Category Archives: Writing

Buckets, Knuckles, and Hex Codes

Humor, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Parenting, Writing, , ,

December (Not Quite the End of the Month) Month-in-Review

It’s been a year since I’ve done a month-in-review post. I’m sure you are all very excited to have me draw back the curtain again. Well, joke’s on you. Behind this curtain is a trove of canned goods and a mysterious bucket no one remembers buying and no one is willing to throw away. “Never discard a mysterious bucket” might be some sort of unspoken family rule. THAT joke is on me.

After this reasonless hiatus, I’m resurrecting the month-in-review because sometimes it’s useful to return to a familiar container and rattle around inside it for a bit. Will the month-in-review posts continue in 2026? MAYBE.

Before any sticklers jump into my mentions without even offering me a cookie, I am well aware that the month is not over.

However, many of you mentally end the year sometime in mid-November, based on how many “Wrap-ups” and “I’m ready for 2026” comments are floating around out there. Look, you do you, friend. I was taught to run through the finish line.

But, sure, we can call this the “Not Quite the End of the Month Month-in-Review.” Not fussy at all.

ANYHOO, Happy Holidays. Let’s begin with an injury.

Earlier this month, I busted my knuckle open (not a euphemism). A few people noticed and asked how it happened. “Fighting crime,” which no one believed. Then I said the untrue but plausible, “I was just walking around.” Everyone believed that. Thanks, people who know me.

(Between you and me, I used a little extra oomph putting on a sweater and slammed my hand into the door jamb after successfully locating the arm hole.)

Please don’t be freaky and ask for photos of my (admittedly sexy) busted knuckle. It’s hard to photograph your own hand while recovering from getting dressed all by myself vigilantism.

There were wonderful parts of December, for sure, despite my ability to get hurt by doing nothing and also by doing things. (See: colliding with furniture in my own house, ambient exhaustion, December.)

One of my sons has begun making Jeopardy! games for the family. In the last five weeks, he has made three.

These are not casual games, nor intended to make us feel good about ourselves or our inability to quickly access our knowledge base. These are utterly lawless events fueled by a natural understanding of humor that routinely takes us out.

The categories alone injured me once because I rolled off the couch laughing. (Note to all of my ex-boyfriends: I still got it!)

We’ve had Prehistoric Fish, Former FBI Director James Comey, and Shades of Red (a block of color labeled with its hex code). This so thoroughly aggravated my husband that the next game had the category Tints of Red. In one game, he created a category called Who’s That?, which involved identifying people from photos. The first image was of Millard Fillmore. The second was Dilbert. Two questions later: the same picture of Dilbert.

We considered ourselves lucky that the Dilbert questions were straightforward. Half the fun this kid has is in figuring out the most obtuse ways a question can relate to the category. And I will add that at least once each game is a question that simply says, “Touch the dog.” Which, yes, that is not a question, but we all run to Buddy like maniacs. He likes it. It’s got this vibe.

For my birthday, he shamelessly calibrated the game to some of my alleged areas of expertise, including Kurt Vonnegut, the family dog, Danish Butter Cookie Tins, as well as an entire category based on photographs of his school lunches.

Somehow, I lost.

Somehow, my husband won with a final score of –2400.

This game has it all: Intellectual chaos, hostile specificity, everyone yelling “WHAT IS GOING ON?” while the dog enjoys his celebrity and hopes Final Jeopardy is “Belly Rubs.” (It is not.)

So December has been largely survived up until this moment, and my knuckle is healing.

Does anyone know what that bucket is for?

Until we all figure it out, here are some

Splashes of Marvelous from December 2025:

  • Fellow Snarkians, I had no idea this was still a thing. I am delighted to be wrong. Entire stretches of my childhood were spent drooling over these guys.
  • If you ever have a chance to go see/hear the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, do it! I went to the Holly Dolly Christmas show and remained in an excellent mood for 2-3 business weeks.
  • It might technically be too late to prep for Jolabokaflod, but every day can be Jolabokaflod if your heart is pure. Or you feel like it. I’m making the rules now. If you need some ideas, I’ve got you.
  • Related, I would like to formally propose an evening where we gather around a fireplace, eat treats, and read. Silently. Shhhh. Let’s make this introverted bibliophile’s dream a reality. And if you talk, I’m cramming one of these in your mouth, and not gently.
  • This is the only type of “conversation piece” I’d ever want to wear.
  • The Best Simple Stuffing Recipe | Bon Appétit Trust me.
  • I baked three dozen cookies for school, another 900 dozen (give or take) for home. Emergency preparedness is important. This is why I have a small bag of sprinkles in my purse at all times. (True!)


