Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 10.0 [Focus.]

Sarah (9:59:30 PM): so [your photos] will be famous!
Sarah (9:59:50 PM): unless you don't want fame and glory
Sarah (9:59:51 PM): brb

I wish I had something to say.

I feel I'm lacking creativity lately, and part of me wonders if that's not because I'm finally content with my life. Like, in order to be a true artist, to be inspired, must I suffer? To be encouraged to write must I be aching for joy?

I've been struggling with ways to not make this site into a glorified livejournal (or worse, a glorified linkblog). I want to provide more content than that which is in list form, more than other people's words and other people's pictures. But lately, that has felt like a daunting proposition. So busy am I, living my life, absorbing media, going to shows, moving forward steadily at a million miles a minute, that the moments of quiet comtemplation and composition that seemed to happen in almost an instant, spontaneous and above all natual way seem lost to me.

Maybe it's because I hate sitting at a computer these days. I can't even finish the rest of my web chores, let alone use some of my desk time to be creative.

So I force myself to sit down and compose, and I find I have nothing to say. I end up launching into a toothless meta-piece outlining my inability to write. Too much noise, no damn signal. Get depressed about not being depressed. So damn productive.

Oh, do I miss the days when getting the “flu” meant being sick to your stomach for a few hours, hurling one or a couple of times, and then spending the remainder of your afternoon and evening under a warm blanket, dozing on the couch in front of the tv, sipping ginger ale, weak but otherwise content, having gotten out of school for the day.

Now it goes on for days, and it's all muscle pain, headaches, coughing, and a fever that keeps coming and going. First you're hungry. Then you start to eat and find that food—all food—is unexplainably disgusting. Then you're too hot. Then you're too cold. Then you get bored with dozing and watching tv after two days of it, and go to sit at your computer to catch up on some web work, and find you can't sit up for more than 10 minutes without slumping over in your chair, placing your head in your hands, wanting to nap right there.

Which is where we find ourselves now.

At this point, I would gladly give up a day's pay just to be well again and be able to go to work tomorrow. Can you believe that? So sad.

• Thanks to a new more powerful server, I'm able to put more things on this page that scream Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!. A generation of livejournalers and myspacers rejoice. Everyone else gets nauseated.
• Sitting at a computer for fourteen hours a day of late has caused me to have scores of geeky nightmares, like the horror of command line errors in Unix, or a senario where Indiana Jones style spikey walls are coming at me from both sides while I try to restore a couple thousand backend applications in the space of five minutes. This is either a sign that I don't have any real problems to have nightmares about, or an indicator of serious, disturbing amounts of anxiety. I don't know that dreaming about error messages is supposed to make a person wake up in a cold sweat.
• I turned 23 this week. I celebrated in style with a very large posse at Barcode. I don't remember the last couple hours of the evening very well. I'm told that is what is supposed to happen on your birthday.
• I want summer. Badly. I want t-shirts, flip-flops, hot steamy days and cool balmy evenings. This winter, these past several months, have been some of the longest of my life.
• And now to bed. To bed I said.

Sarah (12:37:28 AM): by the way...
Sarah (12:37:35 AM): I've been meaning to tell you this story FOREVER
Sarah (12:37:37 AM): you're gonna love it
Jen (12:37:54 AM): ouuu
Sarah (12:39:03 AM): Bain, Rivers, and Mike all told this story to me seperately... they were talking about how they just discovered flickr, and they were backstage at the 40 watt after the show checking it out
Sarah (12:39:12 AM): and they looked for bain mattox tags and they saw your photos
Sarah (12:39:36 AM): and they were trying to figure out when it was from, then they realized it was from like 30 minutes earlier and were just floored haha
Jen (12:40:16 AM): HAHAHA
Jen (12:40:18 AM): AWESOME
Jen (12:40:33 AM): that is totally freakin awesome
Sarah (12:40:48 AM): I knew you'd love it
Jen (12:41:37 AM): dude... that makes my entire day
Jen (12:42:07 AM): also it cracks me up they all had to tell you
Sarah (12:42:19 AM): yeah I know, really funny
Sarah (12:42:23 AM): it obviously made an impact haha

Joe Dawley [5:06 PM]:

cool, thanks. It was scarry over here. Is that how you spell scarry (like fear) or is like all cut up and stuff.

Jenna Tollerson [5:07 PM]:

scary

Jenna Tollerson [5:07 PM]:

too many r's

Jenna Tollerson [5:07 PM]:

that may mean you are a pirate

Joe Dawley [5:07 PM]:

sssshhhhh the RIAA might here you

Joe Dawley [5:08 PM]:

*just kidding to any corprate guys reviewing this instant message*

Jenna Tollerson [5:08 PM]:

wow you took my awful joke and made it worse

Jenna Tollerson [5:08 PM]:

kudos

Joe Dawley [5:08 PM]:

thanks, I assail at that. Get it pirates, assail. huh huh