With greasy hair and yesterday’s clothing we boarded the trolley at 7:00 AM on Friday morning. I balanced with a crate in my left hand, holding onto the bar with my right while I squeezed as far down the crowded aisle as I could. My boyfriend scouted for seats, finally snagging one for me after we had already pulled underground a solid ten minutes later. Fast forward to a minute after sitting down. A woman rises from her seat and pushes her way down the aisle towards the back exit, but before leaving she gives me some serious stink eye.

“You brought your cat on the trolley?!” 

It sounds innocent enough when written down, but her harsh, judgmental tone cut through my already self-conscious thoughts. 

I could have fought back with snark. We thought she’d like it! You know, Friday morning rush hour, just riding the rails with our cat. We’re doing this for her!

Or bitchier. I can’t believe you brought yourself on the trolley. 

Or simpler. Fuck off.

“We have to go to the vet,” I responded. As curt as I could. Which, in all honesty, probably didn't sound curt at all. For those that don’t know me, it was probably not in any way evident that I was steaming underneath. I tend to grin and bear it, as they say, or to think of something way better to say after a solid five minutes (and then write it down). The woman of course, repeated herself after she got off the trolley to the man she was with, somehow loud enough that I could hear her through the still open doors. 

My poor little feisty ball of fur. It’s not like Claudia, my kitten, was the first pet to ever travel on board Septa, nor will she be the last. For three days I watched as she refused to eat, vomited, and snuggled at my feet. I tried can after can of food. Perhaps she was just being as snobby as I when it comes to brands and had decided that her Friskies Tuna shreds were below her. Perhaps she craved the organic lobster and tuna in a crab meat sauce that I could purchase for quadruple the price. The selections were unending, but her lack of appetite continued.

because a whole lot of people refuse to scooch over or put their backpack on their lap. Some days we've got a few people competing over who can play their music louder, or someone’s picking a fight because another person bumped into them, or there’s probably some kids and/or parents yelling. It seems too often people don't offer their seat to a pregnant woman, an elderly person, or someone carrying a young child or a stroller. Instead, (and I am guilty of it too) we sit with our headphones in and our phones out, ignoring the people around us until we see something we don’t like. 

I think it's time for the end of unedited spewing of unfair, uninformed judgments. Would that woman have said a word to me if I had explained to her how my kitten had refused to eat or drink for the majority of a week? Would she have understood that although I have worked a steady job for the last four years, I don’t make enough money to buy a car? Would she ever consider that perhaps we were trying to stay out of everyone else's way? Or did she just assume that I was neglectful of everyone around me, and my kitten, because I decided to use public transportation that day?

And also, why, out of all the other things that happen every single day on the trolley, is me sitting quietly with my cat the one thing she has to make a statement about?

After exiting the trolley, we had to wait on the corner of 22nd and Market for the bus north. It was cold, gray, and damp, and traffic was zooming by blowing gusts of wind in our direction. When the light turned red, a car pulled up to the intersection with the passenger windows down and a young woman leaned across the seat to yell out to us. I expected ridicule for carrying Claudia around in the cold weather. “Do you need a ride somewhere with your cat?” she asked. A ride, to wherever we needed to go. A warm car and a warm smile. Because sometimes people are kind.


P.S. My little kitten started eating again and I couldn’t be happier.

Dear sir/madam,

You never call. You never write. At most you’ll send me an email when you’ve decided to move forward in your relationship with someone else, which, to be perfectly honest, seems a little callous when we haven’t even had the chance to discuss where things were going between us first. I know these things happen, and people just fall out of touch, but it feels like I’m putting in all the effort and you’re just playing hard to get.

Like last week, when you called and asked me what I was looking for. I told you I wanted to experience life: explore new adventures, learn new skills, meet new friends and collaborators. You asked if I thought I could do that with you and I said yes, without a doubt, with conviction and strength and bravery. You said you would call back within 48 hours and now it’s been an entire week! Every telephone ring I look for your number on the screen. Phantom cell phone vibrations haunt me in my sleep. I can’t work, I can’t focus, I can’t stop thinking about you and the way I imagined your suit and tie and your corner office with catered Friday lunches.

