I feel like a little piece of me died last night:
Villa Park's most noticeable landmark, the last remaining Ovaltine smokestack,
came crumbling down in a matter of moments Wednesday afternoon.
The Under My Thumb Book Club
Some of my favorite books from through-out the years...
The Color Purple- Alice Walker
Brilliant, moving, and important. I also have a kick ass theme paper on gender roles available for this book if you have one due.
The World According To Garp- John Irving
John Irving is a NOVELIST.
A Prayer For Owen Meany- John Irving
If you're only going to read one book from this list, I think that Owen should be IT.
Matilda- Roald Dahl
Still one of my favorites, twenty years later.
My Sister's Keeper- Jodi Picoult
Talk about Tear Fest 2008! Great book, will probably be a horrible movie.
The Season of Passage- Christopher Pike
God, I want to go to Mars.
See You Later- Christopher Pike
And my favorite YA novel of all time. I heart Pike!
Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut
And so it goes...
The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood
This is by far my favorite Margaret Atwood novel. Atwood is one of my idols.
Sharp Objects- Gillian Flynn
I read this book in two days about a year or so ago. And it was awesome.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy- Douglas Adams
One of the few books that Chris and I have in common. The whole series kind of changed my life.
A Wrinkle In Time- Madeleine L'Engle
Makes me feel warm and happy just thinking about it.
The Martian Chronicles- Ray Bradbury
I mean, I *really* want to go to Mars!
Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
I actually liked this better than the The Virgin Suicides. I keep trying to get Chris to read it, but he won't. Loser.
I Know This Much Is True- Wally Lamb
Incredible novel.
Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neale Hurston
First I fell in love with the title, then I fell in love with the book.
White Bird In A Blizzard- Laura Kasischke
My favorite novel by my favorite poet.
Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf
Read it the weekend after seeing "The Hours." And I thought, wow- somebody gets it!
The Awakening- Kate Chopin
Short, but not lacking in torment.
The Time-Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
Such a page-turner.
The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
Tear Fest 2007.
Replay- Ken Grimwood
Need to read it again- read it as a kid although it's very clearly an adult novel (about reliving your life over and over again!), but it has always stuck with me....
Went to the world's largest corn maze last night, right up here-abouts in beautiful Spring Grove, IL. It's literally the world's largest, too, not like how I might announce something like, "I had the world's largest amount of cheese on that sandwich!" It takes hours to go through and hit all the check points, but due to monsoon-like conditions on Friday night, the maze was incredibly sloppy with mud and puddles, thus, how shall we say, challenging our intestinal fortitude to do things the correct way. We did hit both the first and last check point, though, so it's LIKE we did the entire maze. And we also got incredibly lost a few times, which I think was our neighbor M's intentions when he threw away his map and turned off his flashlight.
It was cool, though, in that creepy, semi-pointless, cold, muddy way that outdoorsy things of this nature often are. Definitely memorable. Next year, though, we will go when it is dry, each carry our own flashlight, sneak in beer, and, oh yes, hit the john BEFORE entering the maze.
Strangely enough, I have become the wedding date for not one but TWO girls. The first wedding is in about two weeks with my neighbor, H-Dubs, and the second wedding is after Thanksgiving with Meg. In both cases, the men in the lives of these women already have other plans, and so, natch, Jackie is called to fill into the tux. Not that I'll be wearing a tux. I mean, I might, just for giggles, but probably not. I have this dress from Sears that I wear to weddings- the first time I wore it to a wedding, my date snickered, "Sears?" As if the dress came with a lawn mower, or something. But it's a decent dress, and it fits the bill, especially when one is called on to be the "guy."
I'm actually looking forward to both weddings. First of all, I love a good wedding that involves nothing more from me than to drink all I can from the open bar. No strange uncles to pretend I remember, no awkward receiving line moments while I try to think of something appropriate to say. And, secondly, they are both good opportunities to spend some time with some grade A females. Not that my neighbor and I don't already spend a good amount of time with each other- but with Meg, this will be a great opportunity for us to just hang out with one another, which we've never actually done one on one. I look forward to it.
