The Jackie Blog

Photo by "Rossell78". Click to check out their Flickr Photostream.

I can’t remember the last time I slept.

I’m sure I slept some time ago – I just couldn’t really tell you when because quite frankly, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on right now.  My life is currently being supported by a bag full of legal drugs including caffeine pills, energy shots, and a horde of Starbucks doubleshots.

I’m sure there were a slew of bad decisions that led to this, but mostly I blame my father, my birthday, and babies.

On Monday evening my dad needed a 60-page thesis reviewed for final edits.  And make no mistake: verbally guiding your average keyboard-pecking baby boomer through edits over the phone is no quick task.  It took a complete five and a half hours from start to finish and while I was more than ready to turn in at 4:00am Tuesday morning, I remembered I still had a blog post to write.

You’d think after  190-something blog posts in a row, writing one wouldn’t be something that has to make it on my “remember to do” list – but when sleepless, my idiocy knows no bounds.

I decided it was best to sleep at 4am and wake at 6am to write the post that would be published by 9.  I woke, I wrote, I went to work., and looked forward to tasting the sweet, full-bodied flavor of sleep last night.    Being my birthday and all, my work day was pretty easy to stay awake through with all the happy wishing and whatnot.  I left the building promptly at 5pm to be greeted by my wonderful Dave, who soon realized that the car would not turn over and take us home.

It mocked us.

It was a lack of fuel parading as a dead battery, and while I appreciated getting it started and finally heading home, I did not appreciate the sleep time it cost me.  I got home at 7pm with no time to nap before my 8pm birthday dinner date with friends.     One large dinner and several large drinks later, I went home to happily sink into the beautiful nest of pillows and covers that never looked better but was greeted by a text proclaiming my sister-in-law was in labor.  I called, I texted, I rejoiced, and then finally sank into my  nest of hibernation.

Until my brother and father mentioned that they’d actually prefer I be there in person for the baby’s arrival: an unanticipated notion given that I had planned to drive in this weekend to spend time with everyone.  I woke, Dave drove, I arrived at the waiting room at 3:00am, almost 2 days sleepless and chock full of every caffeine pill, shot, and drink convenience stores had to offer.

At 4:57am  in a full zombie state I helped welcome into this world a moist, pasty new member of the family and was crowned with aunthood.  I smiled, I rejoiced, I hugged, and then promptly noticed it was 6:05am and time to head back home.  Dave drove, I supported his efforts from the passenger’s seat, and we arrived at 9:45am, just in time for me to show up very late to work.  There, I will stare at my screen, click on emails, and ponder the intricacies of human language at a pace approximately ten times slower than normal.  At the conclusion of my workday I will virtually have been awake for 56 hours straight and almost entirely non-functioning.

Yesterday a friend wished me a “very blogworthy” birthday.  I considered it the best wish of all.  And seeing as how I’ve had a car breakdown, a birthday experience, absolutely zero sleep, and a baby delivery, I’d say it certainly came true.

If only she would have wished I also had the mental faculties at the end of the day to be clever about it all. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

Photo by "brionv". Click to check out their Flickr Photostream.

Today is the last day of my early twenties.

I suppose technically, exactly a year ago at this time was the last day of my early twenties.  Ever since I hit 24, I’ve officially been in my mid-twenties.  But last year at this time, I tried to avoid the grieving process by telling myself that 24 was still the early twenties and now I have to reap what I have sown.

I’m not entirely sure how to conduct myself on this, the last day of my youth.  Without question I shall spend the first 8 hours of it slaving away in corporate America.  When I go home I will have to tend to my to-do list because I just hate the idea of starting 25 with lingering to-do’s.  If I do, I will wake up tomorrow and curse 24-year-old Jackie for not taking care of her own business.

It is the fact that I plan to celebrate my last hours of 24 with a hefty to-do list that truly shows I’m ready for 25.

I tried to make myself feel better by calling my mother and reminding her (as I often do) that I am the last of her offspring and that my closing in on a quarter of a century surely means that she must be ancient and weary of this world.  It didn’t make me feel any better.  Because like a fairy dying from someone’s lack of faith, every time I voice out loud that 24 is coming to a close, a little tiny 24-year-old cell in my body crosses the bridge to 25.

I don’t think I ever properly mourned 21.  It was the last birthday that actually came with a perk.  Of course it didn’t really mean anything to me because I didn’t have my first drink until I was 22, but by golly if I could go back and celebrate the hell out of a birthday that came with privileges, I would.   Technically 25 comes with perks too but I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to go rent a car.

Maybe I should, though.  Maybe I should just march right over to my local Enterprise and ask for the most ridiculous rental car they have so that I can drive it around as I mourn the passing of my youth.  I can let my pathetic, jaded tears soak into the rich, leather seats.

