The Jackie Blog

This past Sunday I was superwoman.

I know this because David told me so.

When he arrived at the front door, I promptly directed him to the variety of things I had accomplished in his absence.  The spot-treated floors, the bleached tub, the dusted shelves, the rearranged living room… The wiped-down spice rack! The sparkling oven! The organized junk drawers!  I cleaned everything.  There was not one tiny portion of my apartment left unturned.  I even brushed the cats.

That last paragraph reads like a Dr. Seuss book if you do it just right.  Go back and give it a try.

I don’t know what came over me.  I woke up with a purpose, that was for certain.  I decided I would stop putting aside all the things that were penting up frustration and rage in my soul.  I made a conscious decision to hault the hellfire before the hellfire haulted me, and by golly, it was haulted.   Dave was so impressed with my display of superwomanhood that he enlisted himself to clean the windows, which was fantastic because I don’t regard windows as part of the apartment.    It alludes me altogether that one should even clean them.

Image by "GarryKnight". Click to check out his Flickr Photostream.

At around 10:00, it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet made dinner, written my blog, or done anything, really, that I needed done.  My driver’s license is set to expire, I have yet to order copies of the proofs I got from a photo shoot several weeks ago, and I have a pile of clothes that need mending, not to mention Dave’s favorite pair of jeans that suffered an epic green pen explosion that hasn’t magically removed itself yet.  Then there’s my dad’s thesis that needs a bit of editing, my budget that needs whipped into shape, and a few thank you notes that still haven’t made it into the mail.

It appears that though I set out to clear my world of unnecessary stress, I really just cleaned the house.  Granted, I cleaned it very, very well – but that doesn’t help the fact that I will not legally be able to drive in a few weeks if I don’t get my butt in gear with my to-do’s.   

Perhaps when I get pulled over and asked for my license, I can instead show the officer pictures of my sparkling home.  

So tonight I must set about the good intentions I had this past weekend.  I have determined that success is contingent on a to-do list.  So today I shall make a list and I shall conquer it.  After all – a list of still-lingering to-do’s is a terrible way to start 25.

Regardless, it’s lovely to know I could eat my cake off the floor if I want to. ♣ 

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

Me. Kind of. Photo by Tim Niblett. Click to check out his Flickr photostream.

My kitchen now harbors one very small, very sacred patch of earth that brings me sanity: my garbage can.

The other day, I sent David to the store with a list of things I needed “so that I could get things done.”  I did not “get things done” so much as I “sat on the couch and ate ice cream”, but I felt better about my life and he came back with some really interesting stuff.

Tasking Dave with picking up groceries is an intriguing and fragile journey.   It requires frequent phone calls asking for clarification on sizes, brands, and purposes.

Sometimes Dave needs to know exactly what my plans are for an item before he can determine which brand is necessary.

I was on a quest not long ago to make my dad some pickled eggs and sent Dave to the store for said eggs.  Upon reaching the dairy aisle, he immediately placed a phone call to me for clarification on egg size.

It isn’t until times like those that I actually remember that there are different sizes of eggs.   For me, it’s always Grade A – large.    I don’t even know what the “Grade A” is for, but I get it in confidence every single time because somehow, somewhere, I learned that it was the standard. I don’t remember being taught this information; I just know.   I don’t even notice the other sizes of eggs at the store, so much that I act like asking what size I need is a stupid question.

I have to admit that I’m not very good at fielding the grocery questions.  I say I don’t care what kind of whatever he gets but when he brings home something I don’t recognize, I get quite annoyed.   

We’re working through it.

But the other day, Dave brought home a boon in the form of a trash bag.  Apparently, we’re using technology to enhance our trash bags.  These are the things on the forefront of chemist’s and marketers’ minds.    And ever since I’ve eradicated cable from my apartment, I haven’t been getting the commercial updates on their discoveries.    So when Dave brought me home a box of garbage bags that actually stay hugged around the trash can, I peed my pants.  Right there on the floor.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wrestled with my kitchen trash bag sticking my hand in  last night’s leftovers to get it back in working order around the top of the can.  On days when I’ve worked ten hours and have a meeting to go to later that evening, a wonky trash bag is enough to make me lose my screws.

