Tag Archives: self-improvement

My Contribution to Humanity

20 Feb

Guys, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for.  Well, me.  I’ve been waiting for.  But I know that deep down all along you’ve been rooting for me and so this will mean almost as much to you as it does to me.

Guys. NASA  hires people to stay in bed all day and let them study the effect it has on your body. They pay a lot, too.  Like $5,000 a month for three months.

THREE MONTHS.  That’s $15,000.  That’s a down payment on a house or a car or the best vacation of my life or helping 15 of my friends do something amazing or a wedding or any link to the next step in my life I want it to be.  And all just to sit in a bed.

So hear me out.  NASA needs subjects.  They’re willing to pay them handsomely for their participation.  The first two weeks is prep, the 60 days in the middle are all in bed, and the last two weeks are recovery. That’s 60 days of performing all bodily functions in bed, including using the restroom and bathing.  You have access to television, movies, and video game consoles. I’m serious.  Here’s proof.  And more proof. AND MORE PROOF.

Do you know what this means? Do you!? This means that I could get paid to play World of Warcraft.

As many longtime readers know, I have spent the last several years as a recovering WoW player.  At the lowest point in my journey, I could eat an entire pizza and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and go unshowered for five days before it started to bother me. I was so holed up in my addiction that in order to spend time with me, a friend in college carried his desktop computer from his dorm to my apartment so that he could plug it in and play computer games at the same time as me. It was the only way  I would entertain notions of social engagement.

Of course, a part of my soul was truly happy there in Azeroth, but I was a smelly pile of zombie-brained raid-driven flesh accomplishing nothing and spending all my money on pizza I hid under my bed instead of putting in the fridge downstairs.  So I can’t really say it was a positive life choice.

For those of you unacquainted, it wasn’t unlike this:

from South Park "Make Love, Not Warcraft". Check it out here: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e08-make-love-not-warcraft

from South Park’s “Make Love, Not Warcraft”. Full episode here: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e08-make-love-not-warcraft

I quit cold turkey twice.  The second time I was actually successful, mostly because I had uninstalled it from everything I owned and gotten rid of the only computer I had capable of handling the graphics.

I have existed WoW-free all these years mostly because I cannot make the argument that it is helping me achieve my goals in life, that it doesn’t pay the bills, and that I get to dangerous levels of hermit-like social interaction when under its power.  But then NASA announced that they want to pay me to stay in bed and play Warcraft all day for 60 days straight and that when I’m done they would hand me enough cash to do something big and adult-like in my life, thereby propelling the timeline of my adulthood forward and making family and relatives more comfortable about my life choices.

I need to play WoW to serve my country. People want to go to Mars and stuff.

Of course, in order to qualify for patriotic astronaut testing duty, I have to pass a fitness test.  So it’s a good thing I’ve been doing my Project Fatass 365, because I might actually be able to now.

It’s like this opportunity was meant solely for me.

All right, I’m off to do my last session of hateshredding with Jillian Michaels before I step it up and find a program that will make me suitable for a space mission.  Well, a space mission in bed. With Cheetos.

God Bless America. ♣

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Some Observations on Water Fasting

29 Jan
true story.

true story.

Zomg it’s a Lollipop Tuesday.

I’ve picked up a few ducklings in the new year, so if you’re unfamiliar with Lollipop Tuesday shenanigans, you can read up on them here.  Or if you’re too lazy (and I suspect like me, you are), I’ll just tell you that in essence, Lollipop Tuesdays are Tuesday posts in which I recount something new that I recently tried and very often end up sucking at, which is why I’ve dubbed the post for a sucker.

Lazy long time subscribers everywhere are going “oooooooh!”

You’re welcome.

And so allow me to regale you with my most recent foray into the unknown: fasting.

I’ve always been curious about fasting.  It’s mentioned in church from time to time, I occasionally read about it in health-related articles online, and I specifically remember visiting my grandmother when I was young and discovering a book on fasting on her bookshelf, much to my surprise.

My grandmother is against everything except Jesus and  gardening, so finding a book on what I presumed would be a controversial subject was surprising to me.

My run-ins with the subject have been intermittent but longstanding and so on January 1st of this year, I decided to commit to a 7-day water fast. My reasons were more spiritual than health-related. I’d been chewing on the idea for quite some time and realized that the majority of my struggles are tied to a lack of self-control. I bite my nails, I blab out whatever I feel like saying whenever I feel like saying it, I have a tendency to rage and cuss while driving, I can eat an entire pack of Oreos in ten minutes without batting an eye…the list goes on to my deep humiliation.  I figured I had quite a bit to learn from the practice of abstaining.

So abstain I did.

Let me tell ya: if you want to see how much food you mindlessly put in your mouth, actively attempt to abstain from eating for a few days. I can’t even count the number of times I caught myself shoving little bits of nibbles in my face pouch over several days. While I was cooking dinner, while I was cleaning out the fridge, while I was unpacking groceries… that’s a lot of mindless gobbling. You know what else I noticed? That without food or drink, there is little to no reason to get together to see people you know. Or at least, people I know. It felt like every day someone was asking me to go get a drink, to come over for coffee, to go out to dinner – I swear to the Good Witch Glenda that Dave accidentally asked me out to dinner and ice cream every single night that week. 

