Surprise hello, sad goodbye


Over the weekend I made a last-minute trip back to Ohio for two things: 1) The impromptu Columbus Alive farewell gathering and 2) my nieces’ dance recital. My visit was a surprise for all but about three people I saw that weekend, and man, I gotta make more surprise visits because the reaction was amazing. I felt so loved! Thank you guys. <3⁠

I’m bummed Columbus Alive newspaper closed. That job validated to me that I am a writer. It gave me so many experiences, discoveries, and friends. Alive’s end is a loss for a community I once loved and I hope the professionals still there find a way to fill the hole left in its wake.⁠

My top two Alive experiences came at the beginning and end of my time writing for it: ⁠

2) Seeing Nina West perform while covering Drauma for the paper early in my tenure and returning to the newsroom with a mission: Convince everyone we should write about her AMAP because baby was a S-T-A-R. Shelley was more than game. Covering drag and affirming it as an Arts subject area and creative pillar in the city was a big deal to us 12 years ago, especially under the ownership at the time.⁠

1) Getting to know Alix Reese was an honor and writing about her changed my understanding of writing. I always felt insecure about my extreme disinterest in chasing down a lead or ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS™. In journalism school I once had to go cover a fire at a movie theater and I thought the whole time, “I’m in the way. I really hate this.” I wasn’t cut out for hard news. I do not have the right kind of emotional stamina for it.⁠

But I recognized with Alix’s feature that what I brought to the table was important too. My emotional stamina is built for a different kind of writing, and the storytelling it generates can be just as valuable as the hard-nosed journalists getting the scoop. ⁠

A newspaper needs both.⁠

Alix’s feature showed me that when I put my own understanding of life into a piece of writing — particularly about a story as powerful and moving as hers — I can do something meaningful. It’s less obviously important than breaking news, but it still mattered. ⁠

So did every version of Alive and its many contributors. ⁠

Farewell, friend.


Two dead bees lay together in the center of a yellow flower at Red Rock Canyon.

Why I’ll never doubt the power of a flower again


I haven’t heard my grandma, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia, say a coherent word for nearly three years. She said these last words while receiving communion at the assisted living facility. As everyone genuflected to launch into the lord’s prayer, my grandma did too, saying “Father, son…” and then petering out. I figured those were words she could formulate because she had gone to church and said them every weekend of her entire life until the day she moved in here. Those words were seared into the empty rivulets of her brain, so they didn’t seem a miracle to fish out.

I accepted the reality that I’d probably never hear her say another word again.

And then I did.

A lone ant climbs along the silky petals of a bright yellow dandelion.

It happened on my recent visit, a drop-in at the assisted living facility that marked over a year and a half since I’d seen her (pandemic lockdown).

Once my plane landed, I got my rental car and started on the hour-long route north. I called the nursing home to make sure I could walk-in to see her or whether I needed to make an appointment. I didn’t. I asked then, to the surprise of both myself and a Wanda on the other end of the line, if I could bring flowers. Would that be OK? 

I don’t know what came over me to ask such a thing. I don’t usually bring flowers when I visit. I don’t usually bring flowers for anything. Maybe I thought there needed to feel like there was more gravitas to this moment. I hadn’t seen her in so long. We’d survived a pandemic. Her husband died during that time. I knew she wouldn’t remember me, but flowers… well, anyone can remember those, right?

A small side yard in Chicago is full of dead dandelions. Their fluffy white tufts shine in the sunset behind them.

I thought about just hopping off the highway to a Kroger or a Whole Foods. They always have little flowers packaged up at the end of the aisles. Instead, I looked up the local Marion flower shop, saw they were open, and entered the address into my phone. It felt good to buy from a local family business after the pandemic. Plus, I knew they’d probably have roses. My grandma’s name is Rosemary. Even if she didn’t remember me, I wanted to show that I remembered her. I got half a dozen multicolored roses for Grandma in a glass vase and another half-dozen in a mournful maroon to take to my grandpa’s grave. He loved his Rose. 

A poem by Satyendranath Dutta reads, "If you manage to get one paisa, buy food to feed your hunger... But if you manage two, take half and buy a flower."