All my friends tell me I shouldn’t call you; that it’s a waste of time and you’re not worth it. Or worse, that you might think I’m desperate or clingy when all I want are some answers. When can I come in to meet you? What hours will I work? Is there room in that office for me? But if I call you’ll think I’m a loser, or just incapable of following instructions, but you, you are worse. You’re a liar who never called! And maybe I shouldn’t harass you with a follow up email, but I just want to make sure everything is in order and that you’re still alive and in business. My grandfather responds faster to an email than you do. I mean, are you really qualified to make this sort of administrative decision when you clearly struggle with responding to your own correspondence?

I know a lot of people are interested in you. How could they not be? You’re successful, talented, creative, and rolling in the dough. You’ve got a lot to offer a girl like me, and that doesn’t go unnoticed. So I want you to know that I’m fully aware that you’re getting a lot of other offers to consider, and you should. I’m not going to be the girl to write you a cliche letter telling you that you are the coffee to my early mornings, the champagne to my mimosas, or the Sriracha to my breakfast burrito. I just won’t. Enough is enough. I’ve told you how I feel--in fact, I’ve told you many times within the last few weeks, within the last few years--and now it’s your turn. Good or bad. I can’t not know how you feel about me any longer.

Will you hire me? (Check yes or no)

Yes: 
No:

All the best,

Jayne Ellen

1. Make a List: 

Any kind of list: a grocery list, a to-do list, a list that describes a particular group’s characteristics, or even a list like this! (Hell, I already feel more productive.)

A lot of times I have really high ambitions for my day. The night before my day off, I’ll make a list about what I would like to get done the next day. It almost always begins with waking up around the regular hours between 7 and 8, doing some yoga while laundry runs downstairs in the basement. Next I’ll make coffee and clean while listening to a podcast or the news so that I can stay up to date and current. Then I’ll sit down and crank out some writing. Maybe I’ll write a blog post, or perhaps I’ll work on that play idea I’ve been trying to explore. I’m also going to eat a freshly tossed quinoa salad at lunch with dried green tea. I’ll probably apply for some new jobs and maybe take a walk for fresh air. By evening, I’ll be ready to work on the crafts I’ve been thinking about: learning to knit, making my own cards, sketching out new pottery ideas. Then I’ll surprise my boyfriend with a homemade vegetarian lasagna for dinner and go to bed early.

None of these things will happen, but I feel more productive after just writing it down! Lists make us think about all the things we need to do or get or be. Isn’t thinking where productivity starts?!

2. Instead of watching TV in bed, watch TV standing up:

If I say it is, therefore it is. In college I wrote a lot of poetry and creative nonfiction about how much I smoked, how little I valued marriage, how things fall apart, and how artists portrayed isolation in urban environments. Those were my themes. In college I smoked a lot, visited a lot of art openings and music gigs, babysat a couple munchkins on campus, and was always holding a cup of coffee. One of my trusted professors--who once called two of my other favorite professors into her office to brainstorm about my writing, who would whip up a fresh French press at my arrival--called me “a true artist” in the way I lived my life. To another professor that I sometimes had coffee with, not to me, obviously. A compliment to the extreme, I thought, a person that knows me and really gets me. Cogito ergo sum. Only: She think I’m an artist, therefore I am.

I used to believe it was a way of life. Art. Living artfully. Observing closely, pulling away from the mundane the most extravagant of details and backstories. Dabbling in paint, or charcoal, or clay, or the theatre, or guitar, or sewing. She who does is! I could justify my quiet and my solitude by living in this idea that I was built like those who inspired me. But a degree, a job, families, and laziness interrupt dreams. Then again, dreams are cut short by overreaching, insufficient talent, and our goddamn heads. If we don’t do, then we aren’t.

But if an artist posts a new piece to Facebook and gets zero likes, does the art make a sound (or a difference, or a meaning, or whatever)? Picasso, Vonnegut, Oscar Wilde and all sorts of infamous artists are quoted defending the importance and necessity of art to our souls. Quotations once absorbed into my character have become questions of their own. We recognize art for its beauty; we talk about what it portrays. Then we go and call it dark; we say art is emotive, that it must make us feel something to be art. Sometimes we simply make art an idea. It just is, even if it isn’t, we say. We’re entertained by the new and unclear. We’re bored by things of convention, even when done beautifully. Often, it seems, we separate art into two categories: what is controversial and what is appealing to the eye, yet we’d be scorned if we were to classify people into the same two categories: those that are pretty and those that cause trouble. Because, as everyone knows, even pretty things can stir up a storm.