Since I didn’t really know what to do in social situations in which I could not busy myself with food, I just turned everyone down – which worked out pretty well for me since I kind of hate social situations to begin with. By the fifth day, it wasn’t really doable to go out anyway since every time I stood up I got dizzy. I admit that since everything I read said to be careful to watch for your “fainting point”, I nibbled a bite-sized piece of bread at that point and it was the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth in the history of putting things in my mouth.

Aside from dizziness, hunger pangs, and difficulty mustering the energy to get through an entire load of dishes, side effects included crankiness, lusting for taste, and constructing elaborate lunches and dinners for Dave.  In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed my fasting week.  It’s his theory that because I was food deprived and in a perpetual lust-state over the simplest of sustenance, I loaded his meals with uber deliciousness.

He’s right; I did. I stuffed his lunch sandwiches with all sorts of freakalicious things. I bought random gourmet concoctions at the supermarket.  I pinned a record number of recipes on Pinterest.  And I frequently asked Dave to breathe the hot stench of whatever he was masticating into my nostrils so that I could get off on the smell.

The first time he didn’t hear me, the second time he thought I was joking, and the third time (subject: movie theater hot dog, location: showing of The Hobbit) he whipped out his serious voice and told me I was grossing him out.

Now, I’m sure there will be a crowd of folk who fly off the handle about the dangers of fasting and whatnot. Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinions, but I’d like to note that I was carefully monitoring my health throughout and was sure to arm myself with as much information as possible so that I was well-prepared.  As I see it, the most dangerous thing about fasting is that it feels bloody fantastic to see how quickly you lose weight. I lost a little over ten pounds in seven days and remember at one point thinking that I could understand a little better the mentality behind anorexia.  Please, please note that I’m not saying I “understand” anorexia and that I fully acknowledge that folks who suffer from it are not fasting and are not well. I’m just saying that there was certainly a temptation once I’d become accustomed to the hunger pangs and the look of my body in the mirror to consider how this was the most effective dieting technique I could possibly imagine – and that was a little scary for me.

Naturally, you gain it all back afterward. Or at least most of it.  I followed suggested guidelines by very slowly incorporating new foods back into my diet over the course of five days.  Though I did this more for the spiritual benefits than the health, there were still some health-related perks to be mined from short-term starvation. For example, since before the fast I was accustomed to splooging the contents of Hershey chocolate syrup bottles directly into my mouth, these seven days were a great way to re-calibrate my taste buds.  Bananas actually taste sweet again.  I can savory the subtleties in flavor and nuances in dishes.  Healthy food is actually pretty darn delicious when you’re actually hungry, and after realizing how scrumptious bites can be if they’re truly savored and appreciated, I’ve upped the ante on my healthy diet for the past several weeks and have thoroughly enjoyed it.  I’ve also slowed my eating way down, most likely as a result of needing to chew every single bite post-fast until it reached a safe liquid consistency. At first I was kind of grossed out by that, but then the fat girl in me realized that the longer the food is in my mouth, the longer I can savor the beauty of its delicious tastes. 

I used to eat so fast I’d nip a finger here or there so this was a pretty relevatory moment for me.

It also turns out that getting a chance to see how much better I looked with ten less pounds of fat on me helped me visualize myself as, well, not so fat.  That’s been a pretty great motivator in my newfound Fat Ass 365 Project wherein I imagine myself as a healthier, less jiggly version of myself that won’t suddenly disappear when I wake up and eat breakfast the next day.

Speaking of which, I need to go get my Jillian Michaels on. Two more days left of 30 Day Shred Level 2. And when I’m done I get to eat some food!

Giddy up, porky. ♣

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My Cat’s an Asshole

23 Jan

Man, I’m in a sour mood.  Usually when I’m in a bad mood, I just eat something delicious.  Works every time.  Unfortunately, I’ve committed to a 365 Project where I work out for at least 20 minutes every day and as a result, I’m starting to kind of like not being fat and miserable and so I don’t have any junk food in the house anymore.  The idea is that if I want junk food, I have to go to the store and get some, which isn’t going to happen because I’m innately lazy.  I’ve outfoxed my fat self.

Even if I did want to solve my bad mood by going to get a pepperoni roll or a belgian waffle with ice cream or a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, it’s too darn cold outside.  I don’t know about you folks in warm, happy climates but I’m here on the three rivers in Pittsburgh and yesterday my walk to the bus stop was so tear-inducing that I genuinely wondered why people haven’t made ski masks more fashionable by now. Because I bloody well need one. It is face-shattering cold.

