Raising Awareness

Plans for Nigel is funny.

Tiny inoperable tumors are not.

Spread the word.

Stop laughing at hamster cancer.

For real you guys, it's super sad.

True Love

This is my family:

But also this is my family:

(not creepy)

And you could even say that this is my family:

And I love all of them.

Even if sometimes some of them do things that annoy me, or if I don't want to deal with them all the time... 

Even if I haven't seen them for a long time, or if our relationship has changed over the years...

Even if I'm in a bad mood or have had a rough day...

...I'll continue loving them, because that's what love is. That's what it means to really truly love someone.

Sometimes I like them more or I like them less, but I always love them and I always will.

And I'm not talking about storybook fairytale love, necessarily. Not romantic love, even though that's part of it. I love Daniel romantically, but I love him other ways too. I love him like I love my family, and I love my sisters like I love my friends. I also love my late hamsters like I love my friends. And I love my friends like I love my sisters, and I love Daniel like I love my friends. All of these things are love, and all of them are true love. 

English is a weird language because the one word "love" means a lot of things. You can love your grandparents, and you can love avocados. You can love skiing, and you can love those shoes. You can love Robert Downey Jr. and you can love your husband. 

But all of those things aren't the same thing...

That being said, I love many things, and I love easily. It doesn't take much for me to love someone or something, and once I do I will love it with all I've got. 

Sometimes I fall in love with stupid stuff like a special pink paperclip I found under my desk at work, and sometimes I love conceptual things, like the idea of therapeutic puppies for college finals week.

Actually, I love any and all animals. Admittedly, I've met some narsty old cats that I want to punch, and I spent a long time being afraid of dogs that weighed more than ten pounds and/or could run faster than me, but over the years I've learned that overall, I like animals way more than most people.

Even animals that most people don't like. 

For example, I've always wanted a snake, ever since I was little. Snakes, I always tell people, have no arms and no legs, and therefore exist as nothing more than a giant hug. 

I think those scorpions that are like five inches long and glow under a black-light are the coolest things ever to creep the earth, and I would totally have one were I married to someone less anthropod-ist.

I even think rats are awesome, with their little hands and tiny fingers. They're very smart, too. Just ask Disney/Pixar.

I even befriended the mouse that lives on the call floor at work. I named him Philippe and everyone keeps trying to kill him even though we're best friends.

Our apartment technically allows pets, although the pet rent for anything that doesn't live in a cage or tank is outrageous. All my cage-dwelling friends, as I'm sure you well know, met with untimely ends at this apartment, so I'm really nervous about ever buying a new hamster and bringing it to this accursed death-hole. 

I wanted to get a kitty or six, but my husband would never allow it and also we would have to give up eating. 

So I have developed an innovative solution...

Every weekend, the local pet store host kitten adoptions for an animal rescue society in the area. Basically, you can just come in and borrow a couple of kitties for an hour or so and then give them back. 

You don't have to feed them or clean up after them or be responsible for them, and when they start shredding your flesh with their tiny razor claws, you can just give them back! 

Basically, you get a small dose of pet-love for free, and sometimes that's all it takes to keep you going after a long, hard week. 

And, you know, husband-and-family-and-friend-love is cool too.

But it's just a different kind of love.

Dreams (The Sleeping Kind)

I've always fancied myself somewhat of a psychic... Haha, OK not really. But I have lots of dreams that are always a little more coherent than dreams should be. 

Often they are about very deep, spiritual subject matter, like finding that sock I've been looking for since last week, or that one where you get up and shower and do your ponytail and get all ready for work and wake up and realize you didn't do any of those things. But sometimes, my dreams are ADVENTURES!

The latest dream that I had involved a complicated treasure hunt...

I was part of a team of adventurers, seeking treasure based on an old map, some complicated clues, and a number of challenging physical obstacles. 

We solved riddles, climbed mountains, dug holes, and talked to creepy native shopkeepers.

I was leading this team of explorers, because in this dream I was back to the Jackie that used to be super brilliant and also fit enough to climb rocks and run from bad guys.

Our journey finally led us to a tiny cavern, hidden deeeeep in a complicated system of caves that only I could navigate. The final treasure lay hidden inside a little hole in the rock. All my associates were like six feet tall and therefore way too giant to fit in the little treasure-tunnel. 

Being the brave and tiny adventuress that I am, I courageously volunteered to climb into the spooky hole.

Once inside, it took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the absence of light. There were all sorts of spooky cave noises and probably scorpions and stuff, but it was too dark to see and I was too courageous to care.

And there, in the darkness, lay a tiny scrap of paper containing the last clue to finding the wondrous hidden treasure...

Of course! The treasure had been all around me the whole time, and I had been too focused on my objective to notice! I thought those rocks looked strange... No naturally occurring mineral says "Kit-Kat" on it, at least not in any caves I've been in lately.

Having discovered the true nature of the treasure, I wasn't about to let my loser teammates mooch off all my glory. 

I retraced my steps out of the cave, shoveling candy-pebbles into my mouth, my pockets, my socks... 

And then, all of a sudden, my hard-earned prize was so cruelly snatched from me by the deceitful mistress that is Morning.

And thus -- abruptly -- ends the tale of Jackie the Great Adventurer, Solver of Mysteries and Devourer  of Candy Rocks.

But, being the insightful dream decoder that I am, I came up with these two interpretations for my nighttime adventure story: 

FIRST

Clearly, the team in my dream represents the people that surround me and support me, such as friends and family, etc. 

My renewed intelligence represents my unlocked potential, that I can obviously still access with the help of my team of supporters. 

The treasure map represents my education, or the foundation for intelligence that I have laid out for me already. See Fig. 1

Fig. 1, y'all

Thus it follows that the various riddles and challenges I faced during my journey represent the ongoing struggle for understanding and enlightenment, as well as the inevitable toil of living in general.

The tiny hole in the wall represents my personal destiny, that only I can achieve or understand, and that end goal which I alone can focus on and strive toward.

And the final treasure, the candy pebbles, represents the understanding that the greatest reward in life often goes unnoticed because in our single-minded race for some unknown prize, we often miss the seemingly insignificant little joys that sprinkle the path on the journey that is our lives. 

SECOND

I really like candy. And adventures. But mostly candy.

I'll leave it up to you guys to decide which is the more accurate meaning.

The Cupboard Ghost

Guys.

Our apartment is haunted.

No joke, we have a ghost. A cupboard ghost. 

Have you ever seen Paranormal Activity? In particular, Paranormal Activity 2? More specifically, this scene right here?

That's a cupboard ghost, and we have one. 

For some reason, this mysterious specter goes around our kitchen and opens all the cupboards all the time. And the weird thing is, it always seems to happen when I'm cooking or putting groceries away...

This is really freaking me out. It's just like the movie. A spooky poltergeist is terrorizing us. 

There is absolutely no other explaination. 

None whatsoever.

A Day in the Life

The Creative Process