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

A House Christmas Eve Tradition. Read More »

On Wednesday night, my roommates called me into the living room to receive the previously mentioned special backordered gift. Wondering what it was had been driving me crazy for three days, but even more so, I was worried that after all the build up I wouldn't look excited enough. I'm not a great gift receiver, and never know how to properly show my gratitude.

In this case, I needn't have worried.

They had hastily wrapped it up in the cover of this weeks Flagpole Magazine. It was a small box, and I had no idea what it could be, until I cleared away the newsprint and saw the brand name on the top of the gift box.

I must have turned pale at that point. There is no way they actually bought that for me.

I opened the box, and they had, in fact, bought me the locket I had daydreamed about receiving for Valentine's Day.

Catie asked, “Jenna Tollerson, will you be our Valentine?”

It took just about everything I had in me not to cry.

Dear Apartment 6:

I don't know if I tell you enough, but living at Apartment 6 with you, my great friends, is the happiest I have ever been in all my 22 years. Not just the happiest, even, but the first time in my life I have ever been truly happy. The work and thought everyone put into my birthday is just one more reason I feel that moving into that apartment was the best decision I ever made. I love you.

I'm wearing that locket even now, as I sit in my sister's home office in Redmond, Washington. I've only been here 24 hours, and at some point there will be much to tell, but there has been so much airport-havoc-people-watching-meeting-people-and-dogs-talking-til-dawn that my head is spinning as I attempt to process all the details.

So I've been writing in a notebook for the past couple of days. Paper and pen, the old-fashioned way, and trying to jot things down, from my head, no self editing and none of the weaving into what would normally make it into the public domain. I'm doing this so I don't miss anything.

Details are, of course, what turns a series of events into a story. I continute to be, more than anything, in the business of Jenna Tollerson mythopoeia.

We at the House are not giving up cyberspace. You can trust that the stories will indeed follow. Soon.

I'm really frustrated with it going from t-shirt weather to freezing rain in less than a week.

There are eight people standing in my room right now, not including myself. It's like a sci-fi movie where it's the end of the world and we're the last people alive, and we have to stay together to live. Except, I'm fairly certain that none of us are secretly zombies and no one is going to have to eat anyone else to survive.

It is 10 til 8:00 on Friday morning. Dehydrated, head pounding, I stumble into the kitchen to get water. As I pour a glass, Emily, who is about to head off to work, looks at me with concern, tilts her head and asks, “How do you feel?”

The first word I utter this morning comes out as a choked, low sound as I squint at her.

“Drunk.”

...

Thursday night I was invited out by coworkers (mainly, Neil) for drinks at Copper Creek. I arrived a little after 8:00, with Abie and the Indian in tow, and ordered something they brew in-house at Copper Creek, an Abbey Ale. Abbey Ales are fruity, dark and deliciously deceptive: even though it is printed clearly on the sign touting house beers, one soon forgets that it contains 7.9% alcohol. By the time our party had moved out to the patio area, I had consumed three, plus the half of Abie's she had been unable to finish (“I'm just not a big beer drinker!” she had proclaimed).

Hilarity ensued.

I remember:

• Neil, Abie and Tyler trying to get me to sing. When I displayed reluctance, they tried to get me to rap.
  “C'mon Jenna! Bust out some Southern Hospitality!”
  I declined.
• It somehow coming out among my coworkers that I'm a ‘nympho’, if only by my inability to deny it.
• Insulting people, having it repeated back to me 10 seconds later and truly not remembering 10 seconds later calling anyone a “cunt”.
  
  “I didn't just say that, did I?”
  “Yes, you did.”
  “Wow.”
• I was asked to and sang along with the cheesy jazz covers record they had been playing in the bar on a loop for the last three hours. I was too drunk to be accurately singing, and kept exclaiming in my defense that the singer was in a really weird key.
• Repeating expertly accented Japanese phrases back to Abie, under the pretense that I actually might remember some of it, which of course I don't. She was delighted by my skillful pronunciation, however. I got mad skillz.

After I finished my fourth (and ½) Abbey Ale, at about 11:30 the group split, with Neil and Tyler off to the 40 Watt and myself and my crüe off to Tastyworld for Bain Mattox. Sam Deeds was there, as were my roommates Alli and Catie, my sister Sarah, and Heather and Rob (who are delightful, but officially belong to Abie I think).