This cold has accumulated on the outside of my rear bedroom in the form of a colony of man-sized icicles that are melting and refreezing and saturating my crappily-crafted walls with water.  Thus, the wall is leaking.  It’s crying large tears of cold sadness along with me.  And though I called my landlord and two maintenance guys stopped by, I’ve been assured there’s nothing they can (read: want to) do. Since the ceiling in my bathroom fell on my head two years ago for similar wall-crying-related reasons, I’m going to go ahead and guess that the bedroom ceiling will also fall on my head shortly.

Also, a commercial offering litigation for problems related to vaginal mesh transplants just came on television and I’m not really a fan of the terms “vaginal” and “mesh” squished beside each other like that.  It’s uncomfortable.

So I’m a little grumpy.  And I’d like to take a moment to share my grump with you in the hopes that it will suck the devil out of me like The Exorcist and I will no longer crave happiness or cake.  You know, before the ceiling falls on my head and I die and I’ve missed my chance.  I’d hate to be lying in my grave, thinking about how I could have died happy if I would have only publicly ranted about my case of the grumples.

Actually, I feel significantly better already. Maybe I should just start blogging when I want junk food.

On second thought, that would get real spammy real fast.

So I guess I’m due for an update on the 365 Project.  As I’ve already mentioned in previous posts (and at the beginning of this one), I’m in the midst of a project I’ve lovingly dubbed Project Fat Ass 365, wherein I have resolved to do one health/exercise related activity every single day for at least twenty minutes.  I’ve begun with the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and have already hit the 160’s.

To understand how monumental that is, you should know that I’ve only been in the 160’s two times in my life: when I was a vegetarian and when I had a terrible case of mono. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to live my life without cheeseburgers or a balanced amount of white blood cells ever since and have been hovering in the 180’s forever.

Now, that’s not to say that I’ve gone from the 180’s to the 160’s since just the beginning of January.  As long time jackieblog subscribers know, I began trying to get super cereal about my health back in October of 2011 when my vagina doctor told me I needed to lose weight.  Apparently for the health of my vagina.  That’s right: my BMI was so high that my lady bits doctor told me to lose weight.  If that doesn’t get you moving, I don’t know what will.   I’ve been working to slowly improve my diet and exercise habits ever since.  So that 20 pounds has been a long and somewhat yo-yo-like journey. Luckily I’ve set myself for absolute success (or absolute embarrassment) this year by attempting this 365 and announcing that I’ll be running a 10K in the fall.

I only have to announce it, right?  I don’t actually have to do it.

Sometimes when I'm cold and grumpy and don't want to exercise, my cat (Hobbes) blatantly displays his comfortable state of fat in front of me. Like an asshole.

Sometimes when I’m cold and grumpy and don’t want to exercise, my cat (Hobbes) blatantly displays his comfortable state of fat in front of me. Like an asshole.

Just kidding. I’ve already invited my family to come heckle and loudly mock me from the sidelines to ensure I finish.  And they shall.  I was pretty tempted to invite my readers to form a team with me to help raise money for the dwindling populations of honeybees but as you all know by now, that’s a panic attack waiting to happen.  I can’t handle meeting that many new people.  I would stay in my apartment the morning of the race, perpetually projectile vomiting my anxiety into my toilet.

Which, on second thought, would probably help me shed as many pounds as a 10K.

At any rate, things are going quite well on the fat front, thanks for asking.  It’s still not too late to join in on a 365 (you can start any time, y’all).  All you have to do is think of the kind of person you would like to be in a year and then pick one thing related to that goal that you can do every single day that will get you closer to that person in a year. And then, you know, do it. Like I am.  Listen: if I can blog instead of eating when I’m grumpy and if I can exercise for 20 minutes every day instead of cracking jokes about how I’m not the kind of person who can exercise every day, you can do whatever it is that you’re actively avoiding as well.  And then in a year we can all celebrate our new, improved selves.

But not together in the same place, because that will make me projectile vomit.

All right, that’s my last plug for 365s.  I’ll stop badgering you for a while.  But only a while.

To our faces not cracking, our walls not weeping, and our fat mitts not reaching for cake. 

Puppies and Sprinkles,

Jackie ♣

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Project 365, Round Two

2 Jan

Well, it appears that I’ve renewed my domain for another year, so here I am on the couch again on a Wednesday night wondering what I have in my head to share.

By now you all know the answer is absolutely nothing.  And I appreciate you sticking around to listen to it.

It’s been exactly 2 years since I wrote my very first post in my very first 365 Challenge: to fire up a blog I once adored and had let sit dormant for years. It was far more successful and fulfilling than I could have imagined and I’ve become an advocate for 365 Projects, much to the irritation of my friends and family.

So it’s a new year and I need a new 365.  I didn’t do one last year; I think I was right to have taken a break.  It was a big challenge and a big payoff.  And I really missed that sense of satisfaction when the ball dropped of knowing I’d spent 365 days working on making one very specific thing about myself better.  I mean, what a waste of a year, right? 

