Happy Friday!
I was happy to learn that I made the top ten of the WOW! Women on Writing Creative Nonfiction Q2 contest. It’s a website that I respect and enjoy a lot, so to do that well gives me the happies.
Author: 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.
Use Two Hands
“Use two hands,” I used to say. I don’t have to say it often anymore. She knows when to use two hands. For hugs, for spreading open to the world, for twirling, for riding her two-wheeler.
Two hands to paint bold masterpieces of my heart, and, in measured time, two hands to hold her work back so as to cast a critical eye. Two hands to add a dab, a spot, a splosh.
Two hands hold onto mine because she wants to dance and for her, dancing is largely variations on Ring Around the Rosie.
Introductions
The kids narrowed it down to each of their personal favorites.
Obsidian
Kuiper (as in Kuiper Belt, pronounced “KIE-Per”)
Astro
My kids are science nerds.
The entire family expressed their displeasure with my suggestions of Loki, Darth, and Ziggy, and even quicker to express their disdain over my suggestion of Matt Damon.
My husband suggested Angus. I was onboard. The kids, because they are nine and five, said it was bad because “Angus” sounds too much like “Anus”
They were protesting too much to hear me mutter all the things “Astro” sounds like.
Jackie Pick 