Jacky Lang's Blog
February 28, 2016
Trade Offs
He often comes by right after the floors are freshly cleaned. He walks his dirty shoes across the room and flops down into the chair in front of the television. He hates her taste in television shows, and usually without asking changes the channel as soon as he arrives in search of some salacious reality show. If she didn't know to look deeper, he’d be a pile of masculine clichés parked in the living room throwing off the rhythm of her day. But, she does know.
She spills out a rattled list of achievements, disappointments, frustrations and worries. He listens as if she’s explaining the secrets of the universe. All of his advice comes with laughter and an acknowledgement of her intelligence and abilities. His eyes are dark, twinkling and always intensely focused on her when she least expects it. She ignores the muddy shoe prints.
She tells him it’s like “dating a teenager” because he’s always checking his phone. In reality she knows the dreaded device holds the lists of appointments, obligations and others vying for his attention. The always present, sleek, electronic rectangle is a reminder of just how hard he works all the time—for money, for bills, for her. She hates it, so it becomes a running joke. Then the phone is off and resting on a pile of his neatly folded clothes. He’s so warm; he smells spicy and wonderful. He touches her skin like she’s a rare and precious treasure. She forgets the phone.
He’s busy a lot—unavailable. Truth be told, so is she. They aren't young any more and their lists of commitments are long. It’s not the first, or even the second long-term relationship for either of them, and it’s work. Life, if she allowed it, could easily become a sea of chores, enlivened only by the new and horrifying reality that her peers now die of natural causes. The end of the journey is a looming reality now, and she’s hyper-conscious of the fact. She remembers how he turned her joints to jelly, just yesterday. She smiles and wonders, for the millionth time, if the landlord can hear the screams and moans, and if he enjoys the frequent entertainment. If there are only a limited number of moments left, a maximum of those moments should be spent in joy. She puts her appointments for the week in pencil.
She spills out a rattled list of achievements, disappointments, frustrations and worries. He listens as if she’s explaining the secrets of the universe. All of his advice comes with laughter and an acknowledgement of her intelligence and abilities. His eyes are dark, twinkling and always intensely focused on her when she least expects it. She ignores the muddy shoe prints.
She tells him it’s like “dating a teenager” because he’s always checking his phone. In reality she knows the dreaded device holds the lists of appointments, obligations and others vying for his attention. The always present, sleek, electronic rectangle is a reminder of just how hard he works all the time—for money, for bills, for her. She hates it, so it becomes a running joke. Then the phone is off and resting on a pile of his neatly folded clothes. He’s so warm; he smells spicy and wonderful. He touches her skin like she’s a rare and precious treasure. She forgets the phone.
He’s busy a lot—unavailable. Truth be told, so is she. They aren't young any more and their lists of commitments are long. It’s not the first, or even the second long-term relationship for either of them, and it’s work. Life, if she allowed it, could easily become a sea of chores, enlivened only by the new and horrifying reality that her peers now die of natural causes. The end of the journey is a looming reality now, and she’s hyper-conscious of the fact. She remembers how he turned her joints to jelly, just yesterday. She smiles and wonders, for the millionth time, if the landlord can hear the screams and moans, and if he enjoys the frequent entertainment. If there are only a limited number of moments left, a maximum of those moments should be spent in joy. She puts her appointments for the week in pencil.
January 20, 2016
Standing On a Bridge
She wasn’t afraid of death. It was the space between dying and death that terrified her. A place filled with chronic pain, failing mental faculties and adult diapers, a place her mother had lived in for ten years and it was a place she never wanted to enter. She thought about suicide all the time. The sweet and controllable overness that it would bring. Her first clear memory of it was when she was about eleven years old with long pigtails. So long in fact that she wrapped them around her neck to see if she could cut off all oxygen. It seemed like a great idea. Private and in her hands and the solution to ending the pain of not being perfect, or it would have been if she’d been stronger or more patient or less scared. A few years later she tried the classic pills route, only to discover the realities of ipecac and societal disapproval. How could anyone be so selfish, she was asked, as to want to end their own life? Of course these questioners were the same people making her life miserable with a constant stream of judgmental and abusive words, but she was smart enough to not point that out to them.
