Category Archives: Inspiration

You Must Be Fun at Parties

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Under 750, , , , ,

Notes from the Coat Closet

“You must be fun at parties” is usually shorthand for “you seem like someone who would scold a balloon, and I don’t enjoy you.” For me, it’s an oddly specific field note.

It’s been seven hours and fifteen decades since I last socialized with any regularity.

I once was, if not the life of the party, the CPR dummy of it: dragged out, asked if I’m okay, inflated briefly, then shoved back in a suitcase until needed again.

Socializing is a muscle, and mine is atrophied because I’ve been on the couch since 2010. Still, I now RSVP to invites aspirationally. I picture Q-and-As sparkling, snacks excellent, and my hair behaving.

In reality, I’m the guest eating chips and dip in a coat closet.

Walk through an event with me. Or near me. Or, better yet, around me:

I prep, of course.

Step one: test-drive some jokes. I am a dancing bear. Dancing bears must dance.

Step two: polish up an elevator pitch about my latest project, which could be the Not-Great American Novel, a nervous breakdown, or cupcakes.

Step three: get dressed (multiple times). Telling me the dress code is casual isn’t helping. Neither is tacking on a word to it. Business casual? You might as well say formal casual, tractor casual, or funeral casual. I choose an outfit fit for the launch of a 1974 space capsule.

My husband is thoroughly briefed: if my grin goes stiff or I start scanning for trap doors, swoop in. When we arrive at the event, he beelines toward a group earnestly debating the finer points of mulch. I, on the other hand, walk into a coat rack while I scan for friendly faces.

There are fifteen people gathered in polite clusters. Ten hold drinks. Four are deep in conversation. One considers the cheese platter.

Conversation zigzags like it has somewhere to be and no idea how to get there. Everyone is nodding, so I nod too. I can’t be the only weirdo not co-signing. Yes, the municipal composting program is complicated. Yes, Pilates is the only thing keeping Marcy sane. Yes, there’s an alarming shortage of teaspoons. I may have agreed to join a militia. I’m uncertain because I am now also considering the cheese platter, mesmerized by a sexy Kaukauna.

It is during these fun, funny, and utterly disjointed conversations the true language of the night is spoken: couples’ signals. A raised eyebrow means rescue me. A discreet wrist tap is don’t tell that story. A quick mime of wiping teeth translates to spinach. A pointed look says oh no, Backsplash Guy is here. It’s a whole conversation under the conversation. I love it.

Then it happens. No one talks for seven full seconds.

BEHOLD! I am the Once and Future Resuscitation Jackie! I’VE GOT THIS!

I mine for stories, giggle at punchlines, toss out “interesting, tell me more” like so many Mardi Gras beads. Folks oblige and share things about how they feel about their HOA (a cabal!), Trader Joe’s (went for the Steamed Pork & Ginger Soup Dumplings, almost got killed in the parking lot!), and one neighbor who lost a finger to a salad spinner (Legend!). It’s great.

If I ask too many questions, I’ll be less talk show and more Law and Order: Social Victims Unit. No one wants to feel like they’re about to be cuffed and read their rights in front of the canapés. So, I watch for any quick eyerolls that say, Help, I’m trapped with this sentient game of 20 Questions wearing a zip-front A-line number.

Meanwhile, my thrives-at-parties husband floats by like a genial sea creature to refresh his drink. I blink in Morse code that I’m running out of questions about bird bath maintenance. I think he’s going to tap in! He does not.

So I persist, though out of steam.

Midway through a discussion about vacation rentals, my strapless bra, believing it was meant for greater things, heads south with dreams of becoming a belt. I do what anyone would do: try to harness it by squeezing my arms to my side, smile like nothing’s wrong, finish my drink, and plot my escape.

Bra somewhere around my thighs, I waddle into the coat closet for an adjustment and some crackers and dip I’ve strategically placed in my pockets for just such an emergency.

Socializing remains an extreme sport for which I am wildly unfit. Will I do it again? Absolutely. Bring on the Kaukauna.

On Loss, Language, and Andrea Gibson

Ink Spatterings, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Poetry, Publications, Writing, , ,

I’m honored to share my piece in Midstory Magazine, framed by Steph Sprenger’s gorgeous intro and closing reflection.

Thrilled to be in Midstory Magazine this week with a piece about Andrea Gibson and what we sometimes find  — and sometimes lose  — in writing. Huge thanks to Steph Sprenger for shaping the space with her always-beautiful words.