I do think that it's a strange coincidence, though- two weddings with girls in a four week span. Should there be some guest overlap at these two affairs, I might find myself with some explaining to do. Either that, or I can somehow parlay this into a career move. Is your husband or boyfriend unavailable? Need to go to a formal affair? Just dial 1-800-Jackie's-Your-Date. She'll easily take the place of the man in your life, what with all the belching, heavy drinking, and casual cussing. She'll be the dude you always knew she could be.
In other, slightly related news, my co-worker Salty today told me that playing video games was "one of [my] better qualities." And I didn't know how to take that, since I have so many great qualities. But then I thought, he's a dude. And video games, at the end of the day, is what dudes relate to. So, there you go. One of my better qualities. Never mind the brilliant banter that spews from my lips, the puns I make up ON THE SPOT, my hysterical tirades about reality shows and politics and the mall.... Oh no. Video games. I'm so glad, Salty, that our last four years of sitting next to one another, of taking our smoke breaks together and gossiping and talking about our lives- nay, our SOULS- have meant so much to you. Video games. You fucking douche.
Early voting starts TODAY in Illinois. Cast your ballots now, because when November 4th rolls around- if you're like me- you'll most likely find an excuse not to go vote. And if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain on the off-chance that our guy doesn't win.
My high school reunion is tonight. I'm not going. Instead, Chris and I are going out with Dan and Meg and a few other people. For me, hanging out with Dan is a completely appropriate way to celebrate a night that should be devoted to remembering Class of '98, because he's the only real friend that I still have left from high school. I don't know if having only one friend from high school makes me a loser ten years after the fact or makes me somehow incredibly awesome. I'm going with the latter, natch.
High school was mostly a miserable experience for me. There were too many unfulfilled expectations and dreams, too many fights with my friends (ergo why I have only friend left), too many days of waking up and feeling that I'd rather drown myself in the bath tub than have to get on that bus and go to that awful building. It's funny though- when I think back to high school, I don't feel like I'm remembering moments from my own life. I feel like I'm just recalling a movie I once watched. There is a definite split in my life, a moment when I somehow made the decision to just be new and let go of everything before a certain time. It was easier that way. It still is. There are entire events and years and periods with which I don't even really associate myself anymore. And sometimes I want to know how I managed to do that, and why, and other times I'm just glad I did.
I wish I could remember the exact point that I performed the split, though. I want to say it was around when I was between 20 and 22. I kept paper journals for a very long time through high school and then beyond, and when Michelle finally introduced me to blogging, I stopped with the paper and got into the 21st century. I wish I had my first few blogs, but I deleted those out of some sense of spite or avoidance. Nonetheless, I still do have my paper journals, and when I read them, I don't know who this other girl is with her whining and moaning and defeatist attitude and grocery list of needs. Don't get me wrong- I still whine and moan and feel defeated and have a lot of wants and needs. But she, she was different. She had a narrow focus and a bad attitude and wanted so desperately to be saved by something that wasn't real. She got upset over everything and didn't think very much of herself. She was ugly and selfish and kind of dumb. And her handwriting was atrocious. Well, I guess some things haven't changed....
It's not that I've sure grown a lot since then- it's not that I have become such a better person or really have a handle on things now. It's that I'm just... different. I'm a separate entity. And that's just the way it is.
Thus, by not going to my reunion, I am completely avoiding the person that I least want to run into tonight. Me. Me, ten years ago. Me, before. And knowing that I won't see her tonight, it pleases me immensely.