A whirlwind of life events pushed the desire to the back of her mind, where it hummed and lurked. There were joys to be had and she grasped at them with all her strength. Like grabbing at roses, the results were often lovely to the senses and painful. Raising children was all encompassing and beautiful. Yet, it became clear as her children grew up that society would always blame her for any of their shortcomings on top of her own. Somehow it was always her fault. With her children the joys outweighed the pain. Not so with marriages.
It was as if she’d come into the world with notions of grand romance implanted in her soul, and no one had been wise enough to excise them before they festered and grew. She fell in love quickly, intensely and often. Each time convinced her soul mate had finally found her; each time discarded when someone better came along. Still she never learned. She threw herself head first into one doomed relationship after another, and as she got older the bad decisions had bigger and more far reaching consequences. Today she was doing it again, longing for the release of death and fantasizing about how she might be more missed and more loved as a ghost or memory than she ever was as a woman. Just one more step.
A whirlwind of life events pushed the desire to the back of her mind, where it hummed and lurked. There were joys to be had and she grasped at them with all her strength. Like grabbing at roses, the results were often lovely to the senses and painful. Raising children was all encompassing and beautiful. Yet, it became clear as her children grew up that society would always blame her for any of their shortcomings on top of her own. Somehow it was always her fault. With her children the joys outweighed the pain. Not so with marriages.
It was as if she’d come into the world with notions of grand romance implanted in her soul, and no one had been wise enough to excise them before they festered and grew. She fell in love quickly, intensely and often. Each time convinced her soul mate had finally found her; each time discarded when someone better came along. Still she never learned. She threw herself head first into one doomed relationship after another, and as she got older the bad decisions had bigger and more far reaching consequences. Today she was doing it again, longing for the release of death and fantasizing about how she might be more missed and more loved as a ghost or memory than she ever was as a woman. Just one more step.
December 27, 2015
Goodbye BFF
Why don't I miss her? We were self-declared best friends for over twenty years. Often mistaken for sisters, we had an easy comfort with each other that strangers often commented on and seemed to envy. So, I wonder is it the memory of her husband lunging across a table to attack my son for daring to voice political views he didn't like that keeps me from missing her? No, not really. I've been around for a while, and to be honest I've forgiven other people for equally horrible behavior in the past. Is it the fact that neither she nor her rage powered spouse ever thought to apologize that makes her absence from my life inconsequential. No, see my previous comment about forgiving the seemingly unforgivable at times.
It's the relief from her friendship that keeps me from crying, moaning or missing her. Like the low grade headache you don't notice until the aspirin kicks in, or the weird relief you get from finally throwing up, I feel lighter and healthier without my former best friend. There are no more digs at my intellect these days. Once when I was unemployed, unlike recommendations to our other friends with college degrees, she suggested I get a job as a maid or cafeteria worker. Nor will there be any more pointed remarks about how she'll make time to read some of my fiction if I "ever get around to writing something G-rated or for YA readers," because she just can't take promiscuous prose. For twenty plus years I never called her on her sanctimonious attitude towards me or the rest of the world. I ignored the condescending way she spoke to me and everyone around us, and turned a blind eye to the way she used me for a 24-7 life and career adviser while remaining unavailable to me much of the time. Her time was cashmere; mine was cheap polyester. And so I recognize it, one of the classical romance cliches, I was in love with the IDEA of a life-long best friend. The reality is like shaking a two decade bout of the flu, and I don't miss that feeling--or her.
It's the relief from her friendship that keeps me from crying, moaning or missing her. Like the low grade headache you don't notice until the aspirin kicks in, or the weird relief you get from finally throwing up, I feel lighter and healthier without my former best friend. There are no more digs at my intellect these days. Once when I was unemployed, unlike recommendations to our other friends with college degrees, she suggested I get a job as a maid or cafeteria worker. Nor will there be any more pointed remarks about how she'll make time to read some of my fiction if I "ever get around to writing something G-rated or for YA readers," because she just can't take promiscuous prose. For twenty plus years I never called her on her sanctimonious attitude towards me or the rest of the world. I ignored the condescending way she spoke to me and everyone around us, and turned a blind eye to the way she used me for a 24-7 life and career adviser while remaining unavailable to me much of the time. Her time was cashmere; mine was cheap polyester. And so I recognize it, one of the classical romance cliches, I was in love with the IDEA of a life-long best friend. The reality is like shaking a two decade bout of the flu, and I don't miss that feeling--or her.