The Indian buys me more beer. I protest that I don't need anymore. He pulls the “I'm not asking, I'm telling!” form of best friend manipulation. I cave. I have a lot more to drink, but am never so drunk that I fail to get served at the bar.

The Indian forces me to waltz with him during one number, and I step on his feet a lot as we bump into everyone around us. This did not make us popular, I think.

At the end of the show, I spend long amounts of time praising Bain and his bandmates on their most excellent performance, and then have the audacity to quiz him on my name. Very confidently he blurts out “Abie.” I smile and correct him. He feels bad, and then I feel bad for making him feel bad. I tell both Bain and Brian at separate times that they are the cute one in the band, both while they are standing right there. I monopolize their time.

It's amazing what some people will put up with when it comes to their fans.

After saying goodbyes I make it home, drink a couple glasses of water, and decide that I'll be okay for class and work at 9 am. Obviously, I was wrong.

...

dude (6:31:37 PM): you have a rough morning?
me (6:32:04 PM): yes. yes I did.
me (6:32:33 PM): still drunk this morning actually
dude (6:32:41 PM): lovely
dude (6:32:46 PM): yeah you were pretty plowed
me (6:33:40 PM): I wasn't that bad, was I?
dude (6:34:28 PM): hahahahaha
dude (6:35:04 PM): :) you were tolerable :)
me (6:35:14 PM): tolerable
me (6:35:29 PM): what every girl wants to hear, that she is tolerable :)
dude (6:35:34 PM): hahaha
me (6:36:28 PM): well I meant all that stuff about being glad to see you, even if I did say it 45 times
dude (6:36:56 PM): hahaha
dude (6:37:32 PM): i wonder
dude (6:37:51 PM): if we as humans have a drunk memory section in our brains
dude (6:38:08 PM): you know how sometimes when you're drunk you don't remember what happened
dude (6:38:25 PM): well what if you got drunk again and then made an effort to think about it again
dude (6:38:28 PM): would you remember?
me (6:38:33 PM): hmmmm
me (6:38:49 PM): I don't know
me (6:39:02 PM): I usually don't have memory problems when I'm drunk

So I lied, but I didn't know I was lying at the time, I swear.

Saturday I'm sitting on the couch, biding my time, trying to think of something to do, when I receive a text message on my cell phone from Abie:

“We are bringing the party to you!”

Shortly thereafter Abie and Emily (my roommates) showed up at the apartment with Greg (whom I had met before) and Danny (whom I had not met before). They all proceeded to get drunk and draw on each other and take pictures while wearing hats. I mostly did a few shots and observed the drawing, which involved covering every inch of everyones arms and legs in sharpie. They wanted to draw on me but I politely declined, meaning that I threatened anyone who tried to draw on me with a smack down. Quite effective, actually.

Emily spent some time on the phone trying to track down Blake, who works at one of the downtown bars and should have been getting off of work soon. “Let's just go find him!” I needed a walk just to get out of the house for a few minutes, so we head down there. We are all still wearing hats, me in my newsgirl and many people sporting fedoras. I briefly became the handler in this group and I cannot tell you how helpful pink, white, and black fedoras were in keeping a visual on everyone.

We are navigating through the crowd on Clayton with the help of a drunk-and-less-than-genteel Abie pushing her way through the crowd, yelling.

“Excuse me, pardon me, coming through, outta my way people!”

Danny, myself, Emily and Greg follow in her wake in that order. She pushes aside one dude, and I see him rock back on his heels and turn to his friend to grin and say, “I guess fat chicks get to do whatever they want.”

I was standing right there, trying to catch up with Abie. I looked him right in the eyes I said, quite loud and proud, “Fuck you!” He gave me a surprised look and I kept walking.

I get to the other side of the crowd where Abie and Danny are waiting and tell Abie about this jackass and my imperative to beat him down. Beat him down figuratively, of course.

Abie goes wild. “Who said that!? Who said that!? I wanna talk to that bastard!”

The bastard and his friend had, I suppose, been following in my wake and emerged from the crowd. But while the friend continued to walk in our direction, when the bastard saw me pointing, he walked past the parked cars and into the street just to avoid coming near us. He looked quite frightened. Abie started yelling at his friend, who looked at me and asked me to confirm for Abie, “I didn't say anything, did I?”

