my life with jackie, a pause/warped love letter(?) [life-writing, 1]

i would like to pause.

(2013)

because things have happened so slow and then so quick– slowly careening is how i’ve characterized it– and the book sold but there was no paperwork and it seemed like things were happening and there were public announcements shared publicly, but mostly i spent the last month wanting to feel excitement and waiting for everything to fall apart.

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the pathos of jackie kennedy dolls on etsy, vol. 4, no. 1

this is a thing we historically have done so i’mma just dive right on in.

if you’re like DOCTOR ONLINE WUT EVEN IS THIS, i refer you to my rich seam of informal, doctoral-level scholarship on emotions and dolls: HERE.

ya’ll.

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my life with jackie, redux; or, on melancholy

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it is like a nesting doll, all of it. my life with jackie, my writing about jackie. so that when i read the pages i have written about jackie, the whole book i have written on her life, it unpacks a whole series of memories of my own.

where i was when i wrote that sentence.

who i was sitting next to at the british library when i found that quote. (invariably, always, obviously, nanette.)

what i didn’t know was about to happen when i was in that archive.

the feeling of the wind in my hair and the blue blue sky above as i walked home after wandering round the yacht.

it is her life and it is mine.

they are, by this point, so braided up. Continue reading

a brief word on this portrayal of duchess kate’s white fragility

whew, PEOPLE. if ever there was a day built for rage?! and it is not yet noon US EST!

between the horrifying story of a police officer murdering an unnamed Black man in minneapolis, the video of amy cooper calling the police on a birder who asked her to leash her dog, the president of notre dame’s op-ed in the times about the risks we must all sustain for the education of students (ie. the continuation of american football), AND the president of purdue’s op-ed in the post about moral responsibility of reopening in the fall (ie. capitalism and the continuation of american football), i would like to go back to bed and spend the day reading my trashy novel about a kept woman falling madly in love a rake with waterloo PTSD while teaching him how to cheat at vingt-et-un in regency england.

ALAS, NO. i cannot do that, because today is also the day that the daily mail posted this nonsense.

which, if we’re in some sort of white supremacy/white fragility/white tears carnival time– and that does increasingly seem to be what was meant by “reopening”– hardly ranks supreme. but it is nonetheless, stupidly consistent with this broader alignment of the racist stars and worth a gander, especially due to the subtlety of the pandering and the broader agenda of thumbs up-ing white femininity. (please, lawd, this is not the gemini season i wanted.) Continue reading

the pathos of jackie kennedy dolls on etsy, vol. 3, no. 2

yup. ’tis time. saddle up.

as you know, this ain’t our first rodeo. we’ve peered deep into the hell hole of jackie kennedy doll photographs on etsy multiple times before.

somehow, amid 15 moves and 14 jobs and myriad other responsibilities, over the last five years, i have produced a rich seam of informal, doctoral-level scholarship on dolls. you are welcome.

#thingsforwhichtherearenonationalappreciationdays

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on jessica simpsons’s memoir

i am giving myself exactly one hour and thirty-eight minutes in which to write about this. because there are 19 papers that need to be graded and i’m leaving for an estate sale with a friend at 9:45, but there are things i gots to say.

THE JESSICA SIMPSON MEMOIR IS AMAZING. Continue reading

the pathos of jackie kennedy dolls on etsy, 3.0

people! the end of the year– nay, THE DECADE– is nigh. you know what that means… lots o lists, lots o recaps, blahbity blah blah.

but here, in jackie glamo-land, by now you maybe know it means the return of everyone’s second favorite genre (behind emotions via britney): oline trekks deep into the world of jackie dolls on etsy in order to assess our existential situation and, maybe just maybe– amid the doll feet and the uncanny– finds a glimmer of hope.

BRACE. and you’re welcome.

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short thoughts on aunt becky and the unscrupulous people

yo. by popular demand/literally one reader’s personal request, i am here to talk about varsity blues.

no. not the james van der beek classic. dry your eyes.

nope. i’m here to talk about the modern day movie of the week starring the dowager queen of the hallmark channel, aunt becky.

ie. lori loughlin. Continue reading

my life with jackie

it is like a nesting doll, my life with jackie. a series of anniversaries, each now saturated in its own memories.

because when you write about someone else, you are ultimately writing about yourself.

when you write about someone for twenty-five years, writing about that person is actually you living your life. Continue reading