Author Archives: Jaclynn Loibl

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s opening credits are running in the background—or maybe it’s this writing that will get buried behind the excitement of Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York over Cuomo. I press pause on the news with a comedic twinge so I can sneak into the pantry for two Double Stuf OreosContinue reading “Freezing Burglar Tracks”

In 1998, if you’d told me I’d point my phone’s camera at the TV to “log in,” I would’ve asked if you also had a tin foil hat to go with that alien nonsense. Yet here I am, in 2025, and Apple TV keeps asking me to do it practically every time, and I’m wonderingContinue reading “Unbearable Heaviness”

With a purple, tear-shaped pick pinched between my thumb and the outer middle knuckle of my pointer finger, I strum. My shoulder and arm move like a tendon pulled too tight—a rubber band with barely any give—jerky and unsure. I hyperfocus on my posture, the micro-corrections, much like I imagine a professional golfer does rightContinue reading “The Gentle Leash of Love”

Moving an image, video, or text an inch to the left, right, up, or down—repeated a thousand times—is the biggest time suck, and I love it. The wind rarely blows my sails just right like this, so when I feel motivated to update my website, I ride the wave until it fizzles. I’ve been chompingContinue reading “We Be Jammin’”

A heart-pounding headache and a little Love Is Blind have kept me from writing.Actually, I have kept me from writing. I thought if I waited long enough, procrastinated until the witching hour, I’d get out of it. My plan was to find a cute photo or three, post them, and then bee-bop into bedtime andContinue reading “Tears On My Pillow”

It’s settled. Instead of plopping my butt down and filling cupped hands to the brim with acorn clusters, I’m buying a—wait. I watched a YouTube video on the Garden Weasel, that cantaloupe-sized barred cage you roll over the acorns, and the flex of the metal bars lets them squeeze through like Bugs Bunny slipping inContinue reading “Space Jammin’ Season”

I thrust my hand into my pocket—into my cheetah-print, thick and soft sweater with large hanging front pockets like Grandpa’s robe. It felt like Santa had come. I expected to find a hundred-dollar bill. Expected is too strong. Hoped for? Pleaded and cried out to the gods? I must miss those days. Last night’s dreamContinue reading “The Sweetness of Not Knowing Better”

Unfortunately, I cared about being cool. Calvin Klein and Doc Martens swaggered their denims and waffle-shaped soles across the maroon-and-yellow-speckled floors of my high school, and I drooled. I studied the Rogers sisters, the home football games at Pete Pool, searching for clues. Wear your hair in a side part. Go to the tanning salon,Continue reading “Seeing Saturn Clearly”

Anna, Lori, Melissa, and I met at noon at Fogata’s Street Tacos for book club. Since I’d chosen The Godfather, I also got to pick the restaurant. After ordering a fajita bowl and chomping on chips and salsa, we talked shop—what we thought, favorite parts, that sort of jazz. Our biggest takeaway was learning aboutContinue reading “Falling Into Fall”