Zain Mackey

Life Artist

Goals

The School of Hard Knocks

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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

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Revenge Isn’t Really Very Sweet

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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

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Learning to Chill

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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

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All About Fear and Fearlessness

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I read this quote: “Decide how you’re going to deal with fear, because fear will be a big issue in life.” I don’t remember the author but it got me thinking. If you know who this should be attributed to, let me know. Fear has really good information attached to it: it’s an unusual gift.

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Bored? No Way!

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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

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Trash Panda Invasion

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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,

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Little Red Convertible

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I have a little red convertible story. Calm down, Prince fans. It’s not a little red corvette story. Crap, now I’ll be humming that song.  ♥ My daughter was here for a month. Home for her is NYC, a place she adores. So interesting because she’s such an outdoorsy kind of woman who grew up

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Introduction to Adulting: Party Hardy

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When I was 13, I was the singer in a band.  We didn’t play out anywhere, just practiced and jammed and had fun. That is until our classmate Mona and her brother Eddie asked us if we wanted to play a pool party for their parents. The big time! We were excited. We said yes.

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Maybe Zombies are Just Sleep Deprived

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For some reason I’m not sleeping. That is, I am sleeping but in only 1-2 hour increments. I’ve tried melatonin, virgin hot toddies, sleep meditations, 1.5Hz binaural beats specifically for sleep. Still every hour or so I’m up, wide awake. I’ve tried relaxing all the parts of my body, one by one, placing a heated

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Brief History of The O2R Blues Band and Me

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Let me tell you an origin story. A blues band origin story. What did you do when you were a kid that you still do now? For me it’s singing and loving music. My sister taught me St. Louis Blues when I was 5 but I was singing before that. I know lyrics from musicals,

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Do you see colors when you’re mad?

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“Nobody loves me, Everybody hates me, I’m goin’ out’n eat worms!” Here’s why. I’m stubborn and I have a bad temper when provoked. When I was a little kid and I was angry, I’d go up to my room and march back and forth. The movement helped me to blow off steam, but the family downstairs

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