When I enter the long-term care wing and ask for Rosie, the nurses look at me grimly, wondering whether I’m prepared for just how far gone she is. I am. They wheel her into her room and shut the door. It’s the two of us.

After some fruitless and awkward talking to her while sitting across from her, I spend most of my time squatting next to her wheelchair, rubbing her back and nervously trying to use my other arm to keep her in her seat. The medication they gave her keeps her nodding in and out of sleep. She doesn’t register my presence when she has to look at me, but she seems to lean into my hugs.

So I position her so that when she wakes up from the brief naps, she’ll see only the flowers, now sitting on a table in her room. 

And that’s when it happened. I was squatting by her side, arms around her, when she woke up and, clear as day, said, “Flowers for me.”

Three little words. One moment I’ll remember forever. 🌹


A white and yellow daisy embroidery art on a tractor wheel, part of a black and white historical photo of farming in America.
Found photo collage on a small black notebook. A miniature-sized farmer opens his bag to reveal a giant flower.

She passed away two weekends later. While writing her obituary, I turned to my notebook of stories written by her and my grandpa. There I found another gift. A recollection of her first memory: “I was about 2 ½ years old then. [Brother] Eugene and I were in the barnyard with Dad. We were standing near a wagon watching the men who were taking the horses. Well, about the time one of the horses was being led to the truck to be taken away. Dad put his hands under my arms and swooped me up into the wagon, as he did with Eugene. I remember the horses coming by the wagon bobbling their head like horses do when they walk. I was about eye-to-eye level with the horses. I think this is the earliest memory of my life.”


Three side-by-side images of a tan brown phone with five white dial buttons, numbered one through five.

Mid-year check-in: Four productivity tools I’m loving for creative projects (and how I use them)


In January, I wrote about six smartphone apps and creative writing productivity tools I planned to use to stay motivated on my personal projects throughout 2021.

Am I still using those? Yes.

But now, seven months deep, I’m still trying to avoid work about work.

Aren’t we all? Hell yes.

“60% of time is spent on work coordination, rather than the skilled, strategic jobs we’ve been hired to do,” according to Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index 2021.

Yellow and pink text reading, "We spend more time on work coordination than on the work itself."

I feeeeeeel that. In my professional work certainly, and in my personal work as well. Even though I’m not coordinating with a team of designers, clients, or account managers while, say, drafting a novel or making a new embroidery collection, I still find myself tinkering away for hours on planning, documentation, and (my ultimate seems-like-work-but-isn’t guilty pleasure time suck) video streaming Skillshare/Creative Live videos.

So in July, I reassessed how I was working on these things. It was time to think about my time. Given that the pandemic wasn’t keeping us under lock and key anymore, I needed to adjust my routine for the quicker post-pandem pace and packed schedule. Here are four new tools and strategies I implemented to get myself in a rhythm—and keep myself making.


For writing: Airtable

OMG! I love Airtable! A friend told me about this spreadsheet app while we were on our final quarantine walk. It’s free and the UX is intuitive, especially if you’re familiar with Excel or Google Sheets. My favorite aspect of Airtable is that I can upload documents, jpegs, and various other things directly into a cell block. 

I have one Airtable project set up with three tabs, one for each of my writing projects: a novel, a book of creative nonfiction, and my blog. From there, I’m able to schedule out each piece of the larger work, add photos for reference or posting, and drop in both the Google doc link and the Word doc of the final version so I can move on. 

Pink and yellow text reading, “Writing will always be interesting to me, because even if life has no meaning, writing does. It’s all about discovery, personal and otherwise.” Jo Ann Beard

I know I could keep a folder on my cloud somewhere with all of this content, but it’s so nice to have it linearly lined up, with deadlines attached, and the ability to just dump it when I’m done so it doesn’t take up space in my drive. 

Writing tasks can be overwhelming to me because I get ~too~ into them and, when I’m in that addictive headspace, I feel like I have to write the entire book in the next month. But writing is also my most important thing. With Airtable I don’t fold under the demanding weight of such self-imposed pressure. I just keep ticking things off, bird by bird

For reading: GoFullPage Chrome extension

App fatigue is real. According to the Anatomy of Work Index, U.S. employees jump between 13 tools an average of 30 times per day. Yikes. I think I hit even higher numbers when it comes to things I want to read. GoFullPage has helped with this personal brand of digital distraction. When clicked, the extension will basically scan the entire web page you’re on and turn it into a PDF or jpeg.

