A Daddy-Daughter Dance With Father Time

Do you need time?

We gettin’ philosophical with these prompts it seems. I’ll bite.

When I was little, I wanted nothing more than to be a grandma. I was really close to my maternal grandmother, from whom I got the name Joyce. To little kid-Jessa, she had the perfect life. She didn’t really have any responsibilities. My grandma never worked a day in her life, and she was passenger princess supreme since the day she first drove a car…immediately into a building. All she really needed to do was slather stuff in lard and cook it up, and aside from that, her life was all watching game shows and kicking back in her La-Z-Boy.

Now as a thirtysomething, I keep myself busy enough. I’ve got two jobs that tend to occupy a good deal of my time, an ever-growing polycule (I think I have like, a boyfriend now? Maybe two?!), and a band/collective of friends that has been hard at work cookin’ up creative projects galore.

But I want more.

For a while, it was hard to say what I wanted more of. I certainly need more money — my wife lost her job in a truly fucked up way I can’t really elaborate on at the moment, and we haven’t quite recovered since. A part of me wanted more fame, as I’ve longed to be a rock star ever since I first watched the Bon Jovi Crush tour VHS tape as a child. Maybe I wanted more things to love and care for — more cats, a dog, a bearded dragon, even human children of my own. I have a deep motherly instinct I’m slowly coming to terms with, after all. But I think the overarching theme of everything is that I need more time.

I’m 32 as of writing. I realize I’m a spring chicken compared to a lot of folks, but I’m also not in my prime anymore. I don’t have the stamina I used to at times. I get winded walking up the stairs, and I can’t belt like I’m Ann fucking Wilson the way I did in 2013, when I sang “Crazy On You” for American Idol and actually almost made it. I can’t imagine jumping around a stage headbanging like I did when I played in a shitty pop-punk band, and the thought of sleeping in that tiny ass tour van with my current 30-something spine is the stuff of nightmares. I used to swing dance like a motherfucker, too. I could do crazy ass aerials like these. If I tried doing any of those moves now, I’d snap my neck and die probably. I’m sure some of these things could be alleviated if I actually worked out like I’m supposed to, ate better, stretched, and found a way to intake a certain herb that is common and legal in the state of Michigan that doesn’t involve smoking it (edibles just don’t hit the same, man). But even if I ate the finest organic produce, did yoga at sunrise like clockwork, and smoked nothing more than brisket, I’d still have to contend with the fact that my health will decline someday. No one is young and healthy forever.

All this to say that I’m certainly feeling the weight of getting older. Or to put it frankly, I feel like I’m running out of time.

My main, cool job is hosting game shows for the music bingo and trivia junkies of the greater Kalamazoo area, but I moonlight as an overnight caregiver at a nursing home. It’s not the most glamorous job by any means, but it’s a decent enough living. It’s also not something I’m particularly good at — I’m notoriously shitty at my job compared to the other, less neurospicy caregivers who mostly have kids of their own to practice on. That being said, I do enjoy what I do most nights. It’s a pretty carefree job once all the residents are asleep.

But then you start thinking.

At a nursing home, you’re constantly surrounded by reminders that were running out of time. Memento mori, if you wanna get Latin with it. You find it every time you enter one of the residents’ rooms. Look around and you’ll be greeted by senior pics and wedding photos of a bygone era. It’s easy to forget that old people were once just young people like us, each with their own dreams for the future — and each now coming to terms with their own ending. The saddest part, in my opinion, are the dusty keyboard in Ms. E’s room or Ms. B’s largely untouched crocheting kit. This is a woman who, fifty years ago, built guitars for Gibson when the company was based in Kalamazoo. She could have built my old Epiphone at that factory for all I know. And now she can barely hold a crochet hook. The Other Ms. B was an avid swing dancer for years, and now she can’t even stand up independently, let alone do any of those crazy aerials from that video up there. A literal badass combat vet cries for help every night because he peed himself again. This isn’t the future I want for myself, and yet it’s the future we all get, barring a literal tragedy. You die young or watch yourself get old enough to lose sphincter control.

Truth be told, there are a lot of things in the future I’m not scared of, and I’m even excited for. The next generation of Pokémon is Gen 10, and the next Taylor Swift album is her lucky number 13, and while the most recent installments in their lengthy catalogues have been a little disappointing, I’m still hoping my favorites bring their A-game next time around. I’m excited to hopefully watch this political landscape crumble and rebuild into something better for everyone, not just the elites. I’m excited for my next slice of pizza, my next joint, my next song, my next stuffed animal, and my next kiss from one of my partners, but I’m not excited for everything that comes after, when it’s all over and I’m left alone with nothing but my anxieties. I’m really excited to have kids someday, but in a way it almost feels like game over. Like that’s the last big milestone. What comes after that? Menopause? Grandkids? Death? And what the fuck do I do when I can’t hold a guitar anymore?

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be this young again. I remember writing earlier this year, around the time of my birthday, about how all my heroes are getting older, and so am I. It’s a weird feeling, watching everyone grow and change, even as every day feels the same somehow. I’m scared of dying, but I’m also scared of getting older. There’s no winning. I guess I take solace in knowing even the great and powerful Stevie Nicks felt this way once, so I’ll let her sing this one out.

