Tag: healthy

The One Where Jac Takes On Too Much

Nashville. What can I say? It was hot. Really hot.

But I enjoyed seeing the Nashville Renaissance Faire. It was so much like the Oregon Country Fair and FaerieWorlds that I wasn’t shocked but I did get to see a dude launched off his horse in a jousting match. So that’s cool.

Downtown was like Times Square for Bachelorette parties. Kid Rock-style. Naturally, I was in and out in under 20 minutes. Seen it, got it, check, bye.

The magic of the Opryland Hotel

Cousin Elias took me to Opryland Hotel which was probably my favorite part of it all. It was the Wonka Factory and Jurassic Park mixed together. Beautiful plants and a stream with a boat you can ride. It was beautiful. You’ll get more when I eventually go back and stay there.

Back in New York now and I went and saw Gary on Broadway. Which is HUGE considering our Lord and Savior Nathan Lane plays the title role. He was amazing, the cast was amazing, the show was wild. 3 people, no set changes and a hysterical hour and half. Lots of dicks. Like, a lot. Maybe 30 dicks with an equal amount of dick jokes. Maybe don’t bring the kids. The set is literally just a pile of corpses. One of them pees in Nathan Lane’s mouth. So.

Follow me on JACLAND to see more of my daily adventures. I’ll be posting things like the shows and my explorations there from now on unless a juicy story is involved.

Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The more I get into my past desires, the more they pile up in the Now. As mentioned before I’ll be moving to SF for a month come mid-June to go hard on AIDS Walk San Francisco. So, in an effort to actually honor Lil Jaci’s cast-aside interests I’m going to slow down to make sure I’m not skimming over projects I’ve been skimming over my whole life.

For now that doesn’t mean anything other than I’ll focus on the projects I’m working on before I take any new ones on. If you have a problem with that take it up with management.

I’ll also be posting more to the Insta account, so be sure to follow me there. This is all really to alleviate these long-ass blogs posts.

Slowing down also allows me to explore the things I’m already doing. For example, I’m in the early-earlys of throwing my bad cooking into Insta video content. I’ll be doing short videos for Instagram to catalogue just how bad it gets when I cook. I’ll need victims, ahem, I mean friends to come test my cooking for each video so if you want to come to my crypt I’ll 50/50 feed or poison you for free.

Party.

So another big… BIG project mostly unrelated to JACLAND but also will come up is my trip to Europe.

The details are that I have a one way ticket to Barcelona on November 24th and have planned to be at it for a year. I should said “planned” for a year. Cause coming up with different identities I want to assume for each country isn’t substantial planning. But it’s important.

Imagine me next to each little blue dot. Hi.

I did acid, as one does, and had an epiphany that I HAD to go to Europe for a year. What’s more ridiculous, is that I’ve been planning it, saving and researching for six months and will 100% be following through on a drug trip vision.

I know. Classic me. It’s actually alarming how incapable of not being me I am.

I have over 30 locations written on a list called “Go to Europe.” Some of them I can’t really remember why they’re on the list, and they’re kind of weird places (looking at you Gelterkinden). But I love being surprised (to anyone listening and wondering what to do for my birthday). Maybe I’ll fall in love with Gelterkinden.

How am I going to pull it off, you ask? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you have past itineraries, tips or friends that I could crash with/work for please help a psycho out. Also hey I’m a professional at asking for money now so what’s up, Europe for a year has gotta be expensive (Venmo @Jaclyn-MacDonald).

Moving along. I’ve got a lot to cover here.

Health. Woof. Not only did I not even attempt to start eating healthy last week, I went hard on Auntie Maryanne’s homemade mac and cheese, with the added cream cheese factor (omg my mouth started watering when I wrote that).

With my Uncle’s tragedy barely out of my center of focus, it’s time to face facts: MacDonald’s are fighting an uphill health battle. We’re all unhealthy as a foundation from which we build. And I’ve used abuse as the bricks. I drink too much, I eat too much, I rarely exercise and I feel it more now than ever the seriousness of taking care of one’s own health.

Dear Reader, that’s where you come in. I don’t know that I’d take myself seriously if I didn’t hold myself accountable publicly. I need your help. How does one take care of oneself? Where do I start?? Help me out, do it with me. Let’s start a health club where everyone’s just generally gloomy. Health doesn’t have to mean you turn into a protein powder meat head. You can still be a little black raincloud. I mean, if not, I’ll never get healthy. I don’t do anything high-key.

Ok. Talk to me this week. Health, Europe, Venmo. Follow JACLAND for all the doing and having fun which is bound to happen. I live in New York! It’s everywhere!

Wish me luck and don’t forget that being moody is cool.

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START RIGHT NOW

I don’t love flying. I don’t love it. But I made it to Nashville around 12:30am and will be out in the world in a few short hours. Today on the docket I’m going with Cousin Elias to a game campaign. Something like Dungeons & Dragons. Catch me last night and I didn’t care to do anything. Today, D&D-like games with my cousin’s friends is EXACTLY what I want to do. So don’t call me, I’m busy.

