• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer navigation

Zain Mackey

Life Artist

  • Home
  • A Bit About Zain
  • Blog
  • Art Gallery
  • Contact Me

Contentment

Internet Rant. Join the Fun.

By Zain Mackey

It’s a rant today on everyone’s favorite ranting subject: the internet. Join in if you feel called. Our internet coverage out here in the valley is tin cans strung together. No fiber, no satellite availability, we don’t even have reliable antenna reception when the leaves are on the trees. Yet somehow we have indescribably slow DSL.

Read More

The School of Hard Knocks

By Zain Mackey

I don’t give up easily. Stubborn, hardheaded and tenacious, that’s me. It also takes me a while to get the message when I make bad choices and I’ve made a lot. If this sounds like you, read on. Actually, read on anyway.   I graduated high school in Indiana with honors a semester early. Four

Read More

Revenge Isn’t Really Very Sweet

By Zain Mackey

I’ve been thinking about revenge. In the southern branch of our family revenge was best served ice cold, saccharine sweet, locked and loaded. Tradition dictated that if you wronged us, you wronged the entire family and you would pay. If not today, tomorrow. If not this decade than the next or forever until your family

Read More

Learning to Chill

By Zain Mackey

Geez, I’m tired. What about you? Have you ever had a week where everything seems overwhelming? That’s my week. Every time I turn around, I’m rushing off to the next thing. I did this complete overwhelm to myself just as you do it to yourself too. I scheduled lots of events and fun things that

Read More

Cyber Circus

By Zain Mackey

Do you have a social media presence? Maybe you don’t want one. Sometimes I think that’s a good idea. As a coach and an artist, I post on Facebook and Instagram. For coaching, I offer words of wisdom on Wednesdays and Bad Joke Friday on well, Friday. (Here I’m inserting a shameless request for you

Read More

Every Gig is DIfferent

By Zain Mackey

I love going out to catch some tunes don’t you? And as a musician, I think live music is the best. There’s magic in being in the same room with the musicians. On a tough night not all the players start in the same key. Or start the same song. If the drummer is sitting

Read More

Talking With The Family

By Zain Mackey

What was dinner like when you were growing up? What did you eat? Talk about? My folks weren’t into traveling, they were into saving their money and eating out. And by the time I came along, they were over the whole kid’s food thing. If they wanted to go out to dinner they hauled me

Read More

Cosmetic Surgery? Ah, No.

By Zain Mackey

My pal and I were chatting the other day when she turned to me and said, “You know, you could get some Botox for those wrinkles on your forehead. I think you’d really like it.” Huh! True, I didn’t sleep well the night before. When I got up that morning and looked in the mirror,

Read More

Bored? No Way!

By Zain Mackey

Oof getting older. Remember those days when you were a kid and you’d complain to your parents that you were bored? They always replied with exasperation followed by a list of things you could do but didn’t want to do. Or they told you to go outside and not bother them. Have you noticed that

Read More

Who Was This Guy?

By Zain Mackey

We went out to breakfast at our favorite haunt on Monday. It was nice to sit and be served. Our waiter introduced himself as Joseph. He took our drink order, chatting about what good choices we’d made. He asked did we want sugar? Cream? Honey? Extra lemon? . He nodded, smiling in approval with each

Read More

Trash Panda Invasion

By Zain Mackey

We have a problem. Maybe you have this problem too. In the last 8 years, we’ve caught over 72 raccoons, 36 possums, a skunk, a feral cat and our two housecats in a Have-A-Heart trap. . Ken and I name all the captives. We started with random names, went through the Presidents, various famous women,

Read More

Meeting Great, Great, Great Aunt Sally

By Zain Mackey

I met great-great-great Aunt Sally on a hot August day. She was the oldest surviving member of the family. I was 7. I’d never heard of her before. . She was in her late 90’s and was out in the garden sitting on the ground in her sunbonnet picking beans. She looked ancient to me.

Read More
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 5
  • Go to Next Page »

Copyright © 2025 Zain Mackey | Privacy Policy| Site by AskMePc | Log in