All posts by Jackie Pick

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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.

May Month in Review — or Is It Just Me?

I realize I’m likely alone in this, but plopping Mother’s Day down in the middle of May was a pretty snarky thing to do.  The reasoning probably has something to do with springtime and flowers (and the history of the holiday itself is fascinating and a little tragic), but for Pete’s sake, people.

May is end-of-everything season. Continue reading May Month in Review — or Is It Just Me?

When You Dip I Dip We Dip (Then Throw the Container Away)

Before now, the longest I’ve lived in any one house was seven years at one childhood home; the longest I stayed at one job was ten years, and that was probably for three years too long. Now, as we’re in Year Eight at our current location, Continue reading When You Dip I Dip We Dip (Then Throw the Container Away)

Enough

There was another school shooting. I was going to write my immediate reaction to the horrific events at Santa Fe High School, but that felt gross, and to be honest, what more is there to say? It’s horrible, it’s too much, it’s positively odious. The people calling the kids actors, the people saying this is fake, the people saying this is Obama’s doing, and the jackass who showed up afterward draped in a flag with a gun strapped to his hip…I’m gobsmacked and disgusted.

I just want to be worn down by the usual end-of-year stampede that hits parents every May. Things like running out of snacks and signing permission slips and countdowns to summer break. I don’t want to be worn down by worry, by fear, by sorrow over something so very preventable.

Please consider going to everytown.org or momsdemandaction.org. Please help do the work – call your senators, representatives, and Governors. Work to shore up loopholes and tighten background checks. Work for common sense. March. Write. Speak up. Do something with us.