Tag Archives: 365 Project

My Cat’s Christmas Protest

26 Nov

My cat has taken up residence in the box that harbors my (fake) Christmas tree.

Actually, the tree harbors it no longer, as my apartment is now officially decked with boughs of holly.  So many, in fact, the Dave has begun to question whether my holiday spirit is too strong for him to tolerate.   He was even a little embarrassed for me to light up our Christmas tree for fear the neighbors would think we jumped the gun.

Besides Dave’s naysaying, Christmas decorating comes with a slew of obstacles.  Well, really just two: Lola and Hobbes.  Together, they’re a tag team of holiday terror, batting around ornaments that haven’t yet been added to the tree, eating half the garland strand before I notice and pull it from their intestines, and chewing ever so loudly on the tips of the artificial tree.

This year Lola carried out all the duties on her own.  I wondered where her partner in crime was until I went to put the Christmas tree box back in storage and instead found it as the new home to Hobbes.    It was adorable when we started, but now it’s day two.  I’m starting to think this is some sort of Occupy movement.  Is my cat against Christmas celebrations?  Is he fighting against the consumer-focused aspect of the holidays?  

I never knew he was so political.

There was only one other time that Hobbes took up residence in a box.  It was a banana box – one of those great rectangular ones that are relatively shallow and have a hole cut into the top of them.  I had finally gotten around to emptying items from it that I never really needed to have in storage in the first place and instead of taking the box right to the trash, I let it dwell in my living room for a day.  When I finally went to take it to the garbage, I found Hobbes inside, the curve of his rotund paunch resting ever so gracefully against the thin wall of cardboard.  We thought he would eventually move on, but he didn’t.  Every time we passed through the living room, he was inside. 

Since we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away his favorite toy but also didn’t want a banana box hanging out in the living room, Dave and I decided to decorate it.  We sat down one night and painted the box brown, with blue waves and fish on the bottom half.  We secured a pole to one corner of the box and hoisted a handkerchief to the top, thereby making Hobbes the captain of his own sailboat.

My favorite was when he stood up in the center of the box where the rectangular hole was and it looked like he was sailing the seas.  I’d have given him an eye patch if he weren’t so squirmy.

The problem with the Christmas tree box is that it’s just so darn big.  I really can’t justify redecorating it and keeping it around; it’s enormous.  Plus, why get him all excited only to throw the tree back in and haul it to the basement in a few weeks?

Still, I’m not sure I have the heart to evict him.  I might fashion it into a canoe.  Or I could make it simple and hoist a banner that says “Occupy Christmas” across the top of the box.  

Let’s just hope the neighborhood cats don’t catch wind and come join the cause. ♣♣

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Milking Christmas

25 Nov

You realize there will be Christmas music soon, don’t you?

Oh yes.  Oh yes it’s time.

I have this habit of just floating on through the month as if it will never end.  We have so much time, I think. Golly, December is oodles of days away!  Lies, all lies to the self.  Hideous, shameful denial.  December, my friends, is a mere six days away.

November is almost entirely consumed by Thanksgiving and plans for Thanksgiving and thoughts of Thanksgiving, which is immediately followed by Christmas and plans for Christmas, and thoughts of Christmas, and then before you know it, you’re shoveling down sauerkraut and hot dogs and singing Auld Lang Syne.

Or however you celebrate the new year.

Every year I tell myself to cherish every single day and every year the holiday decorations on shelves and Christmas music on the radio still slap me upside the head and rattle my brain around.  …Christmas? Already?! 

On one hand, I’m excited to get on with 2012.  After all, 2011 was a poop storm and it’d be great to close the books.  On the other hand, once Christmas if over there’s really nothing to look forward to until, oh, I don’t know – it’s not so cold that I wish I were dead?

I have a strategy for all this too-soon angst.  And it’s that this evening will be spent decking the halls of my apartment (or hall, rather) with boughs of holly.  I’ve never really known what those are but by golly I’m going to google it and make it happen.  I’m going to blast Christmas music and light candles that reek of wintertime.  I’m going to put up my Christmas tree in the front window and light it up proudly in my overwhelmingly Orthodox Jew neighborhood.

I want this kind of Christmas joy. Every single day.

And every day until Christmas I will stare at the decorations and smell the candles and yoink my cats out of the tree they will inevitably be hidden in and praise God for my favorite time of year.