Well not a waste, but you get what I’m going at here.  Last year was good to me.  I got out of a corporate job that was sucking the life from my body and replacing my blood with black sludge.  Instead, I decided to go back to school to get a dual masters, not knowing how exactly that looked or how I would pull it off financially.  I lost twenty pounds and put ten back on (I’m choosing to celebrate the net -10), and I spent more time with my family and friends than I have in a long time.  All in all I’d say that’s a pretty darn good year.

But I’m a monster that can’t be satisfied with mere short-term human achievements.  And let’s face it: if you’re going to force me to keep writing by continuing to read, I’m going to need some subject matter besides awkward elevator conversations, how upset I get when old ladies cut me off when I’m shopping for produce, and my soon-to-be-famous million dollar ideas (if you have money to waste and want to sponsor me, please reference Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C and then wire me the money directly so I can squander it on my inventions).

I was going to tell you something when this all started.  Oh, right.  I’m going to run a 10K.

Oh man I just wrote it.  It’s right there staring at me, all big and 10Kish.

Well I thought about how it felt to finish a 365 the first time and I thought about what thing I could spend 365 days working to improve that would best-affect me in the future.  And that answer is my fat ass.  I shall dub it the Fat Ass 365.  I will spend every single day of this year doing something fitness-related for at least 20 minutes and I will celebrate my success with a 10K.  I already looked up the race.  I have the race.  It’s a go.

I thought I’d invite you all to join me and we could get jackie blog t-shirts and make a team and conquer world hunger or cancer or the dwindling population of honeybees together, but then I realized that if I did that you might actually come and I might have to deal with the anxiety of meeting several completely foreign people and that I might die of a panic attack before I even get to achieve my resolution.

So no, you can’t know which race. You might find me and inadvertently cause my death. That would be a shame.

This is somewhat about the 10K and much more about the fact that I need to seriously incorporate movement into my daily life.  It is a simple fact that I am happiest when stuffing my face with junk food and watching television or playing video games.  This will never change about me.  I mean, I can do other things and try to replace it and even if I’m successful, I’m always going to wish deep down that I could just be in front of a screen stuffing my face and filling myself with disgusting self-deprecation that will breed in my mind and cause my own self-destruction over the course of several years. So this year, in order to help keep that natural adoration at bay, I’m enacting Operation Fat Ass 365.

I remember when I was just knee high to a grasshopper envisioning my 20’s.  Specifically, my late 20’s. I pictured what most lower middle class kids picture: a family and a nice house and great holidays and a job I don’t hate.  Of course then I grew up to be a member of the Boomerang Generation, a bunch of over-educated late bloomers with poor job prospects and an abnormally high sense of cynicism.  So I can’t really have any of those things little Jackie envisioned for herself at the moment (Sorry, little Jackie, but someday you’ll grow up and realize being a kid is all about being stupid and wrong all the time. Deal with it). 

There is, however, one thing I envisioned that I can absolutely do – and that’s be in the best shape of my life.

I mean it’s now or never, right?  I turn 27 this year.  That’s like, 3 years away from 30.  I have to imagine that someday in the near future, kids, self-loathing, and hips twice my size are coming my way and before I give up all hope of ever being the kind of person who can run for 6+miles and/or fit into single-digit clothing, I’d like to give myself a fair shot by forcing myself to face my fat every single day for 365 days.  And then of course running a 10K so I can be sure something tangible came out of it: a certificate and a t-shirt.

There’s no doubt in my mind I’m going to hate it.  But that’s okay because I’ll have lots to write about.  I love to write about things I hate. And eventually I’m going to get sick of running and I’m going to have to do things like take dance classes or go to Zumba (Lord, help me).  And those, my friends, count as Lollipop Tuesdays.

I’m already in the midst of my next one. Tune in Tuesday for the goods.

So that’s what my 2013 looks like: sweaty and disgusting. I hope yours looks fantastic too.  And in all sincerity I hope you consider a 365 Project (it’s not too late!) or at the very least, one single Lollipop Tuesday for yourself.  That way when I cross the finish line we can both celebrate.  

Happy New Year folks; thanks for reading – especially the seven of you who were with me from the start.  You’re all puddings.  Now tell me what your 2013 self challenge is. 

By The Power of Grayskull. ♣

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Caution: Old Age Ahead

28 Nov

There are two times in the year that I am forced to reconcile with my own shortcomings and/or revel in my accomplishments.  The first is my birthday.  It falls in July so it’s a good middle-of-the-year human performance assessment.  The second is the New Year.  Right now.

When I woke up yesterday and realized December is about to punch us all in the face with its jolly, blustery fist, I realized I have one month to right whatever is still wrong from last year’s complaints.  I believe I’ve taken care of everything on the list except “get a passport”, which is crucial to next year’s inevitable goal: “go somewhere”.  In general, it’s a good system for helping me reflect on both my goals and my mistakes so that when I get hit by a truck one day, I have a minimal amount of reflection to do before my soul leaves my body.

It’s just good sense to plan ahead.