The words are the point

Be/wilder (With/standing)

Cooking, Creative non-fiction, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Recommendations, Writing

January Month In Review

SHORT STUFF

  • I am keeping a list of the Top Ten Days of 2025. So far, January has failed. The only (weak) contender is January 26th, when we ate decent nachos. A tasty moment in an otherwise indifferent stretch of time.
  • “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky. What is the “something more”? Patience? Instinct? Juice? Is it juice? I don’t like juice.
  • Sleep is a flirt. I am a willing fool. I chase, I lose, I am tired. Who else belongs to the 4 AM Club?
  • December’s cozy hibernation exited stage left when January hit like a brick, and suddenly I’m expected to make responsible choices again. Terrible system. Do not recommend.
  • Seth Godin says slow down. I am listening. But also I am not. But also, I should be. This may be why I am in the 4 AM club.
  • My January 2025 had a soundtrack. It is, as my kids would never let me say, “a bop.” 

LONG STUFF

I cried at the dentist.

Not because of the scraping. Not even because of my idiotic need to be LITTLE MISS FUN PATIENT. (Let’s be clear, I am fun because I am hilarious.)

It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear.

Perhaps it was inevitable.

The night before, I forgot to season my vegetables (not a euphemism), which is not like me. I know how to cook and how to make things better. But I didn’t. And so we ate them, joyless.

When the body runs on fumes, you stop doing the things that make life taste like something.

Maybe it was inevitable because I haven’t listened to much music lately. This is also not like me. Normally, music is everywhere in my life. A soundtrack, a story, a signal. But now? Silence. Or just enough ambient music to fill the spaces, to keep the walls from pressing in.

Music is its own kind of story. And I cannot absorb another story right now. Certainly not while eating sad vegetables. Not while being Little Miss Fun Patient. Not while *everything else.*

Anyway, remember how I cried at the dentist because I just told you I did a few paragraphs back?

It happened when the next song came on. My dentist tries to calibrate the playlist to the patient — something generational, something soothing, something that says, “Pay no attention to the tiny metal hook scraping your bones.” Do I need Megadeth blaring while I’m power-washed in the mouth like a neglected patio? MAYBE. But probably not.

In the lonely space between cleaning and exam, a song came on.

And I cried.

Okay, yeah, it was “Chariots of Fire.” On the cornball scale of tear triggers this, ranks up there with a screensaver or a commercial about butter substitutes. Or “Bubbles” by the Free Design.

There are plenty of respectable reasons to cry, including being at the dentist, practically flipped upside down in the chair, mouth agape, and drowning in the indignity of it all.

Perhaps, though, it was not that.

The world these days is very “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”

On the other side of the mountain is Mount Doom.

After that, Mount Crumpit

And then the tiny sledding hill in my backyard where my kids, without fail, would somehow manage to steer directly into a tree even though the closet tree was about 20 yards away.

Climb one mountain, find another waiting. That’s how it works. So you throw the grappling hook and reach down to pull others up. (Am I a seasoned mountain climber? No. Do I like looking at mountains on Toblerone wrappers? Yes. Same energy.)

I also cried because my heart is with New Orleans, California, Las Vegas, and every neighbor who feels alone and helpless. My heart is not enough and tears unhelpful after a point, so we choose and we do. Because we see what we can see.

“Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rogers said.

Try to be one.

My background and expertise are scattered —  writing, education, social policy, the arts. A hodgepodge, but a purposeful one. A toolkit.

The goal now: Help fully. Help precisely.

Say “yes” carefully, but say it generously. 

Everyone’s capacity is stretched thin. I’m no exception, but am seeking and finding good community. Lord love a duck for that. (It is not a duck community, though perhaps it should be.)

Still posting my dumb little jokes (Are we connected on Bluesky?). Still writing the blog, working on the book, and seeking joy as we withstand and work.

A photo of Mel Brooks with his quote “Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.”

We can choose to be wild through actions and care, through public voice, through fiercely defending our peace, through a combination of those.

Also have some nachos if you like them. They help.

(Despite it all,) Here are some splashes of marvelous from January 2025

One of the stories in mass circulation today is a very old one, but it’s taken on a new vigor: women in general are out of control and feminism in particular is to blame… men are no longer in control, mothers are not what they used to be, and it’s the fault of Germaine Greer, Cosmopolitan, and headline stars.

  • An excerpt from Rumi’s “Where Everything is Music” Because sometimes you need Rumi.

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

  • Sometimes my 70-pound screw-loose pitbull mix gets the zoomies. It is short-lived because he has zero stamina and the spatial awareness of a potato. But he tries. He is all heart and demolition. I will try to film it.
  • Need a corny cry break?

Until next time, here’s a combo I ask you to consider: books, pen, paper, us.