Here’s to a slow and steady celebration.  May we all stay warm and bright. ♣

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Thanksgiving Pseudo-Haikus

24 Nov

In celebration

of this joyous holiday

I wrote bad haikus

 

Face your food.

I.  “Stuffed”

Losing self-respect

I’m sure the pie is awesome

I just can’t do this.

 

II. “Baby food”

New babies this year

So hard to resist the urge

to feed them turkey

 

III. “Saran Wrap”

Take your vitamins

They help with memory loss

and save me store trips

 

Happy thanksgiving, all. ♣

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Not Quite Razzle Dazzled

22 Nov

On Friday, I decided to hop a Megabus to New York City.

I find it amusing that one of my old Lollipop Tuesdays (taking the Megabus) was the vehicle (Ha! HA!) for my new Lollipop Tuesday: seeing a Broadway show.

I’m so tickled that I’ve picked up a few noobs this week and so allow me to direct you to the top of this page where it says “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?”  You can click there if you’d like.  Or you can wander on in confusion.  The Jackie Blog is your oyster, noobs.

On to the matter at hand.  Having gone to one of the best conservatories in the country for performance, I have always felt like a bit of a fraud for the fact that I’ve never seen a Broadway show.    Well, I kind of saw one once.  It was called Lestat, and I went to a preview.  It was a vampire musical with a score by Elton John.  Allow me to repeat that: It was a vampire musical with a score by Elton John.

It was obviously awful.  There’s something about a vampire singing ballads that I just can’t get into.

I decided not to count it, for fear I lose my faith in Broadway forever.   Then, this past weekend, I scored some half price tickets to Chicago, which had, in my opinion, all the elements that one expects from Broadway: catchy songs, attractive (scantily-clad) ladies, and a whole big dose of pizzazz.  I was totally stoked to finally be seeing my first show and could barely contain my urine.

I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but I was underwhelmed.  Maybe it’s because the show has been running for so long, maybe it’s because the cast went out drinking heavily the night before.  Maybe it’s because I went to a school that had amazing dancers and so I expect cleaner lines and more energy.  I expect people to look like they’re having fun up there.  Especially on a Saturday night with a full house.

But they weren’t.  And so neither was I.  There were, of course, some good parts sprinkled in there.  But when the entire set is just the orchestra on stage and there are no costume changes, there had better be some damn fine performing.  Without anything to look at besides the actors, there’s nothing to distract me when they suck.  I actually started to get sleepy at the end of the first act and almost dreamed of the money I’d spent running back into my pocket.

But hey, I’m glad I went.  Very glad.  After all, John O’Hurley was on that night. There’s nothing like getting to see the guy who played Elaine’s boss in Seinfeld do a good Broadway tune.  

Speaking of which, perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt to have one of those leggy ladies do the Elaine Dance. Theater gold. ♣

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The Thrills of Adulthood

21 Nov

I’m excited for electing dental coverage with my employer for next year and that reality makes me very, very sad.

I don’t want to be excited for such lame things.  It makes me feel all gross and grown-up inside.  In fact, I drooled over my benefit elections for open enrollment like a kid in a candy store.  I got to shop for the adult goodies that I wanted to cash in on in 2012 and it was thrilling.  Medical, dental, retirement, tuition assistance, buying time off, and even child care assistance.

I don’t need that last one even a little bit but I still worked up a good saliva at having the option.

I remember back when I was a tiny tot, I looked up to an older friend of the family as a sort of role model for a short time.  I remember going out with her somewhere one day and her having to stop at the post office to mail out some bills first.  I thought it was so cool that she was so mature.  “Are you officially a grown up now?  Do you feel like an adult?  I’ll bet that’s so cool,” I said like a stupid little kid. She furrowed her brow and shot me a crooked, almost fearful smile.  “I guess you could say that – I don’t know,” she responded. 

She was a little younger then than I am now and I can only imagine how that inquiry must have made her feel; I know what it would do to me.

I’m finding that more and more often I’m excited for stupid little things that aren’t actually fun at all but I get thrilled for nonetheless.  You know, like adult things. 

Not those kind of adult things.  Stay with me here.  Things like dental work and finding a car with an engine that isn’t already waltzing toward the grave, or a cheap ticket to another city or good customer service.  I get excited for bargains and good budgeting and direct deposit.  I don’t want to like those things – but I can’t deny that I am truly thankful for them because being an adult sucks sometimes and when things can be made even slightly less awful it’s hard not to feel a thrill in the pit of my stomach.