Of course, on occasion these little sessions don’t go as hoped and instead of reflecting on improvements for the oncoming year, I focus on how incredibly old I am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; statistically speaking, it’s likely that you’re older than me.  I mean I’m old for myself but I’m not old if we consider actual old people.  But even if you’re older than me, you have to admit that there is something that happens to you in your 20’s in which you transition from being young and fun and not responsible for anything to being not young, no fun, and so much responsibility that you wonder if you could just get hospitalized for a little bit to help get you out of a few things.

Except student loans.  No one can stop the student loans.

So the other day I was all wrapped up in my old-ness partially because I’m in reflection mode with January approaching and partly because Dave pointed out that the people playing moms in the Kraft macaroni and cheese commercials are our age now.  And he’s right: they are.  

That’s a painful realization, my friends.  

And that’s the humiliation of growing up I suppose – how it creeps up on you.  The way that it just slowly invades all your sacred space until one day you wake up and you’re upset that so many young kids are moving in and making a ruckus in your apartment complex or that you actually really like Raisin Bran or that you can’t go join a hippie commune any time you want now because you have bills, man.

Perhaps I should add “come to terms with own age” to my list of to-dos for 2013.   Hey, at least if I fail I can hop a flight to another country and ignore everything with my newly acquired passport.

How about you all? How are your resolutions and reflections faring with only one month to go?  

Feel free to tell me that you also enjoy Raisin Bran. It would help me, you know, deal. ♣

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Dear Boomerang Kids Everywhere:

5 Sep

Today, I met an interesting woman at a bus stop.  Let’s call her Margie.

Normally, I don’t talk to Margies.  I don’t talk to anyone, really, especially not people at bus stops.  But Margie didn’t really care who I was or how I felt.  She was a jolly lass and it didn’t occur to her that I could be introverted so she just blabbered on and on about her day.  And since I was having a particularly poopy one myself, I kind of didn’t mind the break from my inner monologue.

Margie is a social worker who has been laid off three times due to budget cuts.  She spends her day dealing with women in crisis and juveniles in court.  She makes about 25K a year and though her daughter makes more than twice that, her daughter is living at home.  And not paying any bills.  And using Margie’s car, which was why Margie was at the bus stop at that particular moment.

So this is a post for Margie.  In fact, it’s for all the Margies out there who find themselves so blinded by their love for their children that they just can’t bear to tell them to get the hell out of the house.  If you’re  a Margie, have no fear.  Just copy the web address in your browser right now, paste it into an email or text, and shoot it off to your lovable little mooch.  Of course, there are some kids who are experiencing some technical difficulties in their lives and have extenuating circumstances.  This isn’t for those.  This is for the kids who are fully capable of formulating a plan for adulthood and are putting it off in exchange for the convenience of feeding off their parents.  Those kids.  So look around your house.  Do you have any of those lingering around?  If so, send them this web address, tell them you like my blog, that they should follow it, and that you’ve been doing some thinking and maybe they should also get the hell out of the house.  Follow it with “lol jk” and then “but seriously, read this”.

Dear Margie’s Daughter and Boomerang Kids Everywhere:
Look at your parental figure/s.  Don’t they look tired?  That’s because they are.  They’re old and tired because for the last two and a half decades or so, they’ve weaned you from a squealing, helpless piglet into a walking, talking, thinking human being.  They paid taxes so you could go to school and gave you rides when you needed to go see your stupid significant other or when you wanted to go to a dance or do some other waste of an adolescent pastime.   They went to work every day so that they could go to the store after work, fight off hordes of other parents just like them, buy dinner, come home, and cook it for you so that you could just gobble it up in 5 minutes, not leave any leftovers, and then leave the table without offering to help clean up so that you could return to some stupid aforementioned adolescent pastime.  They’re tired because once you learned to drive, you’d borrow the car and leave it on empty so that they had to wake up extra early to put gas in it before they went to work, where they got more money to afford the gas they put in the car for you to run out.
So listen: they did their part.  You can walk on two feet instead of four, you can poop in a toilet instead of your pants, and you can (God willing) at least sustain yourself with boxed meals from the supermarket instead of skinning small vermin in the wilderness for daily sustenance.  Now it’s your turn.  You’re a big kid now.  And it’s time to move out.
It is.  It really is.  You were really only supposed to be an eighteen-year commitment.  Then you were supposed to get a job and/or go to college, never to return again.  But you did return.  And you aren’t using any of your life skills to better the household.  You’re using your money to participate in your stupid mid-20’s pastimes instead of donating it to the greater good of the unit.  You shower, you plug things in, you put things in your mouth, and you flush things down the toilet.  That all costs money, and it’s time to pay up.  Don’t have a job?  Get one.  Even a terrible one.  
Hey, sometimes you have to work sucky jobs.  Lots of people have sucky jobs.  You know what really sucks, though? Having a sucky job and not even having any money to show for it because your kid won’t move out of the damn house.  So get a job and get out.
While you’re writing a big fat check to your parents for all the years they’ve sheltered and fed you past the eighteen-year contract, remember to clean up after yourself.  For the love of all that is holy, take a shower.  Do some dishes.  Inspire your parents to soil their pants by offering to make dinner or take them out.  Ask if you can go pick up some groceries for them or go fill up the gas tank, or do some laundry.   
And once you’ve gotten a job, given your parents some money to offset the cost of your existence, cleaned up the room where you wove your cocoon, and landed an apartment, begin your mass exodus with a hug and a thank you to your old, tired, parent/s.  Because  every year you spent in their home past the eighteen-year-contract was a year of their life they can’t get back.  And the Bible tells us that there’s no greater gift than to lay down your life for another.
Look at that: no greater gift.  Jesus says so.  You can’t ever repay your parental unit/s for this time you’ve taken from them.  So just be a good little lamb and hit the road.  Now.  Hey- look at that: you’re already online.  Just click here.  
Good job.  Now print out three options, show them to your parental unit/s and take a shower while they celebrate with a bottle of wine that you purchase for them.  Trust me: you’re doing the right thing.  And in a few decades, you can return to this page, send it to your own little lovable mooches and get your own free bottle of wine and a ticket to your golden years.
You’re welcome.
Puppies and Sprinkles,
Jackie ♣

