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.

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I tried writing yesterday about my CT scan, about how Monkey J had a total behavior relapse because some kid didn’t want to play with him Friday, and about the school board meeting I was hosting at my house.

I just got too overwhelmed.

The CT scan was scary and a bit uncomfortable (they had me twisting my body like origami to get my elbow into the machine without my big fat head getting in the way).

And I don’t have cancer or a cyst.
That’s good. No gross drainage to worry about.
And it’s bad because the pain is real and I’ve got to now go to an orthopedic specialist and start over. I’m tired of filling out forms and getting weighed only to be shuttled to the next doctor.
But the no cancer thing? That’s really good.

Really good.

I feel the stress leaving my body. It seems like my shoulders were pinned to my ears, my jaws pinned to each other. I’m unpinning.

I don’t like these slaps of mortality.