Pink and yellow text reading, "On average, we jump between 13 tools, 30 times a day."

I use GoFullPage for saving things I want to read later as well as for capturing clips of my professional writing. I capture what I want to read, download it, and save the PDF in a “To read” folder on my drive. I have time set aside on Saturdays that I scroll through the folder and read whatever still intrigues me and then delete the damn thing when I’m through. 

I tried using the “Reading List” feature on Chrome for a process like this, but then I just racked up links on links on links and never read any of them. With GoFullPage, I don’t have endless tabs open, and there’s just enough effort required to capture and save the page as a PDF that I must decide if I truly, truly want to read it. Adding it to the Reading List was way too simple. The potential discards clogged up the line.

For getting sh*t done: Do not disturb phone setting

I mean, it’s obvious what this does, right? Turn it on for your phone and it will quiet all alerts. I get by with a little help from my robot friends, etc. Every morning I block out my day hour by hour. (I know this is a little intense, but my Meyers Briggs Personality Test confirms this kind of planning is best for my sensitive lil heart/mind. INFPs are for lovers.) I use Do Not Disturb when I’m on an hour-block that requires focus, which is usually writing, but this can also be helpful for administrative work or artmaking.

Pink and yellow text reading, "Focus sprints of uninterrupted worked time made teams 43% more productive."

Productivity research from UC Berkeley’s Becoming Superhuman Lab found that 92% of people believe that “carving out a daily block of uninterrupted time called a ‘Focus Sprint,’ where they do not need to toggle between apps or constantly monitor the inbox, would positively impact their and their team’s productivity.” Teams that used these Focus Sprints reported they were 43% more productive. Sign. Me. Up.

For regular to-do tracking: Asana’s board view

“Individuals could save 6 hours and 5 minutes every week—290 hours per year—through improved processes,” like clearly defining roles and responsibilities, the Anatomy of Work Index found. Plus, nearly 70% of respondents said they would feel better-equipped to hit personal targets with clear processes to manage work. This seems obvious, but do you give your personal creative work the same approach? Why not? 

How to save 290 hours per year of wasted work time? Get a better process.

I have been using a free version of Asana for my personal tasks for a while now, but I simply could not make a calendar view of tasks work for me. I would just blow right by the deadlines when paying-work had to rise to the top of my to-do list. I tried switching to board view, et voila. Now we’re cooking.

My board view is essentially a habit tracker with four columns, or boards, set up: Monday-Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monthly. Under each column I have five or six tasks that are related to my creative projects. For example, I write one paragraph a day on my novel every weekday, Saturdays are for embroidery, etc. The task descriptions never change, I just check and uncheck items as I complete them each day. 

This process has been ideal because I don’t have to hold every task in my head or copy-paste the tasks to every day’s to-do list. They’re not tied to a time-specific requirement, so I am able to remain flexible depending on what the rest of my day looks like. And then, since I have a slew of separate Asana projects set up for more detailed notes on each creative task, I can stay within one program to jot down notes as they arise.


I got a new job, so here are late highlights from my old one


I started a new job in June as a senior content strategist and writer at a Chicago studio (also fully remote!). But between making that transition and traveling for several weeks throughout the month, I haven’t had a chance to post a proper update. Now the point feels moot, so instead I’ll share some of my final work for the college — interviews with recent alum and students. It was such a pleasure writing and editing for California College of the Arts, and I can’t wait to visit campus — and the beach — when I finally get out to the Bay later this year. 🙂

“Writers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, filmmakers, painters, printmakers, movement practitioners. I’m here to tell you that you’re needed. I was recently having this conversation with one of my friends in the humanities and they said, ‘Well, we’re not curing cancer.’ And I thought, fuck that. I might be inspiring the person who does.