I’m still being shocked by the reality of adulthood every single day.   There are all sorts of little things here and there that aren’t at all like I imagined them.  Or rather, I never thought to consider them so they take me by surprise.  Like when my brothers had babies and got bills from the hospital. I was shocked.  Shocked! It cost so much just to get a human out of your body.  That’s a serious medical condition, having someone in your body.  And you won’t get any help with it unless you can pony up the dough.

Of course, I imagine those things tend to take care of themselves even when unassisted.  But that can’t be pretty.

When people say kids are expensive, they didn’t just mean clothes and food and education.  They mean that having one in the first place requires you to take out a loan.

Maybe that’s why parents resent their children.  Man, everything is coming together.  You really do understand more when you’re older.  I guess I just that I thought when I understood it all, I’d be excited.  But I’m not, because it’s all pretty depressing.

Except dental coverage.  That’s pretty sweet.  ♣

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How I Almost Failed Postaday2011

20 Nov

Today, I almost brought a heart-shattering, epic end to the postaday2011 challenge here on The Jackie Blog.

As many of you know, this blog was fired up in January with the promise to post every single day until 2012.  At least, I hope most of you know.  I’m pretty sure that’s the reason you follow me.  If we take away the challenge, there’s no thrill; no fire; no sense of adventure.  It’s just someone blabbing on and on every day without end.

In order to succeed at posting each and every day, you have to accept that posting is the most important priority you have for that day.  That means that above sleep, above exercise, above food, above entertainment – above everything else – you must submit to the chains of writing every day.  Some days it comes without conflict.  I may not have anything in particular to write about, but I can usually pick my brain for something, dust it off, dress it up, and throw it out into the great, gray nether that is the magical Interwebz.  In fact, most of the times I’ve been challenged by the postaday calling have been related to lack of topics (or ones I feel like writing about anyway), not lack of opportunity.

Today, however, was a real problem.

I traveled out of state this weekend, and though I decided to post every day before I accomplished anything that was fun on my agenda, today I thought I’d tickle myself by waiting until the Megabus ride home and then posting about my surroundings.

Since that usually includes a loud-mouthed cell phone user, a rowdy group of hooligans, and an incredibly awkward situation with a seat partner, I figured it was blog post coal that could be fashioned into a rough diamond. But my bus was not a Megabus.  It was one of those charter buses: the red-haired stepchildren of the Megabus land.  Though it offers comfortable seats, a personable driver, and romantic mood lightning for the evening hours, it does not offer WiFi. 

Poop.

Given that the bus left at 2:30pm and would arrive back to my city around 10:30pm, I had one and a half hours to get to an Internet connection and post this bad boy before I’d have to crawl up in a fetal position under a cold shower and rock myself to a deep, dark depression.

And given that on the way out Friday we had to wait an hour extra at a rest stop while the driver figured out how to open the luggage

I can see the light. Must...keep...posting...

door, I didn’t have much faith in that 10:30 estimation.

After 10pm, nothing was going to be open downtown so I’d have to get to my apartment as quickly as possible – the best option was a bus, which is a shaky plan based on their late Sunday evening schedules.  What if I waited for the bus for 15 minutes, it took 30 to get to my neighborhood and then another 15 for me to walk to my apartment? I’d only have 30 minutes of leeway before I am completely and totally screwed.

I’m not going to lie: it was a close call, my friends.  At  11:30 postmeridian, I published a splattering of my cerebrum to the world of Interwebbage and breathed a large, deep sigh of relief.  I can’t even imagine having come this far in the year and missing a day.  When I think of all the times I’ve forgone sleep, disappeared from family and friend get-togethers, and scribbled down notes throughout my daily existence all for the sake of this challenge, I honestly think the weight of failure would be so great that I’d go catatonic.

Now, of course, all I will do is fret about the remaining month-and-some-change that I need to post.  There’s a lot of travel over the holidays.  And food and friends and family and obligations and expectations.  That’s a whole bunch of obstacles just waiting to render me catatonic from failure.

Things are getting risky indeed; here’s to the treacherous last leg of the postaday challenge. ♣

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The Yellow Jacket Saga: Part 1

19 Nov

I’m fighting with the crossing guard outside my apartment.

There are several schools in my neighborhood and there are some lovely folks that have taken it upon themselves to don a neon yellow jacket and help coax cars into stopping and children into narrowly escaping with their lives.   I love that they do it; I’m sure if I had a child, I’d feel much better about knowing that someone would aid them on their journeys.

