All posts by Jackie Pick

Unknown's avatar

About Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Subject: MOM SPIRIT WEEK(!)

Humor, Life and Other Existential Problems, Parenting, , ,

An Email from the Universe

This week has been heavy. I wrote this to make a little space, and hope it gives you a brief moment of respite or silliness.

Graphic with the title “Subject: MOM SPIRIT WEEK(!)” above a simple drawing of a stick figure holding a long to-do list, surrounded by tangled holiday lights. Subtitle reads “An Email from the Universe.”

Hello. This is the Universe. Yes, that Universe. You know, stars, gravity, tacos, fluids, tardigrades, and whatnot.

Let’s just get this out in the open: the number of things that must happen right before the approaching Winter Break is unreasonable. This is a failure of math. It’s nice, for once in your life, for math to fail you rather than the other way around.

I kid, I kid.

Anyway, I, The Universe, am pleased to announce MOM SPIRIT WEEK (!), a morale-enhancing initiative designed to support seasonal cheer and operational continuity. This week recognizes your continued parenting, working, time management, keeping the car’s gas tank just full enough, and functioning as a human reminder app and emotional shock absorber.

Please note the daily themes below.

Participation is optional but also assumed.

MONDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear your most comfortable pajamas while you pack lunches, search for shoes, sign forms, answer emails, check the calendar, re-check the calendar, and run five to seventeen other errands.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy as you deal with everything. Especially the aggressively pleasant coworker who overshares about their digestive system and uses a coffee mug that says, “Wine O’clock.” This is fun. Thank you for not crying.

TUESDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear pajamas that have pockets. The week is now in full swing, and so are you.

If you’re doing it right, based on yesterday’s tasks, you’ll now have meeting lists, errand lists, carpool lists, grocery lists, gift lists, revised gift lists, emergency gift lists, volunteer-commitment lists, lists of chores that must be done and another list of chores that should probably be done, lists of messages to answer, lists of texts you answered incorrectly, and lists of emails you are sure you already replied to but someone is still awaiting your response. Feel free to combine them into one list called “laundry,” but that may make you cry, and it’s not that clever anyway.

Write down the lists. All of them. They are legion. Then stuff those lists into the pockets of your pajamas.

While you’re out and about, pick up some children’s medicine. Rumor has it that Influenza A is going around the school. It’s okay, though. Your kids told you they’d wash their hands. They also told you they “don’t know” where their winter coat is, and that “yes, they’d checked” the lost and found.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy, especially if someone thanks you for your “great energy,” while giving you something else to do. Write that down, too. Thank you for not crying too loudly in the bathroom.

WEDNESDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear footie pajamas as you manage last-minute changes, forgotten items, schedule shifts, work responsibilities, family logistics, emotional regulation (yours and everyone else’s), final cleaning, spot cleaning, cleaning Spot your dog, re-cleaning the spot you just cleaned, menu planning, backup menu planning, confirming plans, reconfirming plans, answering messages that could have been emails, cleaning surfaces, clearing rooms, hiding piles, rediscovering piles, and arranging everything so the house appears welcoming and effortless, and wondering if today is Friday. (It’s not.)

Please remember to tend to the emotional states of people who cannot explain why they are upset, but are confident you need to be involved on one level or another.

Also, run to the school and pick up your kids’ coats from the lost and found.

Prepare for a Spatial Impossibility Situation, where at least two of these obligations will require you to be in different locations with incompatible parking situations. You may have to run. This is where the tread on the footie pajamas comes in.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy, for morale purposes. Thank you for scheduling your crying in a way and a place that does not disrupt anything or anyone.

THURSDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear the oversized pajamas with the oversized hood.

All you have to do today is find the tape.

Pull up the hood of your pajamas and scream into it as needed. Do this away from other people, that kind of stuff is contagious, much like the Influenza A currently sweeping through your kids’ school.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: The tape.

FRIDAY: PAJAMA DAY

Congratulations, it’s Friday. Keep it jolly, motherf***er.

Pick up whichever pair of pajamas you’ve put on “the chair.” Make sure it comes close to passing the sniff test. Have you even showered since Tuesday? Put on a hat while you’re at it.

Today, you launch into Winter Break with drop-offs, goodbyes, transitions, schedule adjustments, snack calibration, emotional recalibration, and the realization that your children are now home full-time for the next two weeks.

Now you finally have time to unwind and recharge while continuing to provide meals, structure, activities, supervision, emotional support, and holiday magic.