Alum spotlight: Digital media scholar Dorothy Santos

“We have to honor that the environment already gave us those resources to produce those textiles and we need to honor those materials. They’re still useful and they’re beautiful. We just have to find innovative ways to use them. As a society, we consume so many things, all the time, that it won’t be possible to sustain. I like thinking about the hidden history of materials.

The hidden journey of Melissa Rodriguez

“Yes, it is hard—and sometimes even terrifying—but it’s also delicious to be in charge of yourself, to not be subject to other people’s expectations of where you should go and what you should be.”

Alum spotlight: Writer Julie Lythcott-Haims

“Sometimes people get so careerist in the artistic sense; they think it is all being in the studio. But some of my best work and connections were more organic. It’s not something you can game. You have to figure out where the heat is and invest your time and energy—and make the work. So many people get caught up in what the secret is that they don’t have any work when they crack it.”

Stars aligned: Diedrick Brackens and Lauren O’Connell discuss their new exhibition


The “after times”: Turn, turn, turn


Pandemic is over. A new season has begun. Right? It feels like it. But it also feels as if we don’t know how to come out of something as a whole. For an event that happened to all of us at the same time, it also remains a reminder of how devastatingly singular we all can be.

Maybe it’s because we’re trying to come out whole in the first place. Why do that to ourselves? The past year or so was a massive fracturing of everything we thought we knew and understood. How does one recover from something one survived? That’s a question I’ve been trying to find an answer to my whole life. 

Today I walked a mile to the dentist to get a crown put on to replace a temporary crown currently on one of my molars. Here’s a list of things I saw along the way: a man in biker shorts juggling three balls while running, a car with a giant Puerto Rican flag flying from the left passenger window and a giant Pride flag flying from the right one, and this flamingo bike:

I feel most like the man pointlessly juggling while running when what I really want to feel like is the person in the flag car. I’d settle for at least feeling like the flamingo.

By the time I arrived at the dentist, I checked my phone and saw they’d called several times. My crown hadn’t arrived yet. Someone in some factory somewhere is backed up and still making it, this fake cap for something inside me that rotted away while I sat inside and watched the news do anything but sit still.

Maybe we’ve been whole this whole time. Maybe we were rotten to begin with. 

Either way, it feels nice to hold others in my arms again. To let them see my unmasked smile. Even if part of it is fake. Or at least temporary. For now. 

I’ll walk back to the dentist next week.


Published: New art and writing in Intima


I’m excited to have a new essay and artwork featured in the Spring 2021 editing of Intima Journal of Narrative Medicine!

My essay, titled Sleep to Dream, is the story of how a recent medical diagnosis has been a surprising, missing plot point for several of my self-narratives.

“Fatigue is my kryptonite. The never-ending scramble for sleep is simply part of who I am. That was the story I told myself, anyway. Then I fell asleep while alone in a late-night Uber ride and finally admitted that slogging through these onslaughts of exhaustion was cause for concern. 

That’s why I’m here, trying to make small talk with an uninterested sleep technologist pushing electrodes onto my head


I said good day, 2020!


When Justin and I moved into this apartment a few years ago, I loved the place. It was bigger than the tiny Lakeview studios we’d been living in separately, and it had a three-panel window that looked out into the park. A dream! After a few months of living together, though, we realized it was way too small and, well, our home decor tastes did not align. Where I saw a place for some lovely thrift store trinkets (the bane of Justin’s existence), he saw room for his signed Rocky poster (the bane of mine). This apartment taught us to compromise and we stuffed ourselves and all our belongings into its tiny closets. Then, I promptly spent three years complaining about it. I wanted to move to a bigger place. I couldn’t wait to leave, looking up condos and bigger apartments on Redfin, Facebook, et al.

Of course, karma pulled out its spindly little finger and decided to teach me the value of staying still and staying put by bringing on a year that has required me to stay nowhere but here. Then it took its yellowed pointer and pushed salt into the ironic wound: I was diagnosed with narcolepsy in February of this year, started medication that helps me stay awake throughout the day in March, and had nothing to do with my newfound energy and wakeful outlook except stay home April through what feels like forever.