I think that 8-year-old Jackie had too many big plans for mid-twenties Jackie.   Little Jackie  laid out these years as what would be her golden age – her peak of ripeness – her legacy.  She imagined vague but certain success, clearly defined and measurable goals, and a laundry list of unfathomable accomplishments.  After all, there’s so much hope to be had in the mid-twenties.  And your metabolism is practically at its peak. Glory! She imagined glory!

Turns out mid-twenties Jackie has an Acting degree she doesn’t use nearly often enough, a soul-sucking job in corporate America, and an underwhelming apartment near the city that looks like a hippie circle has been living there for weeks.   She also has an immovable layer of fat hibernating on her sides.  She does, however, have a blog.  And I think 8-year-old Jackie would think that’s kind of cool.

Even though she wouldn’t know what a blog is.

Maybe I can squelch this sort of thing from happening down the road by not setting my expectations too high.  If I project that Future Jackie will be homeless, goal-less, and so obese she’s practically leaping into her grave, there will be very little required of me to achieve the glories I have laid our for myself.  For now, however, I have to accept that I did not live up to 8-year-old Jackie’s expectations.

In defense of 24-year-old Jackie, 8-year-old Jackie didn’t know much.

So this is it.  Every hour that passes is one hour closer to 25 – to the closing of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed chapter.   How monumentally depressing.

Lord be with me when I turn 30. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

Image by ENUL Inverted Nail Systems. Click to check out their Flickr Photostream.

On Friday a coworker took me out on my lunch break to give me an early birthday present: a new set of talons.

I have mentioned from time to time my affinity for gnawing the living daylights out of my fingers when I get nervous, excited, anxious, angry, bored…  Perhaps it’s easier to just admit that if I’m not sleeping, I’m probably biting my nails down to their nittiest grittiest.  But on Friday, I was given the gift of sass and can no longer access said slivers of nail thanks to a thick, acrylic coating that separates them from the wrath of my incisors.

And though I rocked fake nails in high school like it was my job, I have been without them for quite some time and have spent the weekend reacquainting myself.   In addition to a hefty dose of instant sass, my newly acquired falsies offer a slew of obstacles during everyday activities.

The most frequent, and unfortunately  most painful, is the taking out of my contacts – which can now be aptly renamed ‘the gouging out of my eyeballs’.  After having finger/eye contact twice a day for a million days in a row without razor sharp acrylic blades attached to my fingers, it does not come easily to me to make the adjustment.  As a result, I burrow into my eyeball to peel out my contacts and in the process stick the end of my nail tip directly into my eyes.  Twice a day, every day until my brain learns.  I also can’t open sodas without assistance.  Or type as efficiently.  Or zip up my jeans without a great deal of struggle. 

Let’s be clear: zipping up my jeans is always a struggle.  Just not often for this reason.

It is obvious to the outside observer that the cons of said talon acquisition (no HR pun intended) far outnumber the perks.  And I certainly agree.  The problem is that the few, lonely perks are just so darn nice that I tell myself I don’t actually need practical use of my fingers in all occasions.    After all, what’s opening a soda compared to giving killer back-scratches, not looking like I have sausages for fingers and having an automatic dose of sass added to my gestures?

There are times, however,  – usually right after a good, firm poke in the pupil – that I think I should rip them off.  But the only thing worse than terrible cuticles and sausage fingers is terrible cuticles and sausage fingers that have just emerged from the ripping off of fake acrylic nails.  No, I made a decision and I’m sticking to it.  I decided to live in the land of sass and magic and here I am.  There’s no practicality here – no ease of use.  Pain is beauty, my friends and I the price for sucking at growing out my natural nails is that I must insert my fingers into my eyeballs until I either learn a better method or go as blind as a baby mole rat.   I’m going to have to strap in and get a hang of these.

Or switch to glasses, skirts, and bottled soda. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

This morning while I was brushing my teeth I was greeted by a little baby cockroach that emerged from the deep, dark recesses of beyond my medicine cabinet.

Photo by Sarah Camp. Click image to check out her Flickr Photostream.

I know.  This is hard for me, too.

A long, long time ago, I thought I saw a cockroach dart from behind my aspirin bottle to a strange manufacturer-placed keyhole  in the back of the medicine cabinet.   Like, a full-sized cockroach.   A daddy roach, if you will.    But I told myself I was seeing things.  I told myself my eyes must have deceived me and that instead of coming from within the very walls of my apartment, daddy roach actually came from the  land of make-believe.

But then I saw the baby cockroach this morning and as my toothbrush dropped from my slack-jawed, foaming mouth, it became clear to me that I was staring at the offspring of some master hive behind my cabinet.  Behind that very thin, very ancient scrap of metal is several thousand cockroaches milling amongst each other making sweet, sweet cockroach love.

I’ll bet cockroach sex is awkward.

Unfortunately, I live in an apartment complex and I can’t just call a fumigator and smoke them out immediately.  Instead I must call my grumpy, teapot-shaped landlord – who will just call a fumigator.   I would like to reiterate that I live in an apartment complex and am thereby relieved of said cockroach love nest.  We’re very clean people.