The AIDS Walk was wild. I’ve never really been around 15,000 people all in the same place before. There were moments where I felt humbled by all the amazing people I met and the willingness to help and work hard and go without complaining. There were times when I thought my body was failing and this is it, I’m going to die here covered in NYC dust surrounded by people who are “entitled to awards because I’ve walked for 30 years.” Honestly it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but straight up, I didn’t love it. There are too many people on this planet. There. I said it.

Once in a lifetime moment. Empty Central Park. Also 5:30am.

(Perfect placement for a PSA about populating the planet: HI, ALL CIS MEN. YOU CAN’T GET ABORTIONS SO WE DON’T ACTUALLY NEED YOUR HELP MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT IT. Wait in the car. We’ll call you in when weed laws come up).

A rumored 15,000 person photobomb (leave the headset alone. I was required to wear it)

But after two months of working (a lot) on this campaign, its finally over and I’m so satisfied I could sleep for 48 hours. I should sleep for 48 hours I’m still so tired. But that must wait. As I mentioned before, I was officially hired on for AIDS Walk SF, so starting Monday I’ll be working out of the NY office on the next campaign until mid-June when I move to SF through July to finish AWSF. Woop! Than back to NY and the unknown. I thrive in unstable conditions. I’m about to glow up.

Ok, I’ve been dreading this, but I may as well just get started. Lil Jaci, at least this specific version, was in her body image prime. She had yet to grow boobs, which is really the first time she noticed she even had a body. She was still short and scrawny but she knew of health. It’s been an ongoing conversation/issue in my family my whole life.

April 16, 2006 “Start eating healthier. Exersize START RIGHT NOW.” (Yeah, I was still figuring out how to spell exercise. That and ‘definitely’ threw me for a loop for years).

I write this in almost every journal from here on out. I actually get pretty mean to myself in the coming journals. Ah, growing up a woman. But that’s not yet. This Lil Jaci was young, spry, she just wanted to get a jump on things. She wanted to pave a way for the life of her dreams and knew that health was one of the factors that would always be in the “most important” category. She also had mono at this very moment.

All I remember is being at the Valley River Mall with Danny and Hannah and the friends when I first started to feel it. That night we went and saw Thursday at the Wow Hall and I felt like trash already. I wasn’t a big kisser those days, so I’m not actually sure how I got mono, but by the time we left the show, my throat was shredded.

I was sick for over eight weeks. I got everything that comes with having mono; laryngitis, pharyngitis, sinus infections, walking pneumonia. I was drinking, huffing, sniffing and swallowing drugs. This is the start of my infamously bad relationship with my immune system. For years to come (still today) getting sick for me typically means getting something you need a shot for (Hi Shingles. If you could just sit tight I’ll be right with you. Oh, and Shingles-The-Second-Time, can I get you a water while you wait?).

She wrote a list of how to get healthy. It’s actually pretty cute:

May 31st 2006:
“Help the process of getting better:
-vitamins
-orange juice
-Go to be[d] @ 9:30 (NO EXCEPTIONS)
-Eat 3 meals a day
-Don’t go anywhere big (doesn’t include getting (not staying at) coffee/bubble tea. Go to the store and get what you went for. If hanging out w/ppl, hang out at home)
-gargle w/salt water
-organics
-veggies
-naps, sleep
-if too tired don’t do it!
-stay clean”

I have so many comments we don’t have time for, but anyway, at one point she thought eating healthy and exercising was a good idea. So here we go.

I hate eating healthy. I love pizza and breads of all kinds, I love pastries, I love cake and pie. Most of you know my sick romance with donuts. I like ice cream, I like cheese. I’ve had stomach problems my whole life. Go figure. So I’m going to start by just determining what makes my body hurt, and cut it out. First thing’s first; no more donuts. I’ve been in an on-again-off-again relationship with donuts for years and it’s time for a clean break.

You only ever hurt me, Donuts. And yet I keep you around. Well, pack your shit and leave. We’re through.

As far as exercise goes, I hate that too. So I’ll start some weird routine and do it until I need an upgrade.

There. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll “START RIGHT NOW.” But I’m not happy, and I’m also too tired to take care of myself, so I won’t do it with a smile on my face.

If you have tips on how to get from exhausted, not sleeping well, always bloated and in pain, eating like a dumpster rat to healthy, please, keep them to yourself. Wait, I meant share them with me. Help me. You can even do it for me if you want.

Cause this girl:

2006

Had plans for this girl:

2019

And I’m willing (I suppose) and ready (ish) to take on this project.

The ‘Go, do and have fun’ Jac took a break to work 1000 hours for AIDS Walk, but she’s back and she’s in Nashville, so follow me on the JACLAND insta to see Cousin Elias, me, and my Memorial Day weekend in rock and roll (and D&D) country.

Wish me luck this week and how do I use a gym?

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