I, like most people who haven’t eaten at a restaurant since mid-March, went through a range of feelings this year. Late March through April, I really enjoyed staying home. My introvert self secretly delighted in fact that everyone else was at home too. The slower pace was a welcome reprieve from the going and the doing.

But by June, the country was on fire and my beloved grandpa died. I said goodbye to him on my sister’s phone. I watched him take his last breath via pixels on a two-by-five-inch screen. I stayed home for the funeral, Zooming in to the calling hours and the ceremony as I watched my family say goodbye to him for me. It was awful not being there; worse to know my grandma, safe in a visitor-free nursing home, couldn’t go either; alarming to see so many of my loved ones not wearing masks. The funeral was a briiing-brriiiing wake up call to the reality that many were not taking the reality of a pandemic personally. It made me doubt why we were doing so if no one else was?

This ushered in a period of grief, not just for my grandpa, but also for a lost Chicago summer. A seemingly lost year of our lives, filled with self-doubt about what the “right thing” was in the first place, and a feeling of loss surrounding something less tangible than time squandered—the truth of how fragile everything we took for granted could be. Our collective health, our scientific institutions, our communities, our democracy, and on and one it went.

We did the best we could. Justin and I went to the park across the street occasionally. We went for walks, spooning sherbert onto our tongues from dusty sidewalk seats. But it wasn’t the same. I was sad. So sad about all of it.

By fall I was in acceptance mode and experienced the numbness that comes with knowing this is just how it is, how it’s going to be for a while. I began to mentally prepare myself for the fact that we could be living like this until spring 2021, at the earliest. My autumn was consumed with professional work. I was grateful for the distraction but also experienced frustration that I couldn’t release the work stressies anywhere other than another room in our one-bedroom place. I couldn’t go work from a new cafe, find a forgotten gem in the Chicago scenery as I walked to and from my destinations. I couldn’t enjoy the life our high rent was a trade off for. I couldn’t escape into planning for our next trip—or looking at new places we could move to; after all, who knew what next year would look like and where we would want to live or even be able to afford to live. 

I missed my nieces and nephews so much. November marked a year since I’d seen any of them. The baby I bounced in my lap last Thanksgiving I now watched toddling and transforming into an adorably drool-faced sprinter over FaceTime. I longed to hold them, to play, to just feel their curious energy mingle alongside mine in real time. A new niece was born and, sitting in my office chair, I cooed over her perfect cherub cheeks while tears made a salty line down mine.

My dad got Covid at the end of November, and I fretted helplessly two states away. I lived through the cognitive dissonance that transpires when caring for someone sick means having to stay far away to keep them and others you love safe. Waiting for texts on his condition became an hourly grind. The anxiety didn’t lift until the day he sent me a video text from the farm, which meant he was finally recovered and healthy enough to go do his retirement chores, to see the bunnies and feed the hogs, the highlight of his average lung-strong days. 

The pace of the city slowed to a crawl but the people throbbed with rage. I began to feel cautious walking alone at night in a neighborhood that has always felt comfortable. I got more honks than usual, and more unmasked men came up to me than ever before, empowered by the chaos to take their shot. I’d turn them down and keep walking. Several followed me home, and I disarmed them by talking about my husband and asking about their plans for tomorrow.

Through all of this, I started to see our third-story walkup in a new light. Our apartment became a safe space, a warm glow connected to familial and friendly lifelines that could keep me whole, even if they were miles away. I found friends on the internet to talk to about sobriety, the pandemic-inspired isolation triggering so many of us recovered. I grew close with an awesome woman I met in late 2019 at a comedy show, our friendship forged over weekly Wednesday Zoom sessions. I strengthened friendships I already cherished, taking walks in so many parks I’d never been to in the city. I gained a writing group that now has 10 screenshots of our monthly Zoom-based workshops to add to our quarantine photo albums. I grew my writing and visual art practices, even as my exterior life wilted to a one-block radius. I found an online therapist that makes me hopeful for what’s next. I watered my jade plant that sits on the sill overlooking the park. She’s got the best view in the house and so do I.