After all, children are often too stupid to effectively cross the road.

But I’d like to think that they’re only there for the children.  They should completely ignore anyone who approaches them and is of their same stature.  Let’s go with a general rule: if I’m as tall as you, I can handle crossing the road as well as you.

But the other day when I got to the end of my road, the bus was stopped and already  loading on the corporate oafs. I was running ever so slightly behind and though I had neither the assistance of the pedestrian walk signal or the help of the yellow jacketed lady friend, I chose to cross the road.  Just as I ran across to catch the bus before it closed its doors and carried on, she yelled at me to not cross and stay where I was.  I, on the other hand, acknowledged that her jacket does not imbue her with the power to make me late for work.  I acknowledged that I was just as tall as she and capable of making this decision on my own.  

And so I crossed.

I chose to cross because I looked both ways, saw I could get across, and I freaking needed to get to work.  I crossed because I’m an adult and if I make a decision to travel  30 feet from where I’m already standing, I feel confident that I have assessed the situation for safety and am carrying on with all my best interests accounted for.

This made Yellow Jacket incredibly upset.

Having run across with little regard for the words coming out of her face, I made it to the other side and she decided to take out the bulk of her wrath on the poor turtle-like girl that was behind me and trying to follow my lead.

She stayed where she was.  Because she was a poor turtle-like girl and had not the spine for confrontation.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, the bus had reached capacity and the driver closed the door before I could join the public transit party – leaving me on the sidewalk next to Yellow  Jacket.

In situations like this, I tend to just stare at the ground and craft a dialogue in my head for my own amusement.  If you don’t look at someone, they can’t give you the stink eye.  Yellow Jacket seemed like she could rock a nasty stink eye.  So I stood and stared as  Turtle Girl finally filed in behind me and together we waited, both feeling a bit like we’d been scolded on the playground.

I’m thinking about buying a yellow jacket and competing with Yellow Jacket for that intersection.  I don’t now how crossing guard assignments work, but I can only imagine it will be an enjoyable altercation to be had.  She can make people follow the rules of crossing the street and I can try to talk people into freedom and liberty.  You know, if they’re regular-sized.   Pint-sized people follow the proper procedures.    I should get a cool crossing guard name.

Suggestions are welcome.  ♣

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Tales from the Bus

18 Nov

Public transit is wearing me down.

As many of you know, the totaling of Dave’s and my car spewed us into the land of bipeds and buses until further notice.  That means that twice a day, every weekday, I am subjected to the anxieties and atrocities of the bus system.  I started out incredibly grateful for this mode of transportation, and I’m trying very, very hard to maintain that virginal appreciation.  But there are only so many times I can have someone else’s cell phone conversation blasted in my ear for the duration of my stay in the flying steel sardine can before I have to smack a ho.

Did I just say ‘smack a ho’?

I’m really sorry.  This whole bus system thing is just… It’s hard.  Okay?  It’s changing me.

I think the main problem is that I don’t like to be around people.  So putting me in a situation where my personal space is inevitably going to be violated well over fifteen times before I can get out of the situation is a recipe for disaster.  That, and I don’t like it when people’s leg fat smooshes up against mine.

You know? You know when you sit right beside someone on the bus or – worse, right in between two already-seated people- and your leg fat spreads out around your legs and touches that of those beside you?   I try to tense up my quadriceps to avoid it, but it’s a long way to work in the morning and you can’t expect someone who has leg fat to begin with to be able to maintain that kind of form.

Yesterday was particularly trying for me.  I intentionally waited until three buses went by after work so that I could get on a less

Absolute torture.

crowded one.   I got a totally awesome seat and let out a nice relaxing breath for my post-work commute only to be joined at the next stop by an enormous crowd of people who piled onto the bus for what I can only imagine was a just-announced carnival somewhere along the bus route.  Unfortunately the gentleman who settled to stand right in front of me smelled exactly like a portable toilet.

Exactly.  I could have bottled his skin dew and sold it to variety stores, it was so painfully accurate.

Just then, the woman somewhere to the back, left-hand side of me took a cell phone call that she felt absolutely no need to muffle her voice for.  I don’t mind when people talk on their phones on the bus so long as they’re as respectful as possible.  I like to assume that people would only make the choice to carry on a conversation if they really needed to or had a hard time getting in touch with that particular person.  But this lady was like, running a call center out of her bus seat.  She was putting people on hold, doing three way calls… she was tending to some incredibly important business regarding someone she lived with telling her how to run her life and her sentiments on that.