Why I Became My Cringy Childhood OC For Halloween

Meet Ann Valentÿne.

Like I said in the video, she was essentially a drag queen’s take on “Alone”-era Ann Wilson from Heart with a lot less clothing and more sequins, with a bit of a femme Jon Bon Jovi flavor for taste and a hint of a dark-haired Sophitia from the Soul Caliber video games. She was a rock star, but more than that, she was the 20th century incarnation of Aphrodite, and she was tasked with both saving the world and her little sister from an ancient evil. She had a hot beefy boyfriend, but in my stories, she’d always save herself. She was kind of a badass.

I’ve written about her before and how I recently unlocked memories about this character, who was a kind of escapism to middle school-me. She was definitely my attempt at creating a self-insert and was probably something of a Mary Sue if I’m honest, but I loved her. She made me feel powerful when I was a scared bullied little kid. And when I happened upon a certain leotard online that resembled the signature bodysuit I designed for her, I knew it was kismet. I needed some new stage clothes and a new persona for my music career, and I really needed a Halloween costume. Besides, I wasn’t quite sure how I could top Chappell Roan last year.

So I chose to lean into the cringe and live my childhood fantasy, because why not? The world is going to hell in a handbasket and who knows how many more Halloweens we’ll have before humanity inevitably blows up the planet. Why not add just a little bit of childlike whimsy to your world? People are so scared of cringe and looking uncool and it’s sapping all our creativity and fun. There’s a reason why popular music has been in kind of a lull lately. The Black Eyed Peas and OutKast could not have careers in our current zeitgeist. We’re too afraid of silliness.

The scariest part of the season is how many folks take themselves too seriously. I’m not afraid to admit I was a bit of a dork growing up, and I still am. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Embrace the cringe — be your childhood OC for Halloween.

Bullied by My Girl Scout Troop Leader (And Why It STILL Affects Me)

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

Once upon a time, I was wildly uncool.

I realize I wrote that as if I’m now like, the bastion of coolness or something. I don’t want to pretend I’m like, George Clinton levels of cool or anything.

Now *there’s* a Clinton I want for president.

But although I’m not cool enough to front legendary funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic, I’m significantly cooler than I was as a child, when I had to eat lunch in the library to avoid being pelted with ranch dressing packets. Bullying was a pretty constant factor in my pre-high school years. I went through it all — one guy punched me right in the gut, another in the face, two girls conspired to get me in trouble so I’d lose my class McDonalds trip (those bastards), and most of the kids I went to school with typically followed any utterance of my name with “sucks.” I managed to mitigate a lot of it by avoiding my classmates, but it’s not like I could avoid people forever, you know? I could count the number of friends I had on one hand, and for most of that period, I could count the number of friends I had on one finger. And she went to a different school!

Flash-forward to 2025, and while I’m not where I wanted to be professionally yet, for the most part, my life is looking pretty swell. I have a loving wife and a sweet girlfriend and now even a few casual male partners that may turn into something serious. I have a band — I’ve been in and out of bands for most of my adult life, actually — and the bonds I’ve formed through these projects have mostly changed my life for the better. And perhaps most importantly, I have friends. Like, a lot of them. And it’s awesome!

But sometimes, something will be dragged up out of my memory that puts me right back into the scared little kid mindset I had growing up.

Meet Mrs. Marsack.

She didn’t actually look like this, but it felt like the right image to use.

I think that’s how her last name was spelled. I kind of hope I spelled it wrong because I totally don’t intend to dox this lady. That being said, if anyone deserves awful things, it’s Mrs. Marsack. Because Mrs. Marsack broke my child heart worse than anyone my own age ever could.

When I was in elementary school, I was in Girl Scouts. I don’t wanna shit-talk Girl Scouts because it’s a pretty neat organization as a whole, and everyone knows the cookies go hard. I still grab myself a box of Samoas whenever I encounter a gaggle of entrepreneurial scouts in the wild. That being said, my experience was not all cookies and roses. That’s because I had Mrs. Marsack as a troop leader.

Mrs. Marsack had a daughter in the program. Her name was like, maybe Abigail or Emily or something. Anyways, she was one of the “cool kids.” Most of the girls in my troop were “cool” to an extent. But not me! I was the little weirdo autistic kid who stimmed by making bird sounds and who wouldn’t shut up about Bon Jovi to literally anyone who’d listen. So needless to say, I had a bad time.

Kids who liked *these* guys were doomed from the start.

But I really did enjoy the activities! So when a huge camping trip was announced, I was absolutely thrilled. I’d never been camping before, and we were about to do it all — swimming, hiking, horseback riding, canoeing, everything a little girl could imagine and more. I almost had my bags packed when Mrs. Marsack called my mom in to “chat.” That’s when she dropped the most devastating news.

All the girls were invited…except me.

Apparently I “wasn’t mature” enough to go on the trip. My mother knew it was a bullshit excuse. I was significantly more mature in all the ways that actually mattered. Mrs. Marsack just didn’t like me.

This is the degree of “fuck you in particular” we’re talking.