October 30, 2015
Halloween Flash Fic
The hallways were filled with weeping families. The living collapsed on plastic chairs, across gurneys and in the floor. The dead slipped over, around and between the living, brushing them sweetly or making a last gesture of defiance before floating away. She was on one of the hospital beds quiet and relaxed, probably due to her severed spine.
She hadn't slept through the night in years. The process her doctor lightly referred to as perimenopause and "no big deal" was peeling away her sanity in bits like paint chips off an old window sill. The fact that her smiling doctor would not always be young and pretty was a small bitter consolation in the back of her mind. Her sexual fantasies remained; she wasn't dead yet. But her deepest desire had become a long period of sleep with no sweating, itching, joint pain or nausea. Finally, thanks to a fog induced traffic pileup she could rest.
It was like slipping out of a pair of too tight shoes or itching clothes as she left her broken body behind. She’d never contemplated this particular moment much; the pressures of daily life left spiritual concerns on the very bottom of her “to do list.” As she floated in the general direction of the other freed souls, she saw her.
Clearly not part of the gruesome auto accident, the pale and painfully pretty teenager was still and unaware of the discussion going on above her. A foster kid apparently, she’d opted for a bottle of pills rather than the pain of living in the system. None of the rules or regulations mattered to the teen anymore, as her essence skipped down the hallway into the ethereal arms of her long-lost mother. And no one noticed.
No one heard the matronly chuckle in the air. No one felt the fluttering energy pass over the dead girl’s body. Everyone noticed as she sat up and gasped back to life.
She hadn't slept through the night in years. The process her doctor lightly referred to as perimenopause and "no big deal" was peeling away her sanity in bits like paint chips off an old window sill. The fact that her smiling doctor would not always be young and pretty was a small bitter consolation in the back of her mind. Her sexual fantasies remained; she wasn't dead yet. But her deepest desire had become a long period of sleep with no sweating, itching, joint pain or nausea. Finally, thanks to a fog induced traffic pileup she could rest.
It was like slipping out of a pair of too tight shoes or itching clothes as she left her broken body behind. She’d never contemplated this particular moment much; the pressures of daily life left spiritual concerns on the very bottom of her “to do list.” As she floated in the general direction of the other freed souls, she saw her.
Clearly not part of the gruesome auto accident, the pale and painfully pretty teenager was still and unaware of the discussion going on above her. A foster kid apparently, she’d opted for a bottle of pills rather than the pain of living in the system. None of the rules or regulations mattered to the teen anymore, as her essence skipped down the hallway into the ethereal arms of her long-lost mother. And no one noticed.
No one heard the matronly chuckle in the air. No one felt the fluttering energy pass over the dead girl’s body. Everyone noticed as she sat up and gasped back to life.
September 6, 2015
Scorched
This was not a summer filled with ice cream socials by day and long, warm, Margareta filled nights. Weeks and weeks of sizzling temperatures outside and boiling situations in my day job and real life left me dry and drained when September arrived.
It wasn't that I didn't write. After ending a long, but toxic friendship, and struggling through a shake-up at my office, and dealing with the realities of aging and finances, I didn't feel very creative, or romantic, or fun. All essentials for my fiction. Instead I managed to grind out articles and reports and other projects for work, while my notes for stories were buried under the swirling mass on my desk.
Then the rains came. Hours of deep sleep aided by dark skies and the sound of rain, followed by a few days of walking in the cool almost fall air, and I feel that I'm recovering. The crusty, burned, sorrow is flaking away. Underneath is the new, pink skin of a writer.
Everything is tender, inside and out, and the lessons of the scorching summer remain vividly painful. Still, it's time to move forward. Perhaps cautiously and not as quickly as I'd once hoped, but I will keep going. Just one reader--I just need to connect with one reader on each project and it will always be worthwhile.
It wasn't that I didn't write. After ending a long, but toxic friendship, and struggling through a shake-up at my office, and dealing with the realities of aging and finances, I didn't feel very creative, or romantic, or fun. All essentials for my fiction. Instead I managed to grind out articles and reports and other projects for work, while my notes for stories were buried under the swirling mass on my desk.
Then the rains came. Hours of deep sleep aided by dark skies and the sound of rain, followed by a few days of walking in the cool almost fall air, and I feel that I'm recovering. The crusty, burned, sorrow is flaking away. Underneath is the new, pink skin of a writer.