In a world where half of you reading this probably have your own blog, where at least 75% of you have a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram to post your own statuses and computer-filtered photographs, and all of you have the ability of creating a blog or website or social media page to show off the work you could be doing, everyone has the ability to portray themselves as an artist. I’m having a hard time justifying, to myself, that I am a writer just because I post on this blog every so often. In fact, I’m having a hard time justifying that I am anything most days. In an ever expanding digital world we have the ability to consume whatever we want but we keep on wanting to be everything without doing anything. 




*to me

I wrote down some goals back at the end of December, too. Before I start preaching, I’ll even share the list with you for all judgy purposes. 

1. write at least one blog, story, or short piece at least once/week (NO)
2. find better ways to make more money (NO, although I have stopped declining easy ways to make more money)
3. quit smoking (NOPE)
4. maintain and improve yoga practice (Look, I was doing pretty awesome and then I fucked up my toe just 3 days into 2015.)
5. only order out 3 times/month or less (Maybe?)
6. study ceramics/pottery (YAY!) (...That means Yes!)
7. go on vacation (Not yet.)
8. start running again (These goals are set to be spread out throughout the year, right?)

Two years ago, my resolutions were just two: make your bed every day and drink the coffee at work instead of buying it out each morning. These are the only New Year’s Resolutions that I’ve ever kept. Probably because they were small. Also, because they helped me build better habits. And they’re now my new model for setting goals. In fact, I think my goal for every year, or better every day, will officially be: do things that make you happier, smarter, and better. Work for progress.

How did a few pressed sheets and Folgers coffee make me happier, though? I know I don’t have a whole lot of support when it comes to making the bed. To some it might seem frivolous, a waste of time, or the worst of all, boring. I am not your mom and I will not make you make your bed, but it is how I start each day. It’s the official, “I’m awake and not going back to sleep,” status. It’s also the comforting invitation to crawl back in at the end of a (hopefully) productive day. Drinking coffee is also a (obviously) long-running morning routine. I’ve simply changed the way I do it. On work days, if I make it to school on time, I’m rewarded with free coffee. On my days off, I’m rewarded with the luxury of not putting on a bra if I put that old French press to work. Both goals have helped me wake up and face my day while saving money. Habits for progress.

Don’t get me wrong, the goals that I listed earlier all have the ability to make my life better. But I think sometimes where I go wrong is by looking too much at the distant future and setting too many restrictions upon myself. A better me (and a better you!) takes more then a flip of a switch to achieve. I’m working on it.

First, and most importantly, I’ve rediscovered things that make me feel at the same time happy, productive, and rewarded. This month, after considering enrolling in a ceramics class for several years, I’ve started throwing on the wheel. Centering be damned; I will make you a giant mug! I’m also remembering how therapeutic working long, fast-moving hours while building with my hands can be. 

Working with clay isn’t the only therapy I’ve been indulging in. There’s been more reading and less tv watching. I’m writing my own words down in my notebook rather than quotes spoken by someone more successful. It’s a bit like a renaissance of self, where I’m rediscovering some of the things that make me feel like me, the things that I’ve chosen to define myself by. And I’m finally working on them. Steps 1 and 2 of resolutions: identify what makes you feel good, then put your time into those things.

With only four more days to go until Christmas, I’ve locked myself in my apartment with my sick little body and super-sized bottle of NyQuil where I can safely avoid the swarm of holiday shoppers, sight-seeing “flockers,” and general jerks during this busy shopping weekend and, hopefully, recover from this cold in peace. I put in my hour at Trader Joe’s earlier, and after frogger-ing my way around the post-work crowd and discovering some Trader Schmo had bought up all the semisweet chocolate chips, I think I need to remind myself of my rules of retail shopping, especially applicable during this time of the year.

It’s quite simple, really: have some goddamn respect. This goes for the people waiting on you and the people waiting with you.