So I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. I think my mom had to pry the door open, I was that distraught. I’d always felt ostracised by my peers, but never to the extent that she’d made me feel. That rejection left a scar on my heart that never really healed if I’m entirely honest. Nothing will ever give me that experience back.

These days, I don’t often think about that time in my life. But every now and then, something will jostle that feeling out and I’m once again that scared, sad little kid on the inside. I think that’s why I’m so in touch with my inner child now, as an adult. I never had space to nurture that part of me away from the judgmental eyes of my peers and unsupportive adults like Mrs. Marsack. I think that’s also a small part of why I’m so outwardly outgoing in adulthood. I crave companionship the way a flower craves rain because I was so deprived of that community, that sisterhood. I need to be around people all the time.

It sucks because I had plenty of bullies in my peer group (looking at you, both other Jessica S.‘s in my class), but Mrs. Marsack was the first time an adult showed me not all grown-ups are my friend. I almost feel a little survivorship guilt because this trauma is relatively mild compared to the backstories of many of my friends. Most of their first betrayals by trusted adults were in their own families, and with much, much worse situations. But Mrs. Marsack still left a huge gash in my heart that I still contend with.

So if you’re reading this, let the message be this: be kind to the kids in your life. Especially the weird ones. You never know what kind of influence you might have on them. Don’t be some poor little girl’s Mrs. Marsack.

Farewell, St. Louis! A Look Back on Five Weeks in the “Show Me” State

Hello everybody! First things first — I’m alive and well. My socials have gone dark for the last few days for reasons that I can’t really get into at the time being, but just rest assured that I’ll be back posting your regularly scheduled unhinged shower thoughts and the occasional horny poem when the time is right. For this brief interim, I’ll be using this very blog to communicate my thoughts to the world.

And right now, those thoughts are kinda bittersweet. Because this is my final night in St. Louis, Missouri, a city that was previously unknown to me, but has since become something of a second home to me.

I remember when my boss first floated past me the idea of sending me via plane to train up some folks in a new region of the country. I should probably mention what I do for work before I go much further. I host game shows for local bars. I’m basically Alex Trebek for the drunken trivia enthusiasts of Kalamazoo. And occasionally, the parent company I work for sends me to new places to start up trivia and music bingo shows there. Like last autumn, I made a series of trips to Chicago. But even for those trips, I drove my own car. Getting shipped out to St. Louis was entirely new. The first few times, they flew me down, which was already a whole ordeal considering I was traveling with this thing in my suitcase:

The flights were mostly uneventful, although I found I enjoy killing time in airports a little too much. Did you know you can buy lipstick from airport vending machines?! I promised myself I wouldn’t waste money on anything stupid, but I did need a new dark red, since my old favorite was discontinued. As a result, I am now the proud owner of a Kylie Cosmetics lip kit. Well, as proud as I can be considering it’s got Kylie Jenner’s name on it, and she irks me to no end for a slew of petty reasons.

The hotel they put me up in for all five weeks was a humble Best Western, and honestly, I can’t complain at all. It’s not the Ritz, but it’s comfy. There’s waffles in the morning. Hotel waffles just hit harder, okay? And the front desk lady was a total dear. She came out to one of my shows, actually. I wish I could remember her name. If you’re reading this, Sweet Front Desk Lady, just know I appreciated you!

In fact, I met so many kind people in this town. The owners and bartenders of the first bar I hosted at, Brothers Beer and Bourbon, welcomed me with open arms, and I befriended many of the patrons as well, including a really cool silver-haired woman who loves green and listens to Sabrina Carpenter. We talked for a long time after the show last night, and that was really the first time it hit me that this is goodbye. The owner of the bar made me his special cocktail, the Hippie Mule, one last time to take back to the hotel with me. (It’s a nonalcoholic version of a Moscow mule that substitutes the vodka for THC liquor, so it’s perfect if you’re Cali sober like me!) I actually teared up a little as I sipped it. The trivia show I started there has begun to take off, and now my baby’s grown and ready to thrive on its own. It feels good, if a little somber.

The second bar, OSP Tap Haus, was also a lot fun to host at, even if they only had me for two nights. That bar has one of the best (and only) nonalcoholic porters I’ve ever had, Deschutes NA Black Butte, which I am going to proselytize to every bar in the greater Kalamazoo area until they start carrying it too. Music bingo there was a little more subdued than I’m used to — my main shows back home always get wild — but it was still a blast. I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to try any of the food there though.

That was just my shows, though. I took myself out on lots of field trips while I was down here as well. I figured I’d have way more fun exploring the city than sitting alone in my hotel room. I checked out the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which was packed with so much vibrant life. I really enjoyed the arid climate atrium, which housed a little oasis in the center that looked like it belonged in Marrakech, not the Midwest. The fountain made for a great impromptu photoshoot.

Definitely almost dropped my phone in the water for this shot. Worth it.

Here’s a sheep sculpture that was part of a series of sheep sculptures. The artist’s write-up said they intended the sheep to be used as benches and encouraged people to pose with them, which I thought was kind of neat.