“Abie, abie!” I pointed out to the bastard walking on the street and she followed my gaze. “It was that motherfucker over there.”

That was when Abie started yelling loud enough for the entire city to turn and watch.

“Bitch, you wish you could have some of this! Fats chicks fucking rule! You wish you could have me! You're just jealous, bitch!”

She continued this way for 15 to 30 seconds, with the bastard (who had obviously learned his lesson) speedwalking away with all his might. His friend stood where we stopped him, laughing.

We found Blake at his bar and sat outside chatting it up with friends and strangers. We were sitting there making friends and having a good time when the hardass doorguy came and kicked us out because one member of our party “appeared too intoxicated”. Before you sympathize with us and get ready to cuss out the doorguy, I have to say, I concur, she indeed seem too intoxicated. So we moved back to the apartment with Blake in tow.

This is where it begins to get hazy, not for your narrator, because I remember all that went on, but the narrative has cause to break down some at this point. I can say that we went through a lot of liquor, and that I was up quite late. There was not much that was life-altering, but I did have a very good time.

I would love to do that again sometime.

Work today was looooooooong. Everytime I was about to go home for lunch something would happen (I'd get a rush incident, torrential downpour would begin outside, someone would get me started ranting on something) so I ended up working 7 and ¼ hours straight through with no real break and no food.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted and cranky, looking forward to a small bowl of curried fried rice, and maybe some cheese eggs and toast.

I forgot my key, and the door was locked. I laid my head against it and pounded three times. I had a very singular vision in mind: I had to nuke rice. I had to do it now.

Melissa answered, all smiles, as per usual. You can count on her to be upbeat. Abie greeted me midway through the hall and scratched my back. It's one of her superpowers. It has the greatest, most soothing, stress releasing effect for such a simple action. And to top it all off: the Indian was in the kitchen, making food. Making fettucini alfredo with homemade sauce and grilled chicken. Melissa was steaming zucchini and broccoli. They were going to feed me. I was going to have a real meal, my first real meal in at least a week. One that didn't involve rice or cheese eggs. This was officially the Best Thing That Had Ever Happened To Me.

Well-nourished and full of vitamins and protein, I was able to get some laundry done, go on a beer run to Wally World and take a long walk with the Indian. It was a good night, the most charming part being when my straight but very metrosexual best friend spied the maroonish shoes next to my bookshelf and exclaimed with masculine delight,

“Are those Steve Maddens?”

They are. I was promptly scolded for not wearing my very cute shoes more often and had to put them on right away.

...

Three am. There is a long series of loud booming noise outside in the hall. Having become accustomed to loud disruptive noises of all sorts due to construction, I fully ignore it for five minutes until it dawns on me, it's three in the goddamn morning. No one gets started this early.

I go to the front door and look out the peep hole. This is the only thing I have ever used the peep hole for: checking out the door of #5. I'm laughing at the scene in the hall for another four minutes, also concerned about the noise—which is ongoing and is now accompanied by some very loud and violent cursing/yelling—when Melissa awakes.

“Jenna, what's going on?”

“The drunk bitches across the hall are locked out of their apartment.”

These two girls are pounding, kicking, screaming at the door, no pause. The one who obviously orders the other one around (that's always the case in a pair of bitchy girls) has a cell phone, and she keeps getting irate and shouting at her cell phone to the person who is not answering her calls. (“Motherfucker pick up the fucking phone.”, “ARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!”, etc.) I do not know what she thinks that will accomplish.

Pretty soon Catie is up, ready to start throwing things at them.

“What is it about this building?!? Why do we get all the crazy neighbors?!?”

Easily 10 more minutes into pounding/screaming/cursing, we are seriously thinking about calling the cops, and then the Indian is up, and is the only one ballsy enough to actually open up the door and say something.

Indian: “Fucking quiet down, people are trying to sleep.”

He shuts the door. The Noise continues. He walks back and opens it again.

Indian: “We're trying to get some sleep over here!”

Drunk Bitch #1 (squawking): “Yeah well we're trying to get into our fucking apartment!”

Indian: “I don't really care. Just shut the fuck up already.” Slams door.

DB#1 (through door): “My ass!”

Catie (facetiously): “That is absolutely the most appropriate response in this situation. ‘My ass!’”

30 seconds after that someone showed up/answered the door and finally let them in.

