hearing about it.  And now I’m going to do the same to you in order to even the score.  I’m sorry it has to be this way.

Yesterday, a family called 911 because they got lost in a corn maze. 

You’ve read it.  You can’t unread it.  

Picture it: you go out with your family to a corn maze for a little bit of autumn fun.  Thousands of people come from all over every year to cherish the wonders of the corn.  This year you finally decide to make it out.  But after you pay your entrance fee, you’re twenty minutes into the maze and have no hope for finding an exit.  It’s been at least five minutes since you saw that kid with the strange blue goop all over his cheeks who keeps staring at you like he knows something.  And then it hits you: you might never get out of here.  You could spend your life here, looking for the exit.   And though that would be okay for you – you’d make do with gnawing on the corn and then fashioning yourself a hut of husks, but wait.  What about your baby?

None of that was actually in the story.  Just the concern for the baby.  

I have a lot of questions, some many of which may never be answered.  

Now, I know you may be struggling with this.  You could be shocked that corn mazes pose such a current and real threat to our society.   You could still be wondering what kind of puree could be made out of the corn and mixed with breast milk to keep a small baby alive in such a dire situation. Or maybe you’re just  cradling yourself and rocking back and forth as you think about the tax dollars that were wasted in this and of the resources that went down the drain to make it a national headline.

Personally, I’m saddened by the watering down of our intelligence over the course of time.  This poor family is just a product of our terrible stupidity breeding with itself.  

Do America a favor, folks.  Watch this video.  Then go find your kids/parents/siblings/pets and force them to listen to you read an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica.    

Your country will thank you. ♣

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The Almost Lollipop Tuesday

11 Oct

You knew it was coming right? The week when I would completely fail at doing anything new or exciting? The week where nothing was worthy of being logged in this, the 2011th year of Our Lord: the year Jackie wrote a blog post every day.

No? Didn’t see it coming?  Well it has.  Breathe heavily.  Hold yourself.  Try not to regret visiting this page today.

I don’t really have an excuse.  I could have planned better.  I could have laid out my last Lollipop Tuesdays of the year so that I’d know what I was doing each and every week.  But instead I ended up driving around the butt crack of the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio looking for an idea.

Usually when I procrastinate for Lollipop Tuesday, I’m in my own stomping grounds and can uncover an idea or two.  But last night I was out of my element.  I’d forgotten my wallet at home, had no money for tolls, and driving through a back woods area on my way back home, searching with Dave for some fantastic, free, adventurous idea.

Buggy rides were considered.

I also parked the car outside a house that had a large sign stating “Swans for Sale”, pondering the possibilities.  I envisioned setting one free somehow.  But then, I didn’t know the going price for swans these days.  Not to mention not having any idea what kind of place a swan might prefer to be as opposed to the back yard of some crazed nincompoop that preens it and buffs its eggs in hopes that some grandiose swan aficionado will wander in any day to claim it.

Really, try as I might I had no idea why one would buy a swan.  Come to think of it, I should have pretended to be one such aficionado and gone in the house interrogating the seller about his quality of inventory.

We also passed a paintball place, but even if I had money with me (which I hadn’t) I had a very broken, very bruised David fresh off a bicycling accident with me.  Not such a good idea I would think.  Unless I just gave him the gun and ran.  He could’ve shot the bejeezus out of me and we could spend these next few weeks in commiserating pain.

But instead I made it back to good ol’ Pennsylvania with neither wounds nor swans to aid me.  And though I considered wandering into town for hot wings I have to sign a waiver to eat or conquering a food contest at my local ice cream store or  walking through a cemetery at night, all of those things seemed pretty lame.  Let’s face it: I carved a pumpkin a few weeks ago.  I don’t think you’re going to buy a walk in the cemetery after that cake week.

So here’s the deal.  I have no Lollipop Tuesday, but I do have a revised schedule for future ones.   Revised as in it exists now where it formerly did not.  That’s quite a revision.  I have wonderful things in store.  Classes I had to look up, buy admission to on Groupon, and adventures I staked out.  They’re laid out and waiting for me to conquer one each week until the end of the year.  I’d take the time to recite them to you here, but then why would you ever come back?