And here’s some flowers:

The zoo was an enjoyable excursion as well. I managed to get real close to some hippos and a polar bear, and I spent literally a half hour watching an elephant play with her food. She keep picking up hay with her trunk and slamming it down, watching it flurry in the air. I also rode the carousel, because I literally do not give a flying fuck if I am well into my thirties now, I am holding fast to my sense of whimsy ‘til the day I die. Listen, do you want to be a stuffy adult who has no fun, or do you wanna ride an ostrich?

Blueberry Hill was the last thing on my list of stuff to check out here, and I made sure I swung by at least for a little bit tonight. I’d be remiss as a musician if I didn’t plan a trip to such an important and historic landmark in music history. Chuck Berry, a St. Louis native, performed there regularly, and he’s one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. It was certainly humbling to stand where he probably stood there at that bar. Sadly the stage wasn’t open for me to check out, but at least I got to take a look at some of the memorabilia scattered about. I wish I would have snapped a pic of one of Chuck’s famous gitfiddles that were sitting behind glass near the entrance.

As of writing, it’s almost 2:30 and I have to be up in two hours to catch my flight back to Michigan. I might not even sleep, to be honest. I kind of just want to sit up and let it all sink in. My heart is in Kalamazoo, but now I know I’ll always have a home in St. Louis. It’s funny — before I came here, I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the city. Like, I always assumed the “s” was silent (like in Louisville, Kentucky, where you will probably be crucified and subsequently fed to the local fauna if you articulate that “s”). I also never realized how vast and metropolitan it was. I’m a Midwesterner through and through, and while Midwest emo and Chappell Roan have done a decent job making us look cool in the media, we still have a reputation as “flyover country.” I’ve lived in this region my entire life and I’ve heard it again and again that Chicago and maybe Detroit are the only cities here worth visiting. This trip taught me that that’s simply untrue. There are so many hidden gems out there, and I’m blessed to have a job that allows me to go out and explore them at times. St. Louis has been so good to me, and I’m already plotting my next trip down here. I can’t not come back, even if it’s just for one more Hippie Mule.

Until we meet again, St. Louis!

Between Sorrow and Schadenfreude: A Progressive Christian’s Response to the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

I am so fucking sick of living through major world events.

If you’ve been on some remote retreat in the Himalayan wilderness and haven’t had access to literally any media anywhere, alt-right influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a college event in Utah. I saw the infamous video. It was pretty wild to witness. I’ll confess, a lot of emotions washed over me in that moment, some I’m not proud of. Did I feel a twinge of schadenfreude at the death of man who advocated for me to be put to death for being queer? I’ll admit, maybe a little. Did I feel a bit of relief that he can’t spew any more hateful rhetoric. Absolutely. Let’s get one thing straight — Charlie Kirk was not a good person. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to click that little link up there. He is not someone to idolize or even eulogize, the same way you wouldn’t write a sweet memorial piece for Scar.

“He was a loving uncle and fierce leader for his people.”

All of that being said, I want to make another thing clear: I consider myself a follower of Christ. I feel uneasy using the word “Christian” as of late because of how horrifically perverted American Christianity has become, but my theological beliefs line up most readily with Jesus’s teachings. The real Jesus, not the evangelical one. You know, the wildly subversive pacifistic brown-skinned Palestinian Jewish man who repeatedly preached against tyranny and the wealthy? I’ve always been fascinated by His life and ways, and while some of my personal theology contradicts the established dogma of most denominations, I consider Him to be my spiritual guide and savior.

And that’s what’s making this hard for me. The part of me that’s human wants to dance on the dude’s grave. Yet the part of me that has been redeemed by Christ, that divine inner voice, wants to honor the fact that he was still a person, and he was a child of God too.

Two things can be true at once. Charlie Kirk can be a truly despicable person and the world can be better off without him, and we can also mourn the fact that humanity has devolved to this point. We can mourn the humanity in him, the part he willingly killed in himself years ago for the sake of extremist politics. We can mourn for his kids, who didn’t ask to have him as a father and now have a disturbing core memory to contend with. We can mourn for our trans brothers and sisters, who will inevitably be scapegoated for this. And we can mourn the fact that we’re heading to a very dark place if something doesn’t change quick.

I recently read a post that said that the true test of a Christian isn’t whether or not they love Jesus. It’s whether or not they love Judas. Jesus is easy to love. Judas is much more challenging. And in a lot of ways, Charlie is my Judas. He is proving very, very difficult to show compassion toward. The man got what he had coming to him. To paraphrase the Good Book itself, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. But there’s another relevant verse:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

Matthew 5:43-44

We can’t fall into senseless hate. That’s what Charlie would have wanted. The best way to “honor” his memory is to fight back against everything he stood for, including violence and hatred. This isn’t to say there’s never a time when violence is the answer — we had to kill a lot of Nazis in the 1940s to ultimately save a lot of innocent folks, and even Martin Luther King, Jr. understood why folks lash out violently at times — but we also can’t become desensitized to this shit. This can’t be our new normal.

I’ve been worried about the state of the world all day, and I’m praying this won’t be a Franz Ferdinand situation and WWIII doesn’t spring from it. But I’m scared it’s too late. People have become so brainwashed already. I called out my first boyfriend on Facebook for waxing poetic about the man as if he were a saint, and he responded with some of the most vile, vitriolic, hurtful bullshit I’ve ever had directed at me. It was bizarre. He was such a sweet kid, but it goes to show you how effective these conservative influencers are in manipulating young men. We’re dealing with a lot of propaganda and disturbing messaging in the media.