I began to feel so grateful for my job. Grateful for the internet and a remote career that feels creative and aligned with my values. Grateful for a salary that made it so Justin didn’t have to go out either. Grateful for security and income to pay the rent. Grateful for taking that test in February instead of later in this weird ass year. Grateful for not getting Covid and a family relatively untouched by the carnage. Grateful for a best-friend-roommate husband. Grateful for the groceries, the snail mail, the time to focus on art. Grateful for no kids, no mortgage. Grateful for all the decisions that led us to be here, safe and sound, despite all that 2020 wrought. Grateful for an apartment like this, small but manageable, happy and warm. Healthy, most of all.

As I write this, there are nine days left in this unexpected, totally bananas year. Nine is my lucky number. Here’s hoping 2021 proves to be a lucky number too. Or at least a sane one. I’d settle for sane, waiting here by the window I’m fogging up with bated—but grateful—breath.


Writer Jackie Mantey sits on a bench outside in the park

Notes on a Couch Warming Party


OK, look, this is very exciting because, ever since your breakup—a wretched, booze-soaked affair that ended with you prematurely exiting the shared apartment with a wobble-wheeled suitcase packed and not one but two chip-nailed middle fingers in the air—you haven’t owned a couch.

Door slams. Lock bolts.

That was two years ago. You’ve lived and lounged and lamented your life since then on a bed (a raft, really, in an OCEAN OF TEARS), moving from that stupid shared apartment back to your stupid parents’ house, then to a stupid studio that smelled like if moths had their own closets, then to ~here~…

Your new home. A gorgeous one-bedroom, bottom-right quarter of a falling down, white-and-brick house in a hip part of town. It doesn’t have windows that open, but it does have your cat, which your ex hated, and as of noon today—of all glorious, single lady days—it has this: A suede dreamboat in the color of “Stone.” It’s called the Darcy Sofa. It is seven-and-a-half-feet long, which is ideal for your five-foot-two frame and your feet-cuddling cat. It is perfect.

This Darcy Sofa cost you $500 and is officially one thousand times more valuable than any diamond ring, you’re sure of it.

You eye it now, mentally applaud how it looks on the hardwood living room floor, shoved up against the butter-colored wall you don’t want to paint because you’re renting so you’ll have to paint it back eventually and who has time for that, and across from the brick fireplace you can’t use because the chimney has been plugged-up with who knows what because squirrels or drug dealer Santa or something.

The couch looks familiar. It’s almost identical to the one you bought for your first apartment out of college. You remember, that $150 bear-brown thing that your brother and your cousin helped you transport from the Big Lots (née Odd Lots) where you bought it. Afterward, feeling oh so grown up, you offered for your moving mates to stay and hang out and here, have a beer, I bought it just for you! (even though you already drank half the pack).Your cat, a mere teenager at the time, hopped on the couch and onto your cousin’s lap and everyone had a perfectly lovely evening sitting on your brand new couch, bought and paid for by you and only you, until you probably blacked out and they went home.

It was the best day you had in that apartment.

Who knows where that couch is now.

Your friends are coming to meet the Darcy Sofa in just a few hours. You have decided to host a Couch Warming Party, because this is to be celebrated, an occasion to remember! It represents healing and independence, this furniture, this moving-on-up. This couch means a new world is opening up to you. You made it. Couch Warming Party is being held on the weekend of your terrible ex’s birthday. You didn’t plan this timing on purpose, at least you don’t think so, but it does make the second glass of wine at three p.m. taste even sweeter.

Now it’s nine. You are fuzzy and warm and a little bit sick. The couch, soft as a petal, feels like a lily pad beneath you. Bobbing, bobbing.

Your friends are here! Your friends pile in the aching red-rimmed door. Your friends clamor in the living room and oh and ah appropriately before tumbling down the long hallway to the kitchen and out its back door to the fire pit you share with the other dwellers of this broken home-you-love’s divvied-up apartments.

Your friends are good friends. They agree to pose for photos on your new couch. They make a big deal about it, even though this couch, it’s not that special.

They are just happy to see their friend happy again.