They’re in there right now.  Eating my aspirin.

The real problem here isn’t the medicine cabinet, really.  The problem is everywhere else.  Because every time I open a carton, glance in a cup, crawl into bed – I fear I might find one  crawling around with little bits of medicine cabinet drugs gathered in its antennae.    I fear I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to images of the teapot landlord pulling the medicine cabinet out only to find one super giant, human-sized cockroach lording over them all.  

I’ve obviously watched too many movies in which human-sized cockroaches are not negotiable.

Maybe this could be a good thing.  I mean, I don’t really get out of my apartment much and Dave is often out doing gigs.  So maybe an enormous cockroach could be my new best friend.   I would name him Stanley.

On second thought, I’m sorry.  This has gone too far.  I need to go call my landlord.

I’m starting to get the willies. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

Last night I did something daring: I called my old creditor.

Calling an old creditor is not unlike calling an ex boyfriend.  You sincerely doubt it will help anything and are actually pretty sure it will just end badly with you nursing a box of Tastykakes in the fetal position, but you can’t help picking up the phone and trying to see what can come of it.  

I’d take a moment to tell you about why I was calling, but it turns out that the archives from my old blog (4 years old, to be precise) put it quite nicely.  This is an excerpt of my life outlook just after I joined credit counseling:

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

After an evening in hell with the Competitive Scrabble Club last week, you’d think it a struggle to find something more exhausting and stressful, but I did:  Barbacking.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, ya’ll.

I’ve been fortunate enough lately to have readers suggest ideas for my Lollipop Tuesdays not only online (via the comment section on my “What’s Lollipop Tuesday” page), but also those who know me personally via text and in-person.  Some of them have even gone so far as to arrange the events for me so that all I have to do is show up and humiliate myself.

Like this past week, for example.

Thanks to a loyal reader, I was invited to my favorite bar downtown (read: only one I go to) to be subjected to barbacking for an evening.  For those of you who need a clue, barbacking is basically playing slave to the bartender.  You wash dishes, prep food, clean, pour beers, stock the cooler, get ice… you get the idea.  So last Wednesday I worked my regular 8-5, and then headed downtown to be treated like a lowly peasant from 9-3.   And let me assure you: working an 8am-3am is not an experience I treasured.

I think most of my suck factor was wrapped up in the fact that I never drank in college.  I had my first taste of alcohol at 22 years old, so I had little to offer in the way of, well, anything.   I’m a fast learner and I’ve had a lot of jobs for my age, so the evening was like an intense crash course for a job I never intended on returning to.  

It was pure craziness.

Luckily, the same bartender works every Wednesday evening  (open mic night) and luckily, I tip him well.  Because there was nothing but his good graces that could carry me through an evening of stupidity.   And besides almost knocking over an entire rack of crystal, tossing out someone’s unfinished beer at the end of the night when they were still lingering around, and general ignorance about every aspect of bartending in general, I’d say I did pretty well.  A lot of it also had to do with the fact that I’m a regular, so the bar mostly consisted of friends, other  Wednesday regulars, and (believe it or not) blog fans who got the word I’d be there. 

Apparently there’s nothing like seeing someone humiliated to spice up your mid-week nights. 

Photo by "Lauren" - click the image to check out her review of the restaurant, complete with pictures. You can even check out the Madame's headboard that now serves as the back of the bar.

Oh yeah – did I mention the place used to be a brothel?

Part of what makes my favorite hangout so darn cool is that back in the day it was the backdrop for scandals of all shapes and sizes.  It has a section upstairs labeled “The Madame’s Room”.   But the best feature is one I didn’t discover until I played barback.   In one of the dining rooms, there is another bar with a mirrored wall behind it.  And if you push on it just right, the entire wall opens up to reveal another room.  It’s a bona fide secret doorway.   And if I have to work a 14-hour day to get to interact with a genuine hidden doorway, I’m so okay with that.

So all in all, I’d say things went well.  Nothing broke, nothing burned, and nothing got sent back.  And I got to learn a lot of pretty cool new stuff.  Like the fact that most of bartending is cleaning.  And since I’ve always kind of been interested in bartending, I’m thankful that this past week has shown me the error of my ways.  I hate cleaning.  Also, I totally suck at polishing stemware.

But allow me to leave you all with the most important thing I took away from being put through the ringer:

 Tip your bartender well.  You never know when you might end up on their side of the bar. ♣

*A hearty thanks to Jeff Holt of Papa J’s Centro in downtown Pittsburgh for allowing me to come threaten his crystal, his customers, and his good name.  Authentic Italian food, great service, and a super cool locale.  What could be better than drinking in a refurbished brothel? Nothing, that’s what.  If you’re in Western PA, you should do yourself a favor and pay the place a visit.  All pertinent info can be acquired here.*

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011