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Do These Olympics Make Me Look Fat?

9 Aug

It’s Thursday.  It’s not Wednesday.  Just in case you were wondering man, Jackie posted today – is it WEDNESDAY?! the answer is no.   Not it is not.  It is Thursday, and Jackie failed to post on Wednesday.

I spent the day telling myself I didn’t care.  But that was a big fat lie.  I totally care.  Because here I am on a Thursday, posting.  I just have this nagging feeling that missing a week will throw the entire rest of the year of weekly posting off balance and I shall never, ever recover.  Or maybe you won’t.  This is really about you.  And how much I love you.  Squishy hugs for everyone.  

Okay, now moving on to more pressing matters.

I think it’s really great that as a society we have begun to question the unrealistic body images that constantly affront us in magazines, in movies, and during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show each year.  More and more often, I’m seeing links to entertaining pages that feature poorly photoshopped celebrities and supermodels.  I don’t know about you but when I come to and find my sausage fingers stuck inside another empty sleeve of Oreos, I like to nurse my wounds by clicking through pages images of accidentally airbrushed-away limbs and before-shot monsterpig faces.

And now I think it’s time to speak out against the unrealistic body images that have been bombarding us for almost two weeks.  You know what I’m talking about.

The Olympics.

My television has done nothing but hurl unrealistic expectations at me every day for the past two weeks with scantily clad men and women that are so perfectly chiseled that in the slow motion playback, the only things that jiggle are their cheeks.  It’s preposterous.  Not one single female athlete’s arms jiggle when they wave to the audience in celebration.    And have you seen the women sprinters? Not only are they perfectly sculpted examples of human perfection, but they even manage to have well-placed hair! Hair that stays put after rocketing down the track at alarming speeds. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?!  Even the freakish doll monsters that are synchronized swimmers have hair and makeup that sticks on through several minutes of exercising completely underwater.

I can’t get  mine to stay on after the sweat I break while brushing my teeth.

When’s the last time a candid shot of you emphasized your rock hard goddess abs?

The ultimate slap in my fat face was the ESPN body issue featuring naked Olympians and national athletes.  Some of them are in the midst of performing their sport.  Surfers from an underwater shot, rowers pinned on the side of the boat and mid-stroke, ball players gearing up to take a shot – and all of them are perfect. Your humiliation will know no bounds.

This is worse than supermodel fixation.  Much worse.  At least when I open a magazine and see fashion models glaring at me with their smokey eyes, I can coax my love handles into calming down by reminding myself that I could always look like that too if I stopped eating.  But when I’m faced with the chiseled abs and well-shaped thighs of an Olympian, I have no solace.  These people haven’t had dessert in two years.  They train 8 hours a day every day.  They eat the same things constantly.  They have someone whose job is solely to make sure that they’re beautiful, flawless, perfectly sculpted examples of human athletic achievement.

All I have is my cats.  And when I took them to the vet last week, I was scolded for their obesity. 

Even my cats are lard asses.  I would make a terrible trainer.

Hobbes’ inevitable future

Luckily it’s almost over.  In just a few short days, the Olympics will go into hiding for another four years.  Of course, we’ll have to deal with the winter Olympics in just two, but in the winter I can console myself with the improbability of my becoming a speed skater and vats of crock pot comfort foods. 

For now, I must stay strong; they’re almost done.   Maybe I should start with small steps.  Like looking up those outstanding waterproof hair and makeup products.

Or investing in a cat treadmill. ♣

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In This, the Passing of My First Life Quarter

11 Jul

I’m right there with ya, kid.

I am writing this post in the last hours of my 25th year.  It is the end of my first quarter-century;  I have completed one fourth of my supposed long and happy triple-digit life.

I am enduring this home stretch with a set of very troll-like eyebrows.

You see, I’m doing this thing for my birthday called destressing.  I’ve spent this past week preparing for a day of complete and total self-indulgent bliss.  I start with getting my hair done, progress to getting my brows “designed” and then get a long, lovely massage.