This little material marvel has saved me frustration after frustration.  Every time I go to the trash can, I’m so incredibly relieved by the stress-free experience, that I feel recharged with hope for my future.   I’ll go around and throw things away just to chuckle about how easy it is.

Now I know what you’re thinking – and I did too.  Am I old and boring because a trash bag inspires me with hope for my future?  Or am I sad and pathetic for having something so trivial make such a huge difference?  Or am I just stupid for spending extra money 0n a superbag when I could have just dealt with what was a very minute problem?

That answer is no.  To all those things.  I’ve cut enormous loads of stress off my life with a simple household purchase.

I’m not old; I’m enlightened. ♣ 

Today’s Random Act of Kindness:  Pre-filled all the laundry machines in my building with quarters and smiley face notes 🙂

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

I had everything planned so well for today.

I was going to get up real early, eat an awesome breakfast, put on a face mask and paint my nails, and then casually wander over to the hair salon to get my hair did.  Since I always attempt to do something awesome to my hair and I always fail miserably, I was pretty sure this fail-proof plan would ensure that I would be absolutely ravishing for the wedding I am to attend in 3 hours.

I did actually wake up at 7, but I didn’t have breakfast.  I just decided to move from the couch to the bed.   How I ended up on the couch, I don’t really remember.  It was a wild night.

When I woke again, it was 11:00am.  I suddenly realized that I had not purchased a wedding gift, made a hair appointment, shaved my legs, eaten breakfast, or written a blog post.  I have 3 hours to make all of these things happen, and there is some sort of Orthodox Jew parade right outside my apartment that’s blocking access to anything in the world until noon.  I’ve lived in the thick of the Jewish community  in my city for two years now and I’ve yet to see a parade.  Naturally, they would start today.  

So I’m down to two hours.  Two hours I will have to accomplish all of these things. 

I’m going to have to forgo the hair appointment.  And perhaps shaving my legs.  Nothing’s worse than sitting through a long wedding ceremony with pantyhose creeping up my bum.  No, I’m going to have to shave the legs.  Definitely.

So maybe no breakfast and no hair appointment.  That should give me enough time to shave. I’ll throw on some really awesome face paint so that everyone is distracted from my terrible hair.

I keep thinking about how weddings are supposed to be so romantic and that Dave will look over to me during the ceremony and imagine something in the foreseeable future.  But then I think about how I should have gotten up at 7 today and made that happen for myself.  Because when he looks over to me, he’s going to get an eye full of this:

Nothing begs ‘Always and Forever’ like unshaven legs and quiet desperation. ♣

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

I have developed a bit of an awkward relationship with the folks beneath our apartment.

I make them sound like bridge trolls when I say it that way.  I mean the people who live in the apartment below ours.  

It all started on a night when Dave was playing music rather loudly and we heard a loud thumping, as if someone was pounding something on the ceiling.  Worried that he was probably playing too loud, too late at night, Dave immediately stopped and wondered if the pounding was an indication of anger from the neighbors.  I encouraged him to go discuss it with them and ask if it really was them doing the pounding.  If so, perhaps we could work out a time that they’d like us to consider the cut-off for Dave’s rehearsals.  

He went downstairs, was charming as ever, and came back to report that it wasn’t them and that we must have misheard something.  Then something about girls and dog and so on.  I don’t take much interest in neighbors.

We didn’t have any other excuses to connect with them until I started noticing a distinct heavy tobacco smell in the bathroom.  It turns out there’s a vent that runs up from theirs to ours, and it was my assumption that they were smoking inside.  Though it’s against the rules of the lease, I didn’t really care.  They’re adults, can do as they please, and can happily pay whatever smell it leaves out of their security deposit.  Unfortunately, I didn’t want to sign up for the same thing and the smell was really quite overwhelming at times.  

So Dave went downstairs, was charming as ever, and came back to report that it was them and they would turn on a fan/blow it out a window/stop smoking in the bathroom. 

All was quiet on the home front until one night when one of them came rapping at my door. 

I make it sound like they’re rappers when I saw it that way.   I mean they knocked on our door,  Edgar Allen Poe style.

I don’t answer the door.  I should just say that outrightly.  I never, ever answer the door.  I don’t like to be confronted by the unknown that stands behind it.  I don’t like the idea of dealing with whatever it is, and more importantly, I don’t like to deal with people.  My assumption is that if it’s knocking, it’s probably a human.  And if it’s a human, I’m not interested.