I think it's safe to say we will not be making friends with our new neighbors in #5.

This morning I was simply attempting to exit my apartment, when I opened the door and was greeted by a giant pile of construction flotsam and jetsam, sitting on our doormat, quite literally blocking my way.

I did what you would expect me to do it the face of such adversity. I yelled,

“What the hell?!?!”

and began moving some of it out of my way so I could just sidle around it, freakin’ leave and go to work. Is that really so much to ask?

Vin Diesel (as my roommates refer to the construction worker for his similar appearance) came barreling around the corner, apologizing profusely, looking very upset, claiming that “this will all be outta here in just one second”, and moved some stuff for me so I could get by.

I have to say, getting to righteously yell at someone first thing in the morning made me feel a little less powerless in this whole getting-fucked-by-my-landlord scheme of things.

I can't wait for the day when I can leave my apartment and get all the way to the street without having to move carefully around raw materials and say “excuse me” and back against the wall for the 15 men carrying bulky objects up the stairs.

Someday. Not today.

One of the things I really love about Catie is that she will laugh enthusiastically at all the inane things I have to say, even when it's before 9 in the morning.

We had a “scheduled” power outage from 3 am to 7 am, but the power was still off when I left at 10 til 9. I normally don't even get up until 10:00, but being without a fan or AC, and the need to get a hot shower before all the water ran out actually nudged me awake on just 4 hours of sleep.

I'm like, a completely inconsistent freak of nature.

I went ahead and came to work (without clocking in), because here we have civilized things like AC and coffee and the Internet. I believe this is the way humans were meant to live.

I'm started to feel like some kind of third world citizen, for chrissakes. My power's going out all the time (and always accompanied by the obligatory middle of the night fire alarm), the street in front of my building literally smells like sewage because they are digging up the infrastructure, there are constantly circular saws and CAT diggers and construction workers in my life, and all I'm eating is cheese eggs and toast.

!!!

For serious, something has got to give soon.

I can't wait to get out of this godforsaken town for the weekend.

Would anyone want to bang you? by phobia
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Hottness.

Weekend has been good so far. I really can't believe it's only Saturday (Sunday morning?), because it seems like so much time has gone by since I clocked out of work at 6 yesterday.

Big changes at Apartment 6—we have new roommates: Melissa and Emily are taking over the loft spaces with no walls. Since we actually care about how much sleep they get we are making a concerted effort to be quiet when they go to bed. It's weird. We've all gotten very used to running around and making too much noise this summer.

I'll also have to get used to sharing a bathroom with girls, which has both many good and many bad points.

But (besides the fact that there is no url to which I can link either of their names, the weirdos) they are wonderful and great company and totally okay with the fact that their rooms were built for Oompa Loompas.

I have the feeling it is going to be a splendid year.

. . .

Next weekend, Abie, the Indian and myself are going to Nashville to party down. Abie was selected to speak at the Costume Society of America Symposium, on a circa-1860's housedress that she sewed entirely by hand, just to investigate how long something like that would take. She got a grant from the university to do it, and she did it, and it made her totally insane, but, when she was finished, she had this really cool tangible thing to show for it. Icing on the cake is she was picked as one of two undergraduates to speak at this symposium, so I am just insanely proud of her.

Also, she got a travel allowance to pay for the hotel room, so we have a free place to stay, and that’s pretty rockin’, because I'm totally broke.

I can not spare 1¢ in the next couple of weeks for anything but Nashville, so if you were going to ask me to do something, please do not even tempt me. It will only leave us all dissapointed. I'll get paid again on the 13th, at which time we can resume our regularly scheduled programming.

At that time I should also be very close to owning my first car(!)

. . .

Sarah (2:59:59 AM): other people say it!
Jenna (3:00:01 AM): bunk
Jenna (3:00:05 AM): or bump?
Sarah (3:00:15 AM): oh well he says bump
Sarah (3:00:17 AM): but I say bunk
Jenna (3:00:43 AM): ah
Jenna (3:00:57 AM): I say it in my head all the time now
Jenna (3:01:36 AM): whenever I am actually saying "eff that" I think "bunk that" because of you
Jenna (3:01:42 AM): and it cracks me up
Jenna (3:01:49 AM): and I laugh out loud
Jenna (3:01:53 AM): and get funny looks
Sarah (3:04:12 AM): Yay!