My heart hurts for the state of the world and for the future. I always dreamed I’d become a rock star and have children and live to be a little old lady like the ones I work with. I don’t want to go to war. I’m a lover, not a fighter. This isn’t the future I want for me, and I hope it’s not the future you want either. I sincerely hope with every fiber of my being that we can turn this around. In the words of the late great Ozzy, maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

Maybe the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Peace had more in common than you’d think.

All I know is I can’t handle much more of this. I was simply not made for times like these.

3 Going On 30: The Loss of Childhood in the Media

I got into a fight with a guy on social media this morning.

Well, it was more “me picking on a prude on a Sabrina Carpenter post.” They make it very easy to do on Sabrina Carpenter posts because whenever there’s a post about Sabrina Carpenter, the prudes love to get on their high horses about how they would never stoop to taking off their pants to sell records.

As if anyone would pay to see *your* hairy gams, *Greg.*

Of course, I said something inane about pants being a crutch anyways and how nobody should wear pants, because I love creating awkward moments for folks who comment slut-shamey things about girls’ bodies. Then, the guy I was talking to said something that I’ve heard many, many times before. The classic line. You know the one.

Think of the children!

As if that’s a valid argument when the artist in question is a few short years from thirty and has no interest in making music for children anymore. God forbid a grown woman make songs about things that interest grown women instead of pandering to the same base she had as a 14-year-old. I’d be losing my shit if I had to essentially stay artistically 14 forever. Maybe, I argued, parents need to be parents and monitor what their kids are listening to.

But, I realized, you can’t just say “Well, put on something else for your kids!” and not have a dang clue what that alternative even is.

All this to say that children’s programming is pretty abysmal as of late. We don’t have “cool” adults like Bill Nye, Steve Irwin, or LeVar Burton teaching our kids basic subjects anymore, save for like, Ms. Rachel maybe. Nobody even knows the main players in children’s entertainment anymore. I make a living as a trivia host and a few nights ago, a question was asked about Cocomelon, one of the top three YouTube channels by subscriber count and the premier platform for videos for kids. Nobody got it right. And by the way, how did Disney’s latest movie do?

I might not be the most qualified person to write this blog post. I’m not a parent, at least not yet. But I plan to start looking into avenues into motherhood in the next few years, and I want my future kids to have entertainment that actually allows them a childhood. I love Sabrina Carpenter, but I’m not letting them listen to her until they’re able to comprehend that “House Tour” (my new favorite song of hers, by the way) is not literally about showing off your new home.

“And I promise none of this is a metaphor.”

They say to be the change you want to see in the world, and I have a feeling that when I do pop out a baby of my own, I’ll likely try my hand at creating children’s music myself. I’ve toyed with the idea already, but I feel out of my element trying to make content for kids when I don’t really have a child of my own yet. Still, I know when Cadence is here, I need to make sure she has music to enjoy without me worrying she’ll pick up impolite language. Because if she’s anything like I was when I was little, that girl is gonna have some echolalia going on.

The world is a fast-moving place and kids are growing up quicker in a lot of ways. We need to make sure the next generation is getting positive messages. It’s not just about keeping kids from seeing or hearing about sex and violence, but also about encouraging the good stuff. That’s why the recent cuts to funding for PBS are so disheartening. I’m cynical enough to believe the shift is deliberate. Kids are more useful to corporate interests when they’re essentially little adults buying products. Look at the trend of literal children buying anti-aging skincare and showing it off on TikTok. You can’t convince me Big Cosmetics isn’t partly to blame. But at the end of the day, everything rests on dear old mom and dad.

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s questionable parenting choices.

It breaks my heart to think that kids these days don’t have the same kind of warm, wholesome childhood I had. We’ve abandoned car rides with Barney cassette tapes for iPads loaded with click bait and rage bait. And that, my friends, is no way to grow up.

Holiness, Hustle Culture, and Why We All Need a Break

I’m coming to a terrible realization. I need to sleep.

Yes, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I can’t keep going at the rate I’m going unless I want to end up in the hospital — or worse. This realization comes on the heels of me being asked to work five nights in a row, including one 12-hour shift. I’m thankfully on the last of those shifts as I write this, but I’m already panicking about the fact that my other job is sending me out of state tomorrow morning and I still haven’t packed a damn thing and oh God, the plane boards at 10 and the airport’s over an hour drive from my apartment and…

It’s a lot.

I’ve also been trying to get back in touch with my spirituality to an extent, since I probably need to lean on a Higher Power to get me through all of this. I’ve gotten back into the habit of reading my Bible, and I figured I’d start with Ecclesiastes, my favorite book of ancient emo poetry. It was written literal millennia ago by one of the most powerful men to ever walk this planet, King Solomon. It would be like if Elon Musk had a single creative or introspective bone in his body. These writings come from a place of having had it all in life. But in the words of acclaimed Canadian indie band Metric, all the gold and the guns and the girls couldn’t get him off.

And so, he wrote about how futile it all is. At one point, he writes:

“There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless— a miserable business!”