I’m pretty serious about my commitment.  On the night of topic, I sat on my couch browsing the magical Interwebz as they knocked three different times.  I’m sure they saw the light on inside, but for all they know I could have been pooping.  They can’t expect me to answer the door when I’m pooping.

The next morning, I left for work and upon opening the door found two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and a note written in bubble letters.  Bubble letters are the kind of letters girls write in third grade when they pass notes to each other.  It said something or other about her sister being a girl scout and something or other about thinking “I” would enjoy them.   And then something about considering it a welcome-to-the-building gift.

The note was obviously meant for charming Dave, who was the only one with whom they’d had contact.   He, however, was away visiting his family and I was left to my own devices for quite a few days. I promptly ate the thin mints, put the box of berry crunch whatevers on the fridge to never be touched, and drafted a thank you note.  It was something to the effect of thanking them for the cookies because I’d had a rough day, and then saying we’ve been in the building for two years so I’m not sure if they were intended for us but I sure hope so because they had already been half-eaten.  I was sure to write it in my best impression of bubble letters so that they would get the idea there was a human of the female persuasion upstairs with the charming Dave.

Today I was in the restroom and smelled the overwhelming stench of tobacco coming up through my vent.   The two situations may not be related, but since I’m a hermit with too much time on her hands, I’m gonna go ahead and say they are.  If Dave appears available, they’ll stop smoking in the bathroom and give him cookies.  If he doesn’t, they’ll smoke us out.   Seeing as how I don’t have anything better to do with my life, this presents an opportunity for amusement. 

The challenge, however, is to come up with an idea that doesn’t involve whoring out Dave’s charm.

This next move might take some time to consider. ♣

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

Okay, I can’t take it anymore.

Dave has begun to use his iPad2 to teach himself the intricacies of Morse Code.

Some of you are familiar with my blog post Jackie vs. iPad 2, wherein I regaled you with my feelings on giving a hippie an iPad.  This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.   You can’t give someone who isn’t interested in technology an iPad2.  They will only use it for ridiculosities.   He’s using a device on the cutting edge of technology to learn a dead language.

Dead. Dead, I say.

Last night he sat on the couch with his iPad aglow, booping and beeping back to it.  After 20 minutes, he looked over at me excitedly and told me he can do the word “face”.   Then, realizing every letter from A-F was in his command, he began to compile a list of the words he could speak to other Morse Coders.  If, in fact, such people exist.

“Face… bad…  dab…  cab… ab… cad… ad… fad…”

I decided to test his retention this morning by asking him in the car on the way to work how to spell “face”.

“do do doo do. do doo. do doo do doo. do.”

I told him I would have to take his word for it.   After all, I don’t speak “doo”.

You see, the thing about the iPad2 is that it has brought Dave’s curiosities to a slam halt.   I call him a man of a series of brief and passionate interests.  One day he’ll want to pour his life savings into starting an herb garden and the next he’ll want to be an upholsterer.   But since those were things that weren’t so readily available (he was never too into browsing online for hours), he filed them in his cabinet of good intentions.  But now…  he feels like the iPad makes everything so easy.  There’s an app for absolutely everything and all he has to do is flick, tap, and drag his way through a beautiful, dense, rainforest of knowledge.

Some time ago we watched a documentary on origami (because we’re nerdy nerds) and that evening he stayed up all night becoming an origami master.  I woke up to a freshly pressed dollar bill shirt-and-tie.   The cabinet of good intentions has quickly morphed into a series of crash courses.

I’m hoping that eventually these will be crash courses in something useful.  I mean, origami dollar bills are awesome and all (I know – I tried it) but far more practical would be an app that lets you start up the car and recognizes the peculiar humming, buzzing, or squeaking that plagues it and offers step-by-step instructions for an easy fix.  

But alas, he is back on the couch with the iPad aglow, and has just celebrated his conquer of the letter “G”.  

iPad be damned. ♣

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

Image from feedingamerica.org

After some time with yesterday’s after-school-special post, I’ve come to some startling realizations.

I have avoided a variety of everyday firsts because of my fear of the unknown.