That’s right, I said “brow design”.  Apparently that’s a thing.   This entire time I’ve been walking around with normal human eyebrows and thinking it’s socially acceptable but it’s not.  They need to be expertly crafted.  Doing so will change the way people look at my face, perceive my hairstyle, and receive my opinion in large groups.

That’s what I’ve convinced myself of, anyway. My 26th year is going to be an expertly crafted Year of the Brow.  There’s only one catch.  In order to properly have your brows “designed”, you have to grow them out.  Like, stop tweezing them altogether for 6-8 weeks.  

I’m a generally fuzzy human being.  No brow maintenance has been difficult for me. In the midst of my neglect, my eyebrows have taken on a life of their own.  I have almost no discernible arch remaining and tiny hairs are sprinting away to my hairline in fear of what may become of them.  

I’m spending the last hours of my 25th year as a common troll.

Aside from tomorrow morning signifying the beginning of The Year of the Brow, it will also be a day for complete and total relaxati0n.  To prepare, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and worked until this post was complete.  Because I’m at a point in my life where I can’t actually take a day off unless I’m going to agree to not sleep another day to make up for it.

I think that’s called adulthood.

Anyway, I’ve been celebrating my day of stresslessness by slowly eradicating awful, stress-inducing things from my life.   Today I even cleaned out my refrigerator and cupboards so that they didn’t sneak up on me in a week and cause a stroke.

I also quit my job.

You like how I just threw that in there?  All casual and whatnot with the fridge and the cupboards.

I am indeed headed to a spa tomorrow as a birthday celebration.  But the real gift I gave myself is walking away from a death-inducing job.  I’m so tickled I might pee myself during the spa celebration just thinking about it.

I would have much preferred to write about all the details surrounding that bundle of joy, but we’re not in the early 90’s anymore, kids.  If I’m going to write about my job, I’m going to have to put it in a tell-all book that will be ravishing enough to make millions – because I’ll never work again.  And I’m just not that confident in my following yet.

So hey: Happy Birthday to me.  I’m overtired, unemployed, and I look like a troll.

Sounds like I’m just a skip and a jump away from 30. ♣

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How to Drive, Chapter 3

13 Jun

I would like to take a moment to address a woman I met in an intersection this week.  Let’s call her Patty.

You see, I would have addressed Patty in the moment but I was unable to.  I was too busy trying to avoid the mountain of metal she was commandeering so that I didn’t die a painful, car-to-the-head death.  I suppose after I narrowly avoided said mountain of metal, I could have mentioned it but I was too taken aback by the ridiculous face she made, which looked somewhat like this:

Well, that’ s my face doing an impression of her face and poorly cropping it.

This is me.

Also poorly cropped. And in a Yoshi go-kart.  I’m disappointed that this image is not representative of my actual vehicle.

I digress.

Somehow though I was following the rules of good American citizenship and driving according to the details laid out in my Pennsylvania Driver’s Manual, this woman seemed to think that it was my fault she was going to hit me.  And since I never caught up to her to hurdle insults and a driver’s manual through her window, she’ll never know the error of her ways.  In fact, she probably went home to tell her boyfriend all about the idiot she almost collided with in the intersection.

I don’t like fibbers.  And I don’t like to miss teaching opportunities.  I don’t really think I can go on with my life having not taken the time to do my part in educating America.  And though  Patty is probably going to drive around like a moron the rest of her life unenlightened and all her boyfriends are going to think she has terrible luck on the road, it is my mission here on The Jackie Blog to ensure all my readers are not Pattys. So here I give you:

How to turn onto a multi-laned intersection:

Chapter 3 of “Learning to Drive” from the PA Driver’s Manual. Seriously.

Now, the fact that this information is free and distributed both online and in print may surprise you if you’re a Patty.  It’s okay.  Take your time settling in.  That’s a lot of words and a tiny picture.  Let me poorly crop and color it for you.

That’s her in pink in the Birdo cart.  That’s me in green in the Yoshi cart.  This is the way it was supposed to go.  Patty and Jackie want to go west on this lovely roadway, they both have a green light, and so to avoid collision while keeping traffic moving and getting everyone where they need to go, people turn into the same lane in the position as the one they are leaving.  I’m in the left lane.  When I turn, I stay in the left lane.  Patty is in the right lane.  When she turns, she is supposed to remain in the right lane.

However, because Patty is, well, a Patty, she thinks that once you get one tire into an intersection, you enter a portal where you’re randomly assigned a new lane based on how you feel that day.  But she didn’t enter a portal.  She was still in reality, where her car was dangerously close to colliding with mine.   And for what was almost my parting image from this world, I was given with this charming face blaming me for my supposed error:

She also exaggerated mouthing the words “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?!”  She even mouthed the punctuation.  I saw it.

