| Screen Name: |
Jean James |
| Country: |
United States |
| City: |
Stormville |
| With whom or what do you wage your biggest battle?: |
The clock |
| What has been your biggest victory to date?: |
Making it anywhere on time with three children in tow. |
| What is your perfect night in/out?: |
Dinner and drinks with my husband and my friends. |
| What piece of advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?: |
Invest in your 401k! |
| What piece of advice did you receive in your 20s that you regret not following?: |
Not investing in my 401k. |
BIO
Originally from the Bronx, I was born one of seven, to a large Irish Catholic family. We moved to the suburbs like all the other families fleeing the Bronx in the '70's. My father was a motorcycle cop for the NYPD, and my mother was the kind of hard core stay at home mom that doesn't exist much anymore. Growing up in those days the idea of becoming something as ephemeral as a writer or an artist was never on the radar. 'Go to school, get good grades, and get a steady job with good benefits', welcome to the blue collar mantra.
I pursued a degree in nursing and began working in a large NYC hospital. After spending way too many years caring for men's private parts, and recruiting the limp ones into erectile dysfunction studies, I jumped ship and found my salvation at The French Culinary Institute. I figured there was more than one way to a man's heart which didn't include a little blue pill, a pump and a suction cup. So I tried my skills as a cook. If you ever want to go into debt, become an alcoholic and never see your friends again, then you should definitely consider a career as a cook.
Broke and in detox, I returned to nursing. I traded in limp pumps for clogged arteries, and spent several years in the cardiac intensive care unit. Always trying to squeeze in time for writing (mostly poetry), between a bedpan or two, I lacked a sense of iambic pentameter, having the unfortunate timing of an irregular heart beat. I yearned to write something other than my patient had a poop that day.
During this time I was stricken three times with a serious case of pregnancy. The children are all doing fine; I however have been left with a residual complication known as MPD (that's multiple personality disorder for all you non-medical folks). I wanted to write this in the third person but he just wouldn't allow it.
I'm currently happily married to a wealth of funny material. I live in the Hudson Valley, and continue to work as a nurse. This is my first attempt at putting my thoughts and opinions out to the public, and hopefully won't be my last.