Keep tissues up your pajama sleeves — Santa might just be bringing Influenza A for the holidays!

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy. Again. This requirement expires in January.

Best,
The Universe

Nestled. Stacked. Mashed. Cosplay.

Cooking, Creative non-fiction, Humor, Life and Other Existential Problems, Writing, ,

Food-in-Food Ad Nauseam

I just made several dozen cookies using cookie butter, essentially folding finely ground cookies into other cookies. This was after I contemplated making Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe it’s the season. Maybe it’s my brain. Most likely, it’s the eggnog that leads me to share these thoughts.

Once upon a time, food had a certain dignity. I don’t mean to romanticize the past – the food wasn’t necessarily good, but everything sort of stayed in its lane, just as God and Ina Garten intended. Pies and cakes didn’t go seeking thrills inside one another’s layers. A turkey wasn’t trying to form some sort of poultry Voltron with a duck and a chicken. And you could enjoy a donut without fearing it would attempt a surprise flank maneuver on the croissants.

(We’re just going to take a moment to pour one out for the troubling put-everything-in Jell-O era, okay?)

Image via Molded Memories (moldedmemories.food.blog)

Do yourself a favor and do not look up photos of the final product.

ANYHOO. BeJell-Oed fish aside, these were orderly days. Predictable.

Naturally, this didn’t last, because America, God bless her goofy heart, just had to ask things like, “What if this were two foods?” and “What if this were three foods wearing a trench coat?”

And we just had to answer, “Let’s find out!” We even had the temerity to be enthusiastic about it.

Long story short, everything started declining.

It’s not total collapse. Not yet, at least. Decline takes time. Decline is a gentle slope you slide down while clutching a cocktail weenie.

First came the turducken. Fine. Well, not fine. Terrible. But it was a novelty, a kitschy one-off we could pretend was harmless.

Along barreled the cronut, then entered the piecaken, and at that point the Universe quietly ducked out for cigarettes.

Of course, the Tofurkey strutted in trying to claim creative credit for all these food mashups. Pretty bold for a plant impersonating meat with more commitment than half the actors on the WB in its heyday.

Now, for those preparing to storm the comment section of this VERY SERIOUS AND HIGHLY ACADEMIC TREATISE to inform me I “misunderstand food” and to quote from the Book of You Got Chocolate in my Peanut Butter, I say unto you: NAY. NAY, ESTEEMED SCHOLAR. I am not speaking of such blessed unions

I speak of “Your chefs were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” I speak of culinary unions baroque and unsound, where a food is nestled inside another food, occasionally mashed with a third, and often pretending to be a fourth. I speak of the insult added to injury via portmanteau.

You may ask, “What ho, Malvolio?”

Which is a weird question right now. Why are you asking that?

A better question is, “What comes next?”

I (or maybe it’s the eggnog) have taken the liberty of imagining exactly that. (Oh, no.) I’m not saying these will happen, and I’m not saying they should.

Except they will.

And still, they definitely should not.

So, what horrors await?

A pork tenderloin tucked coyly into a soufflé, resulting in the Souffloin? The Brûléurger, a burger with a cracked sugar crust, because separating dinner and dessert is a real time waster?

There is, I fear, a genuine possibility of a Sushperd’s Pie, sushi nestled beneath mashed potatoes. This is the sort of thing you serve only to your nemesis.

Our pastries may develop pork issues (Baklavacon), and our Fritos may develop pastry issues (Fritocotta).

Let us not pretend we are prepared for the arrival of the Chocochimachattorellacci (Chocolate + Chimichanga + Cacciatore + Cappellacci).

Any faith in humanity you’ve been clinging to may at this point be folly.

Now, this is the part of the essay where I write some sort of takeaway. (Pun not intended, unless you laughed, in which case pun intended).

Ahem.

This is the part of the essay where I make it about me.

Look, maybe culinary monstrosities are born of loneliness and/or an impulse to unnecessarily break something, hot glue it back together, and call it innovation.

Maybe we keep stuffing food inside food because stuffing feelings inside feelings is harder and definitely not something to bring to an office potluck.

Or maybe some influencer is issuing gastrointestinal dares to shoppers as they enter the grocery store. I don’t know. Theories abound.

What is certain is that someone, somewhere, is going to read my jokes and think, “Bisquisketbabka? Challenge accepted.” And suddenly I’ll be forced to eat some sort of bisque in a brisket in a babka, and it’ll be my own damned fault.