-Ecclesiastes‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭(NIV‬‬)
‭‭

There it is. Like a flashing neon sign from God Himself, the problem I’m facing right now. The problem I think most of us are facing, to be honest. We’re so deep in hustle culture, we forget we need to take a break sometimes.

We got ourselves into this mess because of religion — think the Protestant work ethic that permeates American culture — but I don’t think this is the life God really wants for us. We weren’t meant to be working these grueling long hours away from our loved ones. Even experts are saying these long work weeks aren’t normal or healthy. We’re expected to break our backs at work, then come home to work on whatever side hustle you can hobble together out of your interests. Where’s the time for connection with friends and family? Where’s the time for working on a creative project to fill your soul, not your pockets? Where’s the time for rest?

Here’s the part of the blog post where I tell you my secrets to getting out of that awful work cycle!

Except if I’m honest, I haven’t gotten that far myself yet.

But I know this system isn’t cutting it for us. No one is happy like this, as much as we try to tell ourselves otherwise. Working ourselves this hard is simply not sustainable. Going back to the Good Book, even God Himself needs a break once in a while. Genesis 2:2-3 says “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” That’s why we’re supposed to take a whole day, once a week, to just rest. It’s okay to do absolutely nothing. It’s healthy — holy, even — to do absolutely nothing. Some especially pious Jewish folks don’t even believe in ripping off pieces of toilet paper on the Sabbath, as that’s dangerously close to doing a thing.

So here’s my advice, and I’m going to do my best to take it as well. Carve out some time every week for just you. It doesn’t have to be a whole day, but make sure you allot at least half a day. You deserve it. And whatever you choose to do during that time, don’t judge yourself for it. If all you’re doing is watching Netflix, that’s not wasted time. You’re refilling your soul the best way you know how.

It’s a sad fallacy that our culture perpetuates, the idea that we need to be productive at all times to be successful. There’s more to life than being productive, and we are more than just what we contribute to society. We have inherent value as human beings. I hope we can get back to a place where we can embrace that.

Because let me tell you, hustle culture sucks.

How Ephemeral Love Becomes Eternal Through Music

Brace yourselves, kids. In this post, I mention both Heart and Taylor Swift.

A few days ago, Heart’s original manager, Michael Fisher, passed away. Actually, calling him just their manager is kind of an understatement. In the autobiography of Heart frontwomen Ann and Nancy Wilson, Kicking & Dreaming, Ann tells the story of how Michael was her first love. Their whirlwind relationship inspired one of the band’s earliest and most iconic songs, “Magic Man.”

Why do I mention this? Obviously, Ann and Michael didn’t work out. Michael ended up marrying someone else and having like eleven freakin’ kids, and Ann went on to become a rock star. But their stories are forever intertwined because of that one song. And that’s what this post is about, because when you write a song for someone — or create any art in their honor — you’re preserving a piece of that relationship forever.

I’m a lifelong songwriter. I’m also fascinated by interpersonal dynamics. If you took every song I’ve ever written throughout my life, they would tell countless stories of people who have come and gone and somehow left a mark on me. The songs almost act as containers for the emotions left behind by those old relationships. Each song is a museum of memories. That’s why I have this theory when it comes to songwriting. Well, maybe it’s more of a maxim than a theory. And the maxim is this: If you get even one beautiful creation out of a relationship, it was not a waste of time.

People enter into relationships usually expecting — or at least hoping — to spend forever with someone. The point of dating is to find “your person” (or people, if you’re polyamorous like myself). So when relationships go south, it’s easy to write off the entire experience as meaningless. That’s where art comes in, though. With the magic of creativity, even the shortest-lived tryst can be fuel for a song or a film or a poem or painting.

Taylor Swift is a songwriter I admire deeply, and she’s a great example of this maxim in action. People have given her so much shit throughout the years for writing about her relationships, but honestly, that’s one of the things I like about her writing style. Not because I’m one of those parasocial weirdos who obsess over her dating history, but because that’s how I write songs too. I write about people. She has had many exes, as have I, but I feel like that’s what makes us better at writing. We have these lived experiences we can churn into music, and nothing can take that away from us. Like, she’s not with Taylor Lautner anymore and she hasn’t been with him for over a decade. But “Back to December” is still a beautiful song all these years later, and a song that millions of people still listen to and relate to.

I think of my own songwriting similarly. I think back to Jacob, whom I had a short-lived fling with my freshman year of college that led to the writing of “Smiles & Anchors” and “Tsvi.” I think about Dylan, my high school crush, who inspired “Off the Deep End” and the unreleased track “Outta My System” off my upcoming album Lore. There’s TJ, the muse behind “Song of the Sea,” and Phil, who never reciprocated my feelings but nonetheless influenced the writing of “Oceanography.” There are even songs I’ve squeezed out my non-romantic relationships and the ones that really went south, like the falling out with a former bandmate that led to the writing of “Ladies Don’t Start Fights (But They Can Finish Them).” I can find closure for relationships I wasn’t ready to leave just yet, and peace in relationships I’m happy are over, all because I’ve been able to transmute the pain into something I’m proud of.