And the entire time I sat in my seat, trying to tune her out, trying to hold my breath from the toilet man, and telling myself: Don’t lose your shit, Jackie. Do not.  Lose.  Your shit.

I had to repeat this to myself under my breath as I stared at the stain-coated floor of the bus and dreamed of wide open spaces because it took everything in me to not give the call center lady a piece of my mind, the toilet man a power wash, and run rip-tearing through the swarm of people, throwing my sad slip of a ticket at the bus driver’s face, and pounding on the doors to please God let me out.

Man that was a long sentence.  Did you make it through all right?  You can go back and reread because I’m not going to fix it.  I refuse.

So anyway, I think I’ve reached my criminal limit.  That is, the amount of public transit I can stand before I do something criminal.  

I guess it’s a good thing the insurance check came this week. ♣

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The Premiere of My Face

17 Nov

I don’t know why I keep getting deeper and deeper into all of this social media hootinanny. I got my feet wet with twitter, went wading with a Facebook Page, and now I dove in both feet on YouTube.

Try not to get too excited.

Per usual, it took me a long time to figure out how this newfangled business works.  But I got it.  And so I present to you an announcement in the form of my first YouTube upload.

Also, the premiere of my face.

Follow me on Twitter, Like my Facebook Page (link on top right of sidebar), and hey – come see me on YouTube.  I’m slowly taking over the world.  Very slowly.  Almost not even noticeable really.

It’s the small victories folks. ♣

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The Times They Are a-Changin’

16 Nov

The blog is blue today.  Don’t freak out.

Are you okay? I don’t want you to get too worked up.  Take some time with it.  I know it’s shocking.

Today I have a pretty huge announcement.  Well, huge for me because I stay up until lets-not-kid-myself-I-didn’t-go-to-bed-at-all trying to figure out how in the hell to make a Facebook page.

I’m sorry to call upon the terms of Hades, but holy goodness it takes me a YouTube tutorial, written out instructions, and a few examples of other people’s pages just to get moving on the whole thing.  Not to mention I had to make an image in Microsoft Paint.  Let’s not forget how charming those are:

from "Plight of the Ginger Sperm"

From "Wrestling with a Poltergeist"

From "There Is No Jackie. There Is Only Mindee"

You get the point. 

Oh, I guess I kind of breezed over the whole “exciting news”. 

I have a Facebook Page! 

Like, a fan page.  Not just a Jackie page.  You see, when I wrote a post about giving up Facebook for good, I got a lot of grief from people who don’t want to subscribe but want to click on my posts through Facebook any time they please.  And since I think that’s kind of demanding and ridiculous and they think I should just take what I can get, I’ve decided to compromise by making a Facebook page just for The Jackie Blog.  Now my friends don’t have to get my blog tweets and posts and you don’t have to be my friend to get them. 

I like to think that everybody wins.

Except me, who was up all night fumbling through simplistic code and struggling with the reality that at the ripe age of 25, I’ve already passed the age of comprehension for new developments in technology.

They keep making my brain obsolete.  I have about 60 more years of that to look forward to.

Anyway, I’d be real tickled if you’d click that button on the top right of the sidebar and check out my Facebook page.  Heck, maybe you could even like it while you’re there.  I mean, if you’re feeling ambitious.  I’m not going to beg.

But there is a picture of a kitten.  And a cookie.   Listen, you should probably just go look.

At any rate, I’ve changed the background of the blog to something less… purple.  And I’m gearing up to change that header image soon.  Hopefully really soon.  You know, because I only have like… a month and a half to go before the whole gig is up.  If I’m going to give Yo Gabba Gabba the boot, I need to do it soon.

But it will be glorious, you’ll see.  And until I can make that happen, I’m just changing the background to blue and throwing a Facebook button up.  Because I want to ease you into change slowly and gently, like a compassionate lover.  I understand your struggles.  I have them too.

Which is why today I will be needing a massive vat of coffee. ♣  

P.S. If you don’t want to go all the way up there and click the button, you can just click here.  And if you’re a Twitterer, you can also follow my Twitterage here (also located in the sidebar for your convenience – remember – compassionate lover). Woot for the Interwebz.

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