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.

Navel. Day 62 of 100 Days of Writing

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In brief:
Writing going well, but probably uninteresting to anyone other than myself and anyone else interested in the inner crevices of my navel.

I’m writing the equivalent of belly button lint. Fascinating to me as I extract it from my recesses, probably gross to Greater Humanity. Therefore, I’ll spare you.

I’ve also written a little about Oingo Boingo, which I may not spare you.

 

The big news is that I am going to be writing and performing in a show. This is literally in the embryonic stage, but I’ve reached out to one of my favorite writer/directors and she’s IN. A much easier response to hear than, “Yeah, sure, as long as I don’t have to do anything,” which I’ve heard before.

What’s funny is that for all my “Oh, I’m blocked,” suddenly having a specific project, even one without structure, theme, definition, an entire team, or even a planning meeting set up has seen ideas pouring out of me. This is my favorite part of the process, the scribbling of random sentences and ideas. I can see certain things on stage already. I get excited by this. There is no one to tell me it ain’t gonna work…yet.

 

Middle Little is a budding artist at age almost six. I think most kids are, we just knock it out of them slowly and stultifyingly. He’s composing music. To be fair, he’s using a website that does most of the work, but he’s fascinated and putting together combinations that are so different and so right and so new that I’m taking notice. Also wonderful are his titles for his compositions, which are witty and sweet and hilarious. (His latest is “Effection” — purposefully spelled that way because, according to him, it’s about the sound effects, the effects of layering the sounds a certain way, and it’s also “like affection only it’s effect with an e.”

Middle Little sings to Little Little, and everything has a purposeful yet easy swing rhythm. It makes “Wheels on the Bus” much more palatable.

He hates piano lessons, though. His teacher (who I am also not a fan of in many ways) is rooted in her ways, and sees his swinging legs and swaying body as distracting him from focusing on the keys. He struggles more when he’s still, because he has to work on staying still.

But he does it, because he’s also a pleaser. I’m pretty sure he won’t be sharing “Effection” with piano teacher. She’d find something to criticize.

All of this is to say that I think the great 28 Tree Removal and Chipping of 2014 is done and there is coconut ice cream in the house and I’m happy.