They bring you Couch Warming Party gifts they’ll know you’ll enjoy, like a new blanket, lounge pillows, cat toys, vodka, smokes, cocaine. By the end of the night, you are all outside howling at The Man and the moon, crouched beneath the giant tree you don’t know the genus of, that the city hasn’t torn down yet but will soon. Your backyard’s wooden fence stands guard. Tonight, as the fire licks the air and your friends lick each other, the perimeter feels like a hug and not a cage.

The couch has been forgotten. But that was the point.

At two a.m., you sit alone on your back porch smoking a gifted Parliment. Your cat has joined you, that loyal little thing. You both purr and wish every moment was a Couch Warming Party moment. You wish this especially because you know what awaits, what you’ve been running from. Morning. When you will wake up and every inch of you will hurt, including your heart. Especially your heart, and the yet-unknown thing rotting beneath its floorboards. It will be seven more months (exactly one month after your 30th birthday) before you wake up on another stranger’s couch—again!—and finally—finally!—decide it’s time to get sober. And you do it! You beautiful, goofy, grateful recovering alcoholic! You finally break through. Find a home inside yourself.

Tonight, though. Tonight is as bright and dark as a chewed up cherry pit, as twisted as the tongue-tied stem, and to be lived to the last briny drop.

You have so much further to go, but tonight you honor everything it took to get to Here. To the Stone-colored sofa. Your new Plymouth rock.


Fun in the time of quarantine


I’ve finally landed on a word the best describes how this pandemic has made/is making me feel: Bewildered. (And, I guess, longing. I miss my family, my city, my lifestyle, etc.) That said, Justin and I have been having a lot of fun together. I can’t see being stuck inside with him for months as anything other than a lopsided gift. Justin’s a fun friend and a good partner. 

Here’s an example:

In an effort to find different things for us to do together as the 2020 months crawl on, Justin decided to find a video game for us to play. To do this, he had to consider many variables. Well, two variables. 1) I hate video games; and 2) I hate video games because I’m absolutely terrible at them and have none of the hand-finger muscle memory that seems to be required for success in any of the adult games and when I’m bad at things I get pissed off and ruin the this-is-just-for-fun vibe and ok, back off, I’m working on it.

But this didn’t stop our sheltered-in-place friend! Justin spent weeks researching games that moved quickly and provided many a dopamine hit of congratulations by way of sparkly animated gems simply for showing up and pushing buttons. So, basically, games for children.

Enter: Castle Crashers.

It’s perfect for us/me because 1) it’s made for beginners/children and I can just mush all the buttons and still accomplish something maybe or at least think I did in the flurry of chaotic noises and special effects; 2) there’s a Pink Knight character that, duh, I chose, and my “magic” abilities include stunning opponents into dropping their weapons and giving peace signs by throwing stuffed animals at them and shooting rows of rainbows out of my hands to distract them; and 3) we can play the levels at the same time, so essentially Justin does all the work killing bad guys and strategically spending our gold coins on health potions and doing the things that get us moving forward, while I furiously shoot rainbows at the empty, endless void and try to figure out how to turn myself around.

This is so indicative of who we are as people and why we work together as a pair.

Justin1 and Justin2 (aka Jackie), sittin’ in a tree…

Anyway, today’s our three-year wedding anniversary. 

Thanks, boo. I feel unsure about pretty much everything except you.

2017
2020

The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook is here!


An essay I wrote is in the new book “The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook” from @beltpub! I’m excited and grateful to be included. The Chicago Tribune called the book “required reading” and I can’t wait to dig into it this weekend.

I’ve only had it for a few hours and already stained the cover with fried food grease because that will always be who I am as a person.

There’s a release party from 5:30 to 8 pm at The Hideout Inn (1354 W. Wabansia) on Sept. 11, featuring readings by some of the writers, including @meganstielstra (!!!😍!). Plus delicious food donated by Abra Behrens and by Floriole bakery. Books will be available for sale! Here’s the Facebook event link!

The second event is at Marz Community Brewing (3630 S. Iron) on Sept. 17, from 7 to 9 pm. There will be readings and a DJ at this release party. RSVP on Facebook here!

Check out the whole lineup of books examining life in the Rust Belt at beltpublishing.com (oh, hi, they also have a Rust Belt Arcana tarot deck and I think that’s so very awesome).