As a former retail associate/server/basic bitch at a handful of markets, bakeries and restaurants, I’ve wasted my time trying to help too many assholes. People often say that everyone should have to work in retail in order to better understand how to treat other people. This theory is part of our whole “treat others as you’d like to be treated” mantra. I’m sorry, but I don’t think you need to work as a cashier to know that throwing a handful of empty peanut shells at an employee is a shitty thing to do. Throw your own trash away, get off your phone, and* use your words. This means if you’re unhappy with a product, confused about a sign that said 50% OFF, or just not sure what you want, maybe you should ask. Politely. Because instantly yelling at someone who has little to no control over the situation, and who probably worked on Thanksgiving and probably has to work on Christmas Eve is mean. Don’t be a bully.

Respect your fellow shoppers by not pretending that the concept of a line is totally foreign to you! If a 2 year old knows how to line up, so can you. Respect your fellow shoppers by not ramming into them to get to something or somewhere faster. Seriously, dude at Trader Joe’s, I wasn’t going to grab the last 39 cans of sardines you shoved past me for. Respect your fellow shoppers by getting out of the way if you’re contemplating how many cinnamon scented candles you’ll need for the next week. The answer is one. You only need one candle.

How about we just steal the three rules of every museum and use them everywhere we shop? That means no running, no yelling, and no touching.

If you don’t know someone, don’t touch them. Don’t push them. Don’t ask to hold their baby or touch their fur jacket, ‘cause that’s weird. Don’t yell at someone because they got the last Queen Elsa doll and don’t yell at your kid for wanting to be anywhere but shopping with you (who could blame them?). Don’t run into me and we’ll be cool.

Finally, to go above and beyond all you have to do is say thank you! But don’t fucking smile unless you really mean it, because we’ve already got enough fake commercial bullshit this time of year as it is. 



*Preschool Teacher Alert

The way it works is simple. 

Step 1: Buy someone--anyone--a shot of hard liquor. My drink of choice is tequila, because it always is, and because tequila shots are a whole fun process in themselves. 
Step 2: Raise your glass and propose the cheesiest toast you can think of. 
Step 3: Drink.
Step 4: Repeat as desired.

You might be wondering why is this perfect for the holidays. Simple! This is that time of year where you’re going to be expected to go out: holiday work parties, family dinners, cookie exchanges, parties in one of your high school friend’s parent’s basement, and the dreaded New Year’s Eve. A lot of these events are going to be dull. But not if you engage in some good cheerful imbibing! 

Oh, you’re also probably going to be expected to start exchanging gifts with some folks, right? Fear not, friends! #cheesycheers are the perfect gift! You buy the shot! You cheers some cheesy words of praise to your buddy! If you’re feeling really ambitious, get someone else to snap a picture of you pre-/post-shot and let’s get this hashtag moving up the ranks online. Wahlah! Cheap and sweet in a snap. Don’t be afraid of seeming like the broke friend (If you’re cheer(s)ing, you know you’re the broke friend!) The greatest gifts aren’t the ones we can literally wrap our fingers around. But presents that you can wrap your stomach around rarely go to waste. Here’s to Christmas trees, sugar cookies, and home is where the heart is! Don’t spend this holiday season sober.

Apologies for the disappearing act, you probably robotic visitors you, but it’s happening again. The plague of my West Philadelphia residency has spread. No, I’m not talking about anarchist vegans on the prowl. No, it’s not bearded guitarists crooning from the front porch. No, I’m not even thinking about Omar, the neighborhood court jester. Please, I can brush those all off my shoulder without even breaking into a sweat. It’s those masked critters that are hunting me down--the kind that won’t back off in a draw. Their intimidation factor is at an all-time high, and as I see it, their only goal is to have me peeing my pants.


There’s no specific name for what we’re about to talk about today. There are at least five different big words to describe you if you’re afraid of cats: you have elurophobia, felinophobia, ailurophobia, galeophobia, or gatophobia. Take your pick. Maybe I could say I have agrizoophobia, the fear of wild animals. Maybe better, I’m lyssophobic. You know, afraid of rabies or of becoming mad. But really, I’m already mad and this is strictly about my (not so) irrational fear of raccoons.

Just look at those guys. People make stuffed animals that are fluffy and soft, comforting toys for a child to fall asleep cuddling. Calendar images with their lunar eyes gazing out into the evening sky, climbing trees, and nibbling on scavenged grub. Raccoons are portrayed as cute, cuddly critters and embraced as a symbol of curiosity and exploration. Those aren’t the bandits I know.