So I failed.  Super failed.  I’m ashamed.  And I shall spend the remaining eleven Lollipop Tuesdays in the year highly aware of this, my moment of failure.

I’d like to make it up to you, so here’s a pile of kittens:

 

Happy Almost Lollipop Tuesday, folks. ♣

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Halloween at the Gynecologist’s

10 Oct

I have my annual gyno appointment this year on October 31st: Halloween.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  It was supposed to be sometime in November but the chick doc is on vacation basically every day during the month of the Turkey.  I was left with two options in October and only one of them were doable for me.  Unfortunately, it’s smack dab in the middle of the day on the ghouliest day of the year.

I feel strange about this.  It’s difficult enough to have someone poke and prod their way into my ever-so-delicate lady parts, but on Halloween?  

Something about the idea makes me feel as if bats will fly out of my vagina as soon as she peeks inside.

It’s only appropriate that I take advantage of such an awkward scenario.  I’m sure that when I look across the room

as I’m strapped in and spread eagle, I’ll see little doctor’s office decorations on the countertops.  Nothing says Happy Halloween like a cute fuzzy spider next to a bin of pap smear swabs.

I could also firmly position a fun house mirror in there. What a nice surprise!

I should probably embrace the celebration by trapping my vagina with Halloween specialties.  Perhaps she could be welcomed to the cave by a small bowl of candy.  Or I could set up a light-activated hand that shoots out when she shines her little flashlight inside.  Maybe I should just keep it simple and get a horror sound effect recording so that when she tells me to scoot up and spread, she’s greeted by Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” and a black light from within.   The possibilities are endless!

I could forgo the vagina contraptions altogether and just concoct a fun costume for the event.  I could dress my bottom up in brilliant colors and, like a pop-up book, have a bright banner that goes from knee to knee when pulled apart reading “Enter at Your Own Risk”.

Actually, that’s probably a good sign to have mounted for all occasions.

This fun doesn’t have to be reserved for Halloween; we could just go ahead and make it standard.  There’s really no other way to make someone poking around your insides any more awkward and uncomfortable, so let’s embrace the nature of the act and take it all the way.  It will be a great way to brighten your gyno’s day.  Of course we should be inclusive.  Men have similarly uncomfortable moments dealing with their lower halves and they should feel free to indulge as well. 

After all, everyone loves an excuse to dress up. ♣

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The Great Macaroni and Cheese Adventure

9 Oct

Okay listen.  I need your help.

I am trying desperately to find the most fantastic recipe for macaroni and cheese possible.

Possible.  Do you understand?

I keep trying recipe after recipe and each casserole dish is a big batch of sorrow.  I’m starting to doubt my ability as a homemaker and as an American.  After all, vats of bubbling cheese and white, nutritionless pasta is what we rock.  And we rock it hard.   So where has my patriotism gone?

How can I make this happen?  I keep scouring the Internet for recipes and trying them.  I take them from sites with really fantastic food porn.

You know what I’m talking about – food porn.  Blown up images of things melting or bubbling or flaking just perfectly.   It’s sexy.  It’s almost raunchy.  And you’re huddled in a quiet corner as you fantasize about the possibilities that a cinnamon the size of your head could bring to your life.  Or if stuffing a cookie with your favorite candy bar really does make it taste twice as good.

Mmmm Food Porn.

Why should you help me find the most amazing macaroni and cheese recipe ever? You should do it because a truly good macaroni and cheese is a kind of delicious that everyone should share.  You should do it because I’ll blog about the one that truly rocks my world and I’ll take fantastic food porn pictures of it and link to your site or your cause or a picture of your dog – whatever you have that may make use of linking.

You should do it because I’ll give you a $25 Visa Gift Card.

No really – I will.  That’s how badly I want a good mac and cheese recipe.  And you know I’m good for my word.  Remember my grand TheJackieBlog t-shirt raffle?  Those folks got their shirts.  Here’s proof.   Doesn’t the idea of $25 American dollars make you want to scour the Internet and your recipe books for the best of the best? 