After I sent those cookies off to school with my boys, one of them came home and brought me…a cookie. Not one I made, but a snickerdoodle. And before you have a problem with that, NO YOU DON’T.

  • The “two inches that were actually six” of predicted snow on 12/7. Insert jokes as you wish.

Well, what do you want? A cookie? (I may have several hundred dozen.)

Enjoy your week and watch your knuckles. (Maybe a euphemism).

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.

I Yelled at a Bird

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Ink Spatterings, Life and Other Existential Problems, Writing, Writing process

On Writing While Having Ears

Simple graphic with a cartoon woodpecker on the left, facing right. To the right of the bird, the title reads ‘I Yelled at a Bird’ in large black letters. Below it, the subtitle says ‘On Writing While Having Ears.’ At the bottom left, in smaller gray text, it says ‘by Jackie Pick.’ The background is white and uncluttered

The other morning, I yelled at a bird. He was pecking at the side of my house right outside my office like he was trying to Morse-code Infinite Jest into the drywall.

In his defense, that’s his job. He’s a woodpecker. Nominative determinism at its most bloggable.

In my defense, I was attempting to write. That’s (allegedly) my job. Writing requires concentration, intention, structure, and little-to-no bird drama.

Inspired by Maya Angelou, I woke early to try to be one of those Excellent Writers™ who catch the Be-Brilliant-Doing-The-Writing-Thing motes that supposedly float through the dawn.

Well, I woke up early. The “Be-Brilliant-Doing-The-Writing-Thing” is more Dr. Angelou’s domain.

Early morning, it turns out, is when my brain picks at itself then presents a show called Every Mistake I’ve Ever Made and Also Let’s Workshop Future Ones! There are musical numbers and everything.

An imperfect start to the day, but at least it’s terrible.

I do not write first thing, although I get organized. Coffee focuses me enough to craft a to-do list. Then I’m organized and stressed. This counts as multitasking.

These last few weeks, the woodpecker has been clocking in by 7:00 a.m. I call him The Contractor. I should call him Sir Aneurysm Incoming.

As a writer (allegedly), I’m supposed to observe the delicate, shimmering miracle of existence. And I want to. I try to. It’s hard to notice anything other than the bird face-hammering my office wall into dust.

The household wakes.

There is one rule to getting teenagers out the door: engage only when summoned. It’s best not to care out loud. But I do. Catastrophically. Usually by saying “good morning.”

You can count the syllables in their sighs.

There are daily logistics to coordinate with my husband: forms, appointments, who is attending to which child where, who is giving the dishwasher emotional support, and …wait, we’re out of ketchup?

Before my workday starts, I’ve absorbed everyone’s emotions because my empathy is an open-concept floor plan. Add to that the simmering impatience of the man in the Subaru behind us who believes my insufficient acceleration jeopardizes the spirit of American progress. I fear he will tailgate one or both of us directly into another dimension.

Sir, I am driving a practical mid-size SUV, and I am doing my best.

I do not want to ruin his day until he honks.

Finally, I sit to write. Whither my Muse?

My Muse is draped across the couch, wearing my robe and eating pastries. “You’ve got this,” she says, waving strudel in my general direction.

This is unhelpful.

At its core, writing is solving one small problem only to discover it was guarding a nest of larger, slipperier ones tangled in a Gordian knot of plot and character and the ability to put words in some kind of order.

It is noble, irritating labor.

I can do noble, irritating labor. Muse-less, even.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

Just as I consider offering the woodpecker a co-writing credit if he’d please shut up, my neighbor steps into his backyard to practice trumpet. Backyard trumpet. Right by my office.

Then someone revs a car engine like they’re summoning the ghost of Vin Diesel (who, it should be noted, is not dead).

This does not deter the woodpecker. He is a professional. He should take up writing.

I’ve read the Internet. It says that if I were truly committed to my craft, I would simply not hear all the noise.

Yes. Thank you. I hadn’t considered the bold strategy of not having ears.

Look, distraction is not always avoidance. Sometimes attention goes to the loud thing because the thing is loud.

The world is committed to being loud. I am committed to being a Good Enough Writer™ who li — aaaand now leafblowers are forming some sort of demented quartet with the backyard trumpet-noodling neighbor.

Taptaptaptap.

I opened the window.

“Bird! Stop!”

Quiet.

It felt good. I added “Deal with woodpecker” to my to-do list, then crossed it off.

Except…

I yelled at a bird.

This doesn’t make me feel observant of the delicate, shimmering miracle of existence.

It makes me feel like an asshole. The sort of asshole whose command of language evaporates under pressure, leaving me with nothing but “Bird! Stop!”

I wandered over to the couch for reassurance from my Muse. She shook an empty bag of kettle chips at me, wanting a refill.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

That bird’s Muse is clearly better than mine.