Chris and I are hard at work on our Halloween costumes. Without giving too much away for the big reveal, let's just say that my costume involves part of a garbage can, and Chris' involves a lot of facial hair and an accent.* Intrigued? You should be. The garage is our laboratory right now, with spray paint, nuts, bolts, and various other supplies from Home Depot ("You're shopping HERE for your Halloween costumes?" the Home Depot sales guy had repeated, with a raised eyebrow. "I guess it takes all kinds.") taking the place of where our cars would normally sit. That's okay, I like having my car parked in the driveway. It's a deterrent for burglars. You know you're old when you start thinking of ways to deter burglars. You know you're REALLY old when you start wondering if detering a burglar might result in a house fire (i.e., the thirty year old automatic lamp timer my parents gave me that always gets kind of red hot when I attempt to use it). And you know you're out of your mind when you start thinking that you are SO GOOD at putting together a Halloween costume from non-Halloween materials that maybe, just maybe, you could somehow DO THIS FOR A LIVING!
I like watching Chris put so much hard work into a Halloween costume. It makes me think he'll be a good father one day. I can see it now- Chris and little Chris or Jackie Junior hunched over their art supplies on the floor of the garage while Chris patiently explains how to make a hunk of wood into an awesome Dora the Explora costume (or whatever it is the kids will be into a million years from now). Little Chris or Jackie Junior will be wide eyed and excited, and they'll stay out there all afternoon before coming back into the house, so full of pride and accomplishment from their hours of "quality costume time." And there I'll be in the kitchen, waiting. This is where the illusion takes a turn for the worse. I am angry and slightly crazed, waving a wooden spoon and screaming to high hell about uncleaned rooms and unwashed dishes and why doesn't anyone ever ask ME to help with the costume building and why the fuck hasn't the lawn been mowed in three months and WHOSE SHOES ARE THESE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL FUCKING BURN THEM, and, by the way, make your own damn dinner tonight, for I'm already drunk.
This is how they always end, those day dreams. Chris and little child having a grand old time eating ice cream together and giggling about cartoons and then in I come, a hurricane of pissiness and seriously bad ju-ju-magumbo. This might be the real reason that I'm afraid of having kids- I know I'm going to be the bad guy, the significantly less-loved parent, the killer of all things fun and happy. I know things are going to play out in our house like they did in my parents' house, and, I have to level with you, I don't know if I'm up for all that. Not to mention that kids are expensive. And what's the deal with maternity clothes? That seems like a waste of money. Bed sheet and twine, here I come.
But, I digress. Our Halloween costumes are going to be kick ass, and even though I won't be able to comfortably sit down without removing the piece de resistance, I think it will all be worth it.
* Oh, and if you guessed Oscar the Grouch and Borat, don't worry- you're way off.
If I should be found brutally murdered any time soon, then let this posting be the biggest lead for the local police. It was my neighbor who did it. Not my awesome neighbors who share our wall- the neighbors on the other side of us who share nothing. And not the wife- I haven't talked to her, but she seems fine. It's the husband- the creepy husband with the claw hands and the insane mumbling who has already yelled at me once for no good reason and who has also come over to the house to complain about our lawn not being mowed (kind of a valid point) and about us not being neighborly. I tried to diffuse the situation as best as I could, but last night when we tried to say hello (and be neighborly) he grunted horrible things to himself and then walked away. Maybe these few facts are not enough to prove that he's of the murdering type, but you have to see this guy. He's on meds for something, and he told our other neighbors that the meds make him a little nutty. Nutty sounds a little too friendly- he's mean, and he's bat shit crazy. And, for whatever reason, he hates us. I have a feeling that he's already plotting our demise. The only hope that I am clinging on to is that his mangled, claw shaped hands will be unable to properly hold a gun, knife, or aluminum killing bat, so hopefully he tries to murder me while I'm wide awake and can properly fend for myself while he struggles with whatever instrument of death he happens to be gripping.
When I was eight years old, I wrote a book. It was called "The Princess With Too Many Friends" and starred a young, tangle-haired Jackie as the aforementioned princess. Based on the explanatory nature of the title, one can only imagine how the story progressed. In the end, Princess Jackie still had a lot of friends. However, she was also able to master the art of time management and therefore what had seemed like a major problem on page one was only a minor inconvenience, at best, on the last and final page- page six.