Everything is tender, inside and out, and the lessons of the scorching summer remain vividly painful. Still, it's time to move forward. Perhaps cautiously and not as quickly as I'd once hoped, but I will keep going. Just one reader--I just need to connect with one reader on each project and it will always be worthwhile.
June 30, 2014
Do you like your women raw?
Recently journalist Esther Honig http://www.estherhonig.com/#!before--... conducted a public experiment where she sent her photo around the world with the request, “make me beautiful.” Many of the photo editors who responded chose to cover her up, either in layers of cosmetics or in layers of clothing. It seems that a “beautiful” woman for many people is a woman in anything other than her natural state. Of course, beauty is more than physicality. Sadly, just like the layers of outer modifications, society often pines for layers of inner cover-ups to make women seem acceptable, i.e. beautiful. This is where writers can make a difference. Real, beautiful women can be opinionated, shy, silly, short-tempered, and in the cases of many of my characters (female and male) unashamedly smart. Ms. Honig’s experiment reminds us again that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, for my readers I want them to see a beauty that reminds them of themselves in my stories. I like my women characters the same way I like a garden fresh, juicy, summer tomato…raw and without a lot of unnecessary additives. Okay, maybe a little salt for bite.
May 25, 2014
Who gets the last word?
Recently, while multitasking and cutting up veggies for stew, I watched "The Devil Wears Prada" on TV. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...] Despite a seriously mixed bag of reviews, the book was a huge best seller and Weisberger put out a sequel last year. Cutting critical comments aside, the public seems to love stories where insiders reveal the "truth" about others: the rich, the famous, the powerful. And so I'm left to wonder if perhaps the real power rests in the hands and minds of talented writers, those individuals who can frame issues and portray characters as they see fit, and perhaps not as these things really are in the world. Tell all books, even when heavily fictionalized, are oh so tempting. The public seems to gobble up the words of nannies, maids, mistresses, assistants and other insiders...provided those words are cleverly crafted by a good writer. So who has the real power? Should more writers be looking for juicy secrets instead of story arcs?
March 21, 2014
Exercise and Elevators
Despite what all the fitness gurus tell me, sometimes I ride the elevator instead of taking the stairs. Yes, I realize I'm passing up the opportunity to burn some calories and sneak some exercise into my day, but elevator rides serve a greater purpose. These trips up and down buildings help me exercise my writing muscles. A quiet, lonely elevator ride gives me a few moments to let my mind wander. I can replay the best scenes of things I've written or read in my head and enjoy an escape from reality. When I've got company, elevators provide a perfect people watching laboratory. There they are, people trapped between floors just waiting for me to notice and catalog their every interesting comment, tick or expression. Unknowingly, my fellow passengers are providing me with the raw stuff of character development--those tiny details that make the difference between a character that seems interesting and one that feels real. So, I will have to get my physical exercise elsewhere, because I'm not willing to give up my elevator explorations. Writers out there...what are some of your favorite people watching spots?
February 8, 2014
No, it's not Aunt Betty
Creating fictional characters can be a sticky deal. As a writer you are bound to draw upon the world and the people around you for ideas. However, when penning (fictional) dangerous, sexually charged or fantastical situations you need to avoid simply plopping down your friends and family into the plot. Still, now matter how careful I am, I always have that one friend who says, "I just know that's so-and-so in that scene. Do you think he/she really had sex in an elevator?" OR some other similar conversation. So, I'm saying once and for all: Though real people inspire me, by the time I roll ideas through my head and then the computer I am not writing about dear, old Aunt Betty...or anyone else. But, if you have fun pretending and guessing, then who am I to stop you?
December 1, 2013
Oh, my aching B&B
Despite how it may look to those of you watching your neighborhood author at the coffee shop, writing is work. True, it's work that's compelling, often enjoyable and for some bordering on a mission, but it is work. It can be hard to explain to loved ones how mentally exhausting it is to spend a day writing. After all, it just looks so easy from the outside. The struggle to craft even a single good page of writing can leave me with a tired and sore brain...and butt. Those hours of research, note taking, and composing dialogue sometimes mean a stiff and aching back, a sore butt that's molded to the computer chair and a headache. Is it worth it? You bet! When someone tells me they got a few hours of enjoyment out of my writing it thrills me in a way nothing else can. And so, I will try to schedule in a few more walks and eye strain breaks and forget about my aching Brain and Butt, in the hope of making just one more reader happy. Or maybe I should learn to type standing up?