Really – lots of them.  Lots of things people don’t really think about until they write a Lollipop Tuesday post and realized that they’re pathetic, fearsome slugs.   I have blatantly avoided a lot of things simply because I didn’t know the rules ahead of time or have someone there to help me figure them out.

The rules are the way things work – the logistics of a scenario.  Yesterday I didn’t want to go to a restaurant I didn’t know because I didn’t know if I should sit or be seated, what the best seat was, what was on the menu, what the people were like, whether refills were included on non-alcoholic drinks, or whether to pay at the end or take it to a register.

When I have someone with me, it’s okay that I don’t know because that person doesn’t know either and we’ll just confirm that out loud for ourselves and figure it out, no biggie.  But when I’m alone, those questions are enough to make me break out in nerve-induced hives.

For realsies.

So I started thinking.  If I’m just now noticing this about myself, how long has it been going on?  The answer is A Long Time.  I’ve missed out on a wide variety experiences simply because I didn’t know the rules and was too scared to look like I was trying to figure them out in front of everyone.   Like the school cafeteria, for instance.  Do you know what I remembered last night while I laid awake in bed?   That I didn’t go through the high school lunch line until the last week of my senior year.

There are lots of rules there and you know it.

Or public transportation, which I still don’t take and never may.  Tickets, tokens, passes, quarters, dollars, change, no-change, transfers, seating.  And that’s if I even know how to get where I want to go.

And that’s what I hate about people.   Well, I actually mostly just hate how stupid people are.  But I also hate meeting new ones because I don’t know what their deal is.    I don’t want to have to spend all that time figuring someone out with all their complexities and weirdisms.  And heaven forbid they figure out mine – what a miserable time that always is.  It is a fact (you can verify with my mother) that when I was younger, I would get so nervous for my birthday that by the time I made it there, I spent the whole day throwing up.  Every year for several years.

I can’t even imagine casual dating.  I would either be paralyzed with fear or just go all Exorcist on them.

Thank the good Lord I have Dave.  ♣

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

It’s update time.

Remember way back when I tried P90X for my Lollipop Tuesday?  It was a painful but sweet nectar and I actually toyed with the idea of trying it out.  Like, for realsies.

Last night I decided to take the plunge.

I have a problem with getting myself jacked up enough to want to kick my miserable fat ass for an hour and a half, so Dave and I struck a deal: we’re doing P90X together.  Every day he’ll do it early in the day and I’ll do it later, gathering my motivation from the fear of being heckled by him for having skipped out.

We’d do it in the same room at the same time but I refuse to work out in front of him because I don’t like the idea of him seeing all my fat pudding rolling around while I exercise.

So yesterday afternoon Dave did the 90 minute chest and back workout and then the 15 minute ab ripper X workout.  Which means that last night, I was expected to do the same.   Not even two hours later, I got a phone call and actually noticed the muscles I use to hold the phone.

I couldn’t believe I worked out so hard it was taxing to talk on the phone.  For a moment I actually considered explaining the situation to the other party and hanging up but then I realized how freaking pathetic that would make me.

So I carried on, feeling like a quivering pile of wuss.

Why does trying to get hot have to suck so much?  I mean I get that you have to work hard to look good, but why does it have to be so miserable?!   I’m not sure I’ve ever had a workout I’ve truly enjoyed.  I played volleyball back in the day and loved it, but I don’t really count sports played for pleasure.   I’m talking straight-up working out: lifting weights, running, miseries of all kinds.  I don’t think I’ve ever, ever enjoyed that process.

When I meet people that run for pleasure, I am utterly baffled.

They’ve got to be lying.  The whole lot of them.  They might like being hot – that’s a gimme.  But they totally don’t like running.  The act of it – the pounding of the pavement, the loud cries from their bodies to please stop the madness – I don’t buy that anyone enjoys that.

You know what I enjoy? Eating.  I really enjoy eating.  I can get through the most terrible day with the right foods.  Eating something when you’re truly in the mood for it is one of the absolute best things in the world.

Is that the difference between beautiful people and normal people? Maybe beautiful people love to run as much as I love to eat cheesecake.  Maybe they really do like it.

If that’s the case, I definitely got the short end of the stick.  ♣

Cameron Diaz - without a single shred of evidence that she's ever eaten something delicious. Yowza. (Photo by Simon Emmett for go.com)

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