I know I write about songwriting pretty frequently, but it is something I’m deeply passionate about. It’s what has gotten me through many breakups and heartaches and unrequited loves. But none of those situations were in vain, all because I could make something beautiful out of them. Relationships — romantic and otherwise — are the backbone of songwriting. We write about human beings and the way they relate to each other. Maybe those relationships don’t last forever, and sometimes, they shouldn’t last forever. Michael Fisher may have been absolutely miserable had he ended up with Ann Wilson, and vice versa, but the love they shared briefly inspired music that people will treasure for generations to come. And to me, that’s the beauty of songwriting.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

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Something to Believe In: What Bon Jovi Taught Me About Deconstruction and Faith

Not so secret confession: Bon Jovi is my favorite band.

Well, I don’t know about absolute favorite. That honor probably goes to Heart at the moment, who I also seldom shut up about. But Bon Jovi my “comfort band” for sure, a nostalgic auditory bowl of chicken noodle soup when I feel most torn up about adult life. They were my childhood obsession, and if there was a “Jessa Don’t Talk About Bon Jovi For One Day” Challenge, I’d lose almost immediately. Richie Sambora is half the reason I play guitar (the other half being the fact that one-on-one guitar lessons were the only activity my then-undiagnosed ADHD ass couldn’t get kicked out of).

Yet despite my immense love of Bon Jovi as a youngin’, there was one single song that was always a “skip” for me. That song? “Something to Believe In,” a track from their wildly underrated 1995 flop, These Days, an album that, to Adult Jessa, has absolutely zero skips because it’s just that good.

Behold, Bon Jovi’s weird moody grunge phase that actually goes *hard.*

It certainly didn’t help the song’s case to be a power ballad, as that was an art form that would take me a few more years to properly appreciate. But the lyrics were what gave me the most pause, as a good little church girl. The opening lines say it all:

I lost all faith in my God

In His religion too

I told the angels they can sing their songs to someone new

Yeah, you can kinda see why this song gave me pause. It makes me think of my first time going to youth group, right in the middle of this huge campaign to gather up “ungodly” albums and other media for a huge bonfire. I was too attached to my beloved Bon Jovi collection to send it to the flames just yet, but it did make me rethink what I was listening to. And I could not, as a good little church girl, listen to something that so blatantly questioned God.

I struggled with this feeling for a long time, every time I put on the full album and heard the opening drum beat begin. I wanted to love the song — something drew me to it, despite everything — but the song seemed so anti-Christian and blasphemous.

I never appreciated it for what it was — a song about deconstruction.

In exvangelical circles, deconstruction is the process in which you begin to question and unpack the beliefs the evangelical church instilled in you. Now, Bon Jovi is not from an evangelical background. In fact, much of the band was raised Catholic to the best of my knowledge, with frontman Jon admitting to being a “recovering Catholic.” But I feel the exvangelical experience and the lapsed Catholic experience are very similar in many ways.

In re-listening to “Something to Believe In” as an adult, I realized one of my lifelong musical heroes had the same wrestlings with God that I was having. It was very similar to the feeling I got when I first re-listened to “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night” as an adult and realized Jon may have had the same mental health struggles as me, even worse at times. It really humanized this guy I’d viewed as a god growing up. Like, I used to play make-believe that I was Jon Bon Jovi as a little kid, and here I was having this entire revelation that he’s literally just a human being like me.

With his own struggles.

And his own dark, depressive thoughts.

And his own religious trauma.

That’s what “Something to Believe In” started to represent to me, that funnelling of religious trauma into something beautiful. After all, it is not a sin to have religious trauma, nor is it even a sin to have questions at times. In 1 Thessalonians 5:21, we are told to test everything and hold to what is true. That seems like a pretty big green light to, ya know, have questions.

The evangelical church discourages deconstruction as it can lead to the person believing in another faith, atheism, agnosticism, or perhaps scariest of all, a less oppressive, more affirming form of Christianity. That’s where I ended up falling in the end, but it wasn’t an easy road. There were definitely parts of my life where I felt exactly like how Jon describes himself feeling in the song. Sometimes, you have to reach that nadir in your relationship with God before you truly begin to unpack the toxic things the church has taught you in His name.

Listening to the song now is a reminder of where I’ve been in my spiritual journey. It’s a reminder that this feeling is universal and I’m not alone in this struggle. And most importantly, it’s a reminder that deconstruction can be beautiful.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

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The Librarian’s Daughter: A Look Back

It’s been half a year since the release of my double EP, The Librarian’s Daughter.

These EPs were a unique endeavor for me because they started life as Christmas presents for my partners. The Sun version was dedicated to my wife Crass and filled with songs inspired by her, and the Stars version was written and recorded in honor of my girlfriend, Olivia. I always describe my form of polyamory to folks like that — Crass is my sun, and Olivia is my stars, and I love them both in different but equal ways. Although this project began as a private gift, I almost immediately realized the rest of the world needed to hear these songs too. So I quickly but carefully put together what would become the full project, and the rest is history.

The title was chosen because of my partners’ shared backgrounds as daughters of librarians, with Crass’s mother having served as head honcho of her public library and Olivia’s father having worked his entire life in service of his city’s library. I thought it was a whimsical, memorable title that fit the theme of the EPs. I wanted a title that made people wonder — who is the librarian’s daughter? The album art was inspired by tarot and designed by me. I really liked the pretty gold and jewel tones I chose for both versions of the album as well as the “compilation” playlist.

