A Night at Jackie's Place

It's good to be back, fellow ENo/EsNoWriMo-ers! Indigo and I had a fabulous writing session with more than a few snackskies. I hope to have many more! Snacks, that is.

I don't know how I managed to make nothing happen in the first 2,027 words of my novel, but I did it with aplomb. It all takes place at Jackie's Place (where else?). I really enjoyed reusing some of our old jokes today, which is something that I plan on doing a great deal of over the next month. I can't take credit for most of what I just wrote, actually-- it was basically a team effort.

"It all started at Jackie’s Place, Chloe’s favourite local watering hole. Perhaps favourite is too strong of a word; but then again, only strong words are acceptable when describing Jackie’s Place. The eponymous owner, the greying but surprisingly spry Jackie Bauer, had set up shop in The Annex, one of Toronto’s hippest neighbourhoods, back when it was far from hip. No one is quite sure why someone like Jackie would open a bar when he clearly hates people; more suitable professions were surely available to a misanthrope like Jackie, such employment in the government. But no, every night he could be found behind the bar wearing his signature acid-washed jean jacket, pouring drinks with bizarre Union Jack crepe paper parasols, and grudgingly interacting (read: grunting and shooting icy stares) with the clientele that had made Jackie’s Place their home. No one was quite sure why they went to Jackie’s Place, which might have been one of the strangest things about the bar if there weren’t so many strange things about it. Take, for instance, the booth that was inexplicably adorned with photos of the unanimously least popular member of ‘Nsync, Chris Kirkpatrick. There was also the prominently placed graduation certificate from the Hermione Granger Feminist School for Magic, which no one suspected to be an accredited institution for obvious reasons as well as not as obvious reasons, such as the fact that the certificate was written in crayon not unlike how one would imagine a drunk baby might pen such a thing. While many bars had floors littered with peanut shells, the floor of Jackie’s Place glittered with the scales of hundreds of thousands of dead fish, which only fueled the legends about the place. Some hipsters had recently tried to gentrify Jackie’s Place as it was too edgy even for them, and they hadn’t been seen since.

Having recently quit her job as an Urban Outfitters sales associate—she ran out the door screaming about how she refused to sell one more ironic and ugly yet overpriced item—she started her walk to Jackie’s with a proud stride that ended up being more of a desperate slink by the time she reached the saloon-style doors of Jackie’s Place . Her righteous stand against bikestaches—vaguely moustache-shaped polyester faux fur to be worn on the front of a bike to wordlessly announce to the world that you’re an asshole—had seemed so dignified just moments before. When she thought about paying her rent and continuing the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to which included things like eating and hydro, however, it didn’t exactly seem like a great choice anymore. There must have been something in the air that day that made her do it; perhaps it was all of those clouds that were clearly up to no good. The siren song of Jackie’s Place was calling, and it sounded a lot like “Girlfriend” by ‘Nsync."