But there’s still hope for you, dear reader.

If someone produces a Quesoquichewich, or a Mortarollini, or a Bouillabiscuitryanibatten, rise from your chair, walk to the door, and leave without looking back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my Salisbury Schn’moruflakanaki (Schnitzel + S’mores + Soufflé + Saganaki) is calling.

No, wait. That’s the eggnog.

I’ve named it Malvolio.

Personal, Communal, Existential, Structural.

Book Review, Books, Reading, Recommendations, The Folio

What I Read November 2025

Why does November always feel like someone handed me a blinking device, said “cut the wires, good luck,” and wandered off to make a sandwich? November wasn’t catastrophic. I mean, no one actually handed me a bomb, none of my kids ran away to join a third-tier circus, and absolutely nothing went wrong on Thanksgiving (though my holiday prep was questionable, as usual). Like I said, November simply feels like that all happened.

(*le soupir*) November is just that month. It’s a little dumb and a lot chaotic and kinda drafty.

I don’t care much for dumb drafty chaos, so I hid and read. And by accident, subconscious choice, or cosmic joke, I read four books that each dwell in chaos. Personal chaos! Communal chaos! Existential chaos! Structural chaos! What a spread!

Sloane Crosley mines the human experience (hers, yours, mine) and comes up with glinting stories to share. James McBride unleashes riotous confusion in a Brooklyn neighborhood, where it morphs into grace. Katherine May slows everything down until the mess reveals a mossy, watery texture. Jennifer Egan fractures time and form, letting chaos spool into something Pulitzer Prize-winning.

Look, I get it. Life (November) is mostly uncontrollable, and yes, it can still be meaningful, funny, periodically beautiful, and let us not forget the glory that is this. But, sheesh, can things settle down a little? Or can we at least keep the chaos to the page? I can always pause that kind of bedlam for a moment by putting the book down to go make my own sandwich or cut the wires or whatever.

Which is all just to say here are the books I enjoyed enough to finish this month:

  • Deacon King Kong by James McBride
  • Enchantment by Katherine May
  • I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
  • A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Note: For sanity and scale (mine, yours, and the internet’s), what follows are the openings of each review. Full versions are linked below.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

The world of Deacon King Kong absolutely pulses from the get go. We start with a cinematic, panoramic sweep that situates us in late-1960s Brooklyn, where, the Cause Houses are a fully realized sociocultural ecosystem. And because the neighborhood is so fully formed, and its residents carry the whole spectrum of human feeling, the world of the book feels piercingly real and often achingly funny.

Aging deacon Sportcoat shoots a young drug dealer, Deems, in broad daylight. The mystery of why Sportcoat did this is the narrative aperture, and the mystery expands, matryoshka-like, into a larger one: how does an entire community swallow, digest, argue over, misremember, and metabolize such an event? Through this violent and abrupt act, McBride explores community, memory, and the layered structures of power shaping the neighborhood…

(continued here)

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

Katherine May’s Enchantment rearranges your insides. It’s a little uncomfortable until you realize you can breathe! Wonderful!

She defines enchantment as “small doses of awe” (which sounds about right. Larger doses would be too much). Her small doses of awe are the everyday sparks of joy, moments of breath, and our decision to pay attention.

The book is organized into four sections: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, which sounds a bit woo-woo, but each section reads like a grown-up, old-time fairy tale, the kind scuffed and weathered and passed forward by wind and rock and tide. May documents a lived folklore of how humans can and should make meaning in noticing. Even the structure is soothing.

(continued here)

I Was Told There’d Be Cake By Sloane Crosley

Sometimes the universe takes an ordinary Tuesday, shakes it like a snowglobe, spritzes it with lemon juice, then publishes it as Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake wanders through human experiences from childhood mishaps, to mall culture, to bosses who probably should not have been in charge of anything, to boyfriends who definitely should not have been in charge of anything. These worlds are recognizable, but tilted just slightly so we can see their underbellies.

(continued here)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Sometimes literary fiction still pulls off a magic trick. Sometimes you open a book and discover an entire small galaxy.

Which is to say, I just finished Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s marketed as a “novel in stories,” though that undersells it. It’s quite not a traditional novel, but it’s also not 13 stand-alone stories. It’s something hybrid, slippery and recombinant and fluid.

(continued here)

And there be the November reads. As always, I welcome any recommendations! Read any good books lately?