So give me everything you’ve got – macaroni tips, macaroni recipes, macaroni sites – I’ll take it all.  And I’ll labor over every word and ingredient until I am a Macaroni and Cheese Master.  I’ll cook it all  up like a mad scientist and when I’m done I’ll share with everyone the best recipe of all and I’ll give a $25 Visa Gift Card to the one who submitted the winning recipe.  Tell your friends. 

But only the ones who can cook. ♣

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A Change of Plans

8 Oct

You know those days where you bank on being able to get home and tend to the things you couldn’t tend to before work?  You don’t intend to go about the day in your current state;  you just simply didn’t have a choice.

Yesterday was that day for me.

I woke up with little sleep and with nothing done.  I was without  a professional-looking outfit, without a blog post, without a shower, and without underwear.   I was really looking forward to getting home around 5 and remedying all of those things.  I was going to do laundry, catch up on some emails and editing, and take a nice hot shower.

But then Dave got in an accident.

It’s okay – don’t freak out.  He’s totally alive and in one piece.  He was riding bike to his show last night and some jerkface turned against traffic when Dave had the right of way, essentially cutting Dave off.  He cut the wheel, braked hard, and flew over the handlebars to slide on his stomach across the pavement for a display even Olympic judges would have rated favorably.

It’s interesting to know how I react during these situations.  I got the phone call that he’d been in an accident, hung up, and began to talk myself through what to do.  Okay, here we go.  Get the keys, get your purse, go go go.  Okay.  Okay.  Let’s go.  You can do this…

Apparently I’m a self-coacher.  Which is fine.   Unexpected, but fine.  I kept talking to myself until I came to the fork in the road where Dave was standing, bloodied and bruised.   I checked him out, asked all the important questions, and we both came to the conclusion that he was a big bloody, scratched up mess but he was okay.  And since he had to be on stage in an hour, I called the Stage Manager and asked her to be ready to clean and bandage him instead of going to the hospital.

Listen, ‘the show must go on’ isn’t just a joke.

Most of his cleaning was done in the backstage restroom with the help of the crew.  I decided to stay and watch the show again in case anything happened and so that we could head to the ER right after the show ended to get him checked out.

Of course, I was still in my unwashed, un-underweared state from the AM, and was really banking on the ability to come back home right after work and fix my grossness.  Instead I ended up in the front row between two elderly men drenched in Old Spice, crossing my legs under my dress carefully so that no one on the side balconies would have a heart attack.  After the show, we made out way to the ER, where I sat until almost 1 in the morning, festering in my own disgustingness.

We came home (all was relatively well with the Davester), slept immediately, and woke up late today when it occurred to me that not only am I still without underwear (or any clean laundry for that matter), but I still haven’t taken a shower and still owe another blog post before I can do anything.

So now we’re caught up on the post – time to do some serious body/laundry/house cleaning.  So long as no one else gets in an accident, I should be able to get quite a bit done today.

Note to self: don’t let Dave go anywhere until I have a shower and underwear. ♣

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Day Jackie Vs. Night Jackie

7 Oct

I set myself up for total failure today.  I really did.

I often have these moments of struggle between Day Jackie and Night Jackie.  Day Jackie has a full time job, pays bills, and generally attempts to be a respectable person, while Night Jackie is crazy and doesn’t know what the point is of Day Jackie if she can’t enjoy herself along the way.

I spend any time I have between Day and Night Jackie wondering what I’m doing with my life.

Like today, for example.  When I went to be at 3am the night before without a blog written or a pair of clean underwear today.

What’s truly magical about Night Jackie is that she doesnt’ grasp the magnitude of her absurdism  because she never has to reap the consequence of it.  Consequences are for Day Jackie.    And the reality of the situation is that sometimes Night Jackie just doesn’t feel like doing laundry.   She minimalizes its importance with relation to the grand scheme of life, assuming that things will just work themselves out the next morning.

Leaving it for Day Jackie.