The funny thing about the book- well, one of the funny things- was that I did not have many friends at all. I had, in fact, three friends. But I couldn't handle having three friends; three friends to a girl who bore inside her the seed of a yet to be professionally diagnosed social problem was at least two friends too many. There was Katie, Vanessa, and Matthew. Katie and Vanessa did not like each other and Matthew was a boy, which spelled out all sorts of problems. I could only hang out with one of them at a time, and I felt I had to be sneaky about it. On Monday I would hide in Vanessa's basement, on Tuesday I would ride bikes with Katie only because I knew Vanessa was at ice skating, and on Wednesday I would play with Matthew in his super shady, kind of private (one might even say romantic if not for the small matter of us being eight) back yard.
It is actually Matthew that I have always missed the most, when I've stopped to think about the three friends that I had on my little cul-de-sac in the suburban world of my youth. Katie turned out to be a bitch, Vanessa moved and no real love was lost, but Matthew, after he and his family moved to Naperville, burned on brightly in my mind for many summers afterwards. It was with Matthew that I buried a not-yet-dead bird, the bird that would haunt me forever. It was with Matthew that I could be my tomboy self and play video games and war and Ghostbusters. It was Matthew who cared less about why Vanessa and Katie didn't like each other and shrugged off the fact that the girls thought he was just an icky, stupid boy. It was Matthew with which I secretly had the most fun, and Matthew that I cried over when that friendship came to an end due to his dad getting a job at BP. Which is, strangely enough, where my own father would end up working in fifteen years. I wonder if my dad ever ran into Matthew's dad. I wonder if they talked about me.
Now, as an adult, I have very few real friends. I can count my true friends on one hand and still have fingers to spare. I have acquaintances, though, and it's the acquaintances that seem to cause the most problems in my already fragile core. I can't put my finger on what the real issue is- my inability to say no, my inability to say yes, my fear of having my time frittered away on silly endeavors, my fear of not doing the true things that I want to do, the things that either don't involve other people or don't involve most types of other people. It's certainly one of these things and not the acquaintances themselves.
Still, I find myself being pulled in too many directions at once. While again funny for more than one reason, it's mainly because I'm usually only pulled in ONE direction. I get pulled, and part of me pulls back, and then I feel like a mostly alive bird being buried in a shoebox. Helpless.
The other day I found myself getting pulled in one direction- a very simple direction that would require nothing more from me than simply leaning- and part of me snapped. An acquaintance became demanding, you see, began make requests that, in my little universe, only friends can make. This request was reasonable- just to hang out- but I saw my future domino-ing before me right off of the table. We'd be hanging out all the time, me and this acquaintance. There'd be sleepovers and shopping sprees and the dispensing of advice involving gynecological matters. There'd be the obligation of delivering important speeches at weddings, baby showers, anniversaries, holiday parties. There'd be lunch for the sake of lunch, dinners just because two weeks had gone by, popping in unannounced because that's what good friends do. And I don't want all of that stuff, not with the people who aren't ennumerated on my fingers and not with this casual acquaintance who has become increasingly more pushy despite no encouragement beyond pleasantries.
I was in my car stuck in traffic. I hadn't moved in over ten minutes, and I suddenly couldn't breathe. I was trapped physically, and I was trapped emotionally, mentally, socially. And I found myself saying out loud, to just the steering wheel, "Once again I'm the princess with too many friends." For a second I laughed about the ridiculousness of all of it, but then I realized that it's true. Except for the princess part- let's be honest, here, I'm a train wreck. But some of us are meant to only handle so much when it comes to other people, and there's only so much that good time management can do to solve this problem. Our main character Jackie hasn't changed all that much from when she was eight- and it's still the Matthews that mean the most.