This album was recorded over several weeks in the summer of 2024, primarily in the town of Niles, Michigan, in a small Airbnb my wife and I rented after the fallout of my failed internship. I knew that if I wanted to get this thing finished, it was going to have to be produced quite a bit ahead of schedule. At the time, we were in the process of regrouping and trying to find a place in Kalamazoo, so I wasn’t sure how much energy I’d have to work on it when it was actually the holiday season. So I labored many hours in the steamy living room of that place and set up my entire mobile studio to capture what I wanted.

Since the release of the EPs, not a lot has changed — yet it has. I didn’t do much promo on the album because I was pretty exhausted by the time it came out, and I felt like the people who needed to hear the music the most got to hear it. It wasn’t a breakthrough album. And yet in a way, it was. Barring the Oceanography EP, I’ve never had an album or EP release. Releasing The Librarian’s Daughter showed me I was still capable of doing amazing things in music after what felt like my entire career crashed down in the wake of the internship. It gave me renewed sense of hope.

So if you haven’t heard these songs, here’s a little track-by-track breakdown of everything that’s on the EPs.

“One Way Train”

This song began life as one I actually wrote years ago about an ex, but I didn’t really have any connection to him or the lyrics anymore, so I completely rewrote the words from scratch to be about my wife instead. The title changed between “Wishing Well” (from the opening lyrics, “Made it down the wishing well”) and “One Way Train” more times than I can remember, but everyone seemed to like “One Way Train” best when I asked them. The colors mentioned in the second verse refer to our favorite colors as well as the color of a map, which almost aludes back to “I Can See the Rest of Our Lives From Here,” an unreleased Wake Up Jamie track with the lines “Throw a dart at the map and let’s take flight.” I also threw in a kazoo solo because I thought it would make my wife laugh. (It did.)

“Taco Bell”

Musically, I wrote this song as a challenge to see how many times I could change the key without it getting weird. (I call it the “I Walk the Line” gambit.) Lyrically, it’s a testament to mine and my wife’s strange, unique, beautiful dynamic. We’ve never been romantic in the traditional sense of the word. Our idea of intimacy is eating Taco Bell and watching bad movies together, and I honestly prefer that for us! I mention how she hated me at first, which is not a lie, and in the bridge, I actually sneakily incorporate my wife’s name into the words. The “big fat…grin” was inspired by The Maine’s “Into Your Arms” — “She had the most amazing…smile.” I thought that was a real fun, cheeky line, and I love The Maine, so that was a kind of my small homage to them.

“Chicago”

This is my take on the “run away with your lover” song trope. At the time of writing, we were plotting our next move, and it was looking like either Chicago or Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo won out in the end, but I couldn’t find a way to fit the word “Kalamazoo” into a song for another half a year. So “Chicago” was the end result. I’m particularly proud of the guitar work in the finished product. I literally drenched my tone in reverb for the opening bit and it gives my guitar a very characteristic and unsettling sound. The solo is one of my favorites I’ve written. I’m not much of a lead player and I’m sure one of my buddies who can really shred would have elevated it to the next level, but I did the best with the resources I had, which was literally just me.

“Olivia”

Onto the Stars version! “Olivia” was my attempt at channelling my inner Paul McCartney, who is one of Olivia’s musical idols. The piano features heavily throughout the song, although it’s not a real piano but entirely painstakingly MIDI-programmed. This one also features several key changes, both flipping between parallel major and minor keys (between the verses and choruses), and jumping up for the solo and once again for the last chorus. Overall, it’s a real short but sweet tune about the night I met Olivia at a Valentine’s Day-themed show we both were performers at (and yes, there was a real kissing booth!).

“When You Tell Me Goodnight”

The origins of this song are murky at best, because it actually wasn’t originally about Olivia. I’d penned a very primitive draft probably way back in 2012 at the earliest, although at the time I couldn’t think of a good enough muse to truly dedicate it to, so it languished in my drafts. But Olivia gave me the missing piece, and the song came to fruition with her inspiration. It’s a very barebones song, with nothing more than my voice and my Stratocaster with a nice twinkly setting on it. It’s stripped, and I wanted it to be that way on purpose. I feel like so many of my songs are big and over-the-top, and this is a simple love song. It means a lot to me though, and soon, Olivia and I will be releasing on a new version together that incorporates her chiptune work. I’m excited to share that with you too.

“I Wanna Fall in Love With You”

Finally, the song that was the biggest nightmare to produce, but it was absolutely worth it because it turned out breathtaking. I used a lot of synth for this track, so it took a while to piece all of those sounds together. The guitar solo was inspired by “Without Love” by Bon Jovi, from their timeless album Slippery When Wet. Ifyou listen closely, the guitar and synths are playing in unison, and I wanted to achieve a similar effect here. This song contains some of my favorite imagery and one of the best lines I’ve written: “Someday when I am gray and old, I’ll look back at this night at know / For a moment, life was beautiful.” I think that’s the overarching theme of these EPs — the love in my life make all the struggles worth it.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

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