Of course, Day Jackie can’t fix all the problems that are left for her.  What does one do without a blog post or clean underwear and only an hour between wake and work to fix them both? 

The answer, unfortunately, is to wear a dress, which allows the existence of a slip, which is a lot like underwear, so long as your hemline is long enough and you keep your legs crossed.   Of course, the dress is not really work-appropriate because of it’s questionable neckline, but it can be toned down with a drab, gray cardigan.

Cardigans cover a multitude of sins.

No clothes/no underwear crisis solved.   And you know what? Day Jackie also reckoned her best bet was to piggyback on that tidbit to crank out the post that Night Jackie ignored.  Both problems have been sufficiently, though temporarily, addressed.  Day Jackie should probably go immediately home right after work to get some laundry done before Night Jackie shows up.

After all, this was her last clean dress.  ♣

 

In celebration of today’s theme, here’s a Pixar short for your entertainment:

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Of Death and News Feeds

6 Oct

I have to find a way to deal with the shocking news of death in this crazy age of instant Interwebz magic.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scrolling down a news feed and been smacked across the side of the head with the news that someone famous has died.   I know there’s really no good way to break the news of someone we all kind of feel linked to passing away, but at the same time it’s a little jarring to read “RIP (insert someone famous here), you will be missed” sandwiched between an update about a friend having to use the bathroom and another friend wanting a hoagie for dinner.

Steve Jobs died yesterday, in case you weren’t compulsively checking Twitter.

BAM.  Just like that, right?  Internet knowledge in your face.

It always sends me on a nice long Google/Wikipedia trail where I begin to soak up every little bit of knowledge I can about that person.  Did you know that Steve Jobs dropped out of college after one semester?  He later returned to audit a class.   It was Calligraphy.

There are all sorts of witty and wonderful things to say here.  Something in the fact that he returned to take a beautiful handwriting course when his contributions to the creation of the modern PC have led to oodles of kids not knowing how to write because they only know how to type.  Or even something about how this whole post is about being told abruptly of folks’ deaths via computer and was spawned by stumbling upon the passing of the man who “pioneered the concept of the Personal Computer” (CNN).

But all those witty wonderful things are eluding me.

I remember finding out that Heath Ledger died because a friend sent me a text.   I don’t know why it affected me so much.  There’s something incredibly heartbreaking to me about losing a young actor who showed so much promise.  I think it had a lot to do with the delivery as well.  After all, when I check a phone text I expect chit chat or quick questions.  I don’t expect “Hey, Heath Ledger died”.

When I was teaching at a performing arts camp a few summers go and we were all cut off from the use of our cell phones, there was a vicious rumor that Michael Jackson had died.  Of course, no one believed it.   Everyone thought it was someone taking advantage of the fact that we were without our technological verification devices.   Eventually on a session break, I was wandering around the area and saw a TV featuring the story.  That was my true confirmation.

That’s how I’m used to getting my news of high-profile deaths: from a big, talking box.  I’m used to a brightly colored ticker on the bottom of the screen wrapping it all up and pictures of the person’s life flashing in the background.  I’m used to a news anchor perfectly mastering the mix of sincerity and excitement to be on the breaking news of the day as they relay to me that someone I don’t know at all but feel strangely connected to has finally left this world.

Of course those who came before me were used to seeing it in headlines or hearing it on the radio, and try as I might I can’t imagine trying to cope with graduating from that to a talking box.

I wonder what the next step is.  Maybe we’ll all just get real time  news feeds tied to our brains.  We can have a little wire and receptor that shoots out of our ear.  You know, like Batty from Fern Gully?  

That way I can just get a robot voice in my head saying “(insert famous, shocking name here) has died” while I’m brushing my teeth.  Or maybe we can opt for the heart-attack free way of going about it – the voice can say “Good morning (insert your name here)!  I have some bad news today.  Please make your way to a seated position, hold yourself, and say ‘okay’ when you are ready to receive this information.”

Until then I’ll just have to hold myself and stay seated any time I check my news feed.  

You never know when a death will be sandwiched between dinner plans and bathroom tales. ♣

Ladies and Gentlemen: Batty.

 

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