Regarding a left turn in an intersection, the DMV text states “By always turning into the lane closest to the centerline, you also avoid interfering with traffic coming from the opposite direction making a right turn onto the same street.”  It should actually read: “By always turning into the lane closest to the centerline, you also avoid interfering with traffic coming from the opposite direction making a right turn onto the same street. But stay alert for those who consider the intersection to be a sort of ‘portal’ wherein their brains are scrambled and they are randomly dispensed into a lane of their mind’s assignment.“

So hey: if you’re a Patty, please reread this until you’re sure you’ve got it down.  In fact, just reread the whole manual. If you’re THE Patty – welcome to The Jackie Blog; please email me a picture of your face so I can make this more historically accurate.  Please also give your keys to the nearest licensed adult and donate your car to them. If you’re not a Patty at all, please consider sharing this with someone who is.  

It will make the world a better place and may one day make me famous enough to afford a Yoshi go-kart. ♣

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My Declaration of Laziness

6 Jun

I’m in one of those modes again where I don’t feel like doing anything.

Well, I should be more specific.  

I feel like doing lots of things.  I feel like playing video games, eating junk food, taking lots of naps, buying things online that I may not even use in the next three months, and holding long conversations with my cats.  I’m also farting more than usual.  I don’t know what that’s about.   And I’m doing all of these things – while avoiding the absolutely monstrous and ever-growing to do list.

All the things on my to do list are “adult” things.  And adult things are icky.

Adult things like dishes, not adult things like porn.  

Anyway I have a lot of things to do and instead of paying them any mind, I am wrapping myself in cozy blankets when I come home from work and talking to my cats until I pass out with my hand still lodged in a bag of generic cheesy poofs.  I’m finding it difficult to get on top of things with this ritual.  Perhaps I should explain how I got here.

You see, several weeks ago I had reached a sort of Jackie Critical Mass.  Every day I was pelted with some new and hugely stressful thing and though I’m usually really good in those sort of scenarios, I really just couldn’t catch a break.  And I sort of went to the hospital with stroke-like symptoms.

Don’t freak out.   I know I don’t usually talk about anything but video games, Lollipop Tuesdays, cats, and social awkwardness, so you might feel somewhat uncomfortable right now.   If so, go up and read the part about my cats again, who have been mentioned twice in less than 300 words.  Breathe.  Come back when you’re ready.

Anyway, I didn’t have a stroke.  They ran lots of tests and took lots of blood and affirmed that I had a severe case of Stressed-the-Hell-Out.  I guess that isn’t the technical term for it but it should be.  After much arguing and a lot of harassment, I took time off from work to try to mellow out and not die.  I know it seems like a great excuse to get out of work, but I don’t often go to the doctor and when I do, I don’t often believe them.  Not going to work because I’m ‘overly stressed’ sounds pretty stupid to me.  Besides, if I have to use vacation time, I want to use it to go places and do things.  I don’t want to spend it sitting around.  So I tried to come in to work the following day but was instantly sent home because apparently they were serious when they told me not to come in.  I returned to my humble abode and spent most of it cleaning my apartment and catching up on all the things I was too busy to be able to do while I was at work.    

After two days of that, Dave whipped me into submission and I was forced to coddle myself.  I painted my toenails, I played video games, I browsed Pinterest; I was a waste of human flesh.  I actively said no to extra responsibilities, unwanted tasks, and things I usually do out of obligation.  I kept wading through the to do list and pushed everything off my figurative plate until it was squeaky clean and I could hear myself think again.

And that’s where I stayed.  For the past several weeks I’ve just been hovering in a state of aggressive relaxation.   It took a really long time to get here and now that I’ve practice saying no to lots of things and have taken such a liking to it that I fear I may never contribute to society again.  Every day I wake up a few minutes later, every day I convince myself a little more that I shouldn’t go in to work ever again, and every day I’m more at risk for showing up at the desk of a social worker, unwashed and jobless – babbling something about the day everything changed.  

Me. Totally gross. You know, it took me forever to find a larva picture that wasn’t on the move. Apparently they get around. Very mobile, larva. I felt that would be an inaccurate representation of my current state and opted to find a larva curled upon itself; a non-contributor.

I suppose I’ve been in denial for a bit so we can go ahead and call this very public admission of guilt the second step to recovery: I have milked my relaxation far too long and am now simply a lazy, non-contributor of a human being.

Okay, there it is.  I wrote it loud and proud.  That counts as acceptance.  I have to talk myself through this because as far as I know, there are no Lazy Slugs Anonymous groups in my area.  That, and in my state of perpetual do-nothingness, I had no contributions for today’s post and was forced to write the truth.

Now it’s time to get back on the trolley.  I’m pretty sure if I don’t get any sleep until Sunday, I can clear out the massive amount of junk that has acquired during my hiatus.  That’s probably a good way to have a stroke though.  Maybe I’ll just take it one step at a time.  Getting my hand out of the bag of cheesy poofs to write this blog post was a good first one.

And hey: for the last several weeks I’ve been posting my weekly post at the end of the day it is due instead of the beginning (how nice of you all to not mention anything).  But looky there: today I’m bright and early!

Maybe the winds are changing.  

This is Larva, signing off. ♣

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