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

I've been thinking a lot lately about where this whole college thing is going. Driving around aimlessly all alone for hours at a time will actually force you to think.

See, the unfortunately fact of reality I have to face now is that I might never get into art school. Although nothing in this world would make me happier, even though I want to explore new mediums and be in that kind of community for the next few years, the chances that I will get in on a third try are very slim.

So I'm looking at other majors (seriously this time, not as a way to make fun of everyone) because I know I've got to pick something. I've got to finish or I've got to quit. This holding pattern thing has been fun, but I'm ready to move forward. I'm not ready to be done with college yet, but if I keep going to way I'm going it won't matter if I'm ever ready to be out. I still won't be able to get out.

Any change is going to involve something painful like calculus or foreign language or selling my soul to the man. I'm just tired of butting my head against the wall.

I wish things would just go my way. Geez.

Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.

Stop crying, little one. You're the disarmingly young temp.

You had to get some kind of job when you left school, and nobody's willing to pick up a fresh-faced graduate and give them an amazing job. Not unless they're some kind of genius, anyway, and even then it's unlikely because geniuses make people uneasy. Clever people do not fit in offices.

So you're a temp. Working from short contract to short contract, dodging your officemates' condascending glances, you hope one day to have a real job. Until then, the fact that you look about twelve makes you an easy target both for tea-making duties and the perverted old boss.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved!

A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other's language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry's underskirts.

This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.

In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout "boo!", upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.

A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges.

---

Summer is going just dandy. I ♥ lack of real responsibility. I mean, I have no money and no car, but I also only work 19 hours a week and party all the time.

Well, maybe not so much “party” as “watch DVDs, drink beer and take lots of walks”. But still, good times.

I'm wishing I didn't have to go back to school because I'm seeing the need for it less and less. I was on the very dorky, only slightly informative “Major Decisions” website yesterday to see if there was something—anything—that could provide an alternative to art school. The sad answer is, there is not. Every other major looks mind-boogling in its boringness, needlessly complicated, or very, very silly. (I mean, Turfgrass Management? Are they serious?)

Plus, I know, in my heart, that nothing else but art school will make me happy. So I'm resolved to keep fighting, despite some nay-sayers.

In other news, I think I'd like to own a record store. That sounds like the perfect job for me. Open at 10 or 11, talk about music all day, get new releases at wholesale. I feel like it's what I need to be doing before I'm 30. I just have to figure out how to go about it.

x. Fallen for your best friend - No no no.
x. Been rejected - Yeah.
x. Been in love - No.
x. Done something you regret - a couple things, it doesn't keep me up at night or anything Read More »

So, I was rejected. Again.

No matter. I will persevere.

I'm not broken hearted. Just a little bewildered and pretty damn angry.

I know you and I don't have the greatest relationship right now (truly, I doubt your existence most of the time!) but if you make this art school thing happen for me, I promise nothing else but to make you and everyone down here damn proud.

"Which American City Are You?"

Las Vegas
You Shine bright and partake in all the vices. You'd rather burn out than fade away.

Besides me totally freaking out about money/school/et al, nothing is really happening this week.

Friday morning, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Which British Band Are You? Read More »

Friday morning I got up and went to work, and there was Big City Bread for breakfast, which was awesome, but we were also slammed, which was not so awesome. I was also majorly stressing about a test I had that afternoon. I had stayed up really late studying, so besides feeling totally unprepared I was falling-down tired. I clocked out, went down to the Taco Stand, ordered a few tacos and some sweet tea and studied, studied, studied. It was all for naught, however, because when I went to take my test, I discovered that I basically knew nothing. So we'll see how that score comes out.

My father came up from Winder and sat down at College Square and let me draw him for a few hours. He was playing guitar, and while this attracted a share of unsavory characters, it also drew over a lovely, aimicable Venezuelan art student named Tino. Tino also plays classical guitar and was absolutely enchanted with the fact that my father did as well.

We all hung out for a while while I did some bad drawings of Dad, and then Dad bought me dinner at Gandolfo's, one of the few places downtown I hadn't been before. Then Dad went back to Winder and I went home. Abie and I spent most of the evening after that making t-shirts, which you will have to see to believe. Then she and I took a walk around the neighborhood before returning home and going to bed.

I had promised my Dad I would go with him to Covington on Saturday afternoon to see Priscilla, daughter of my great Aunt Jet who passed away earlier this week. I was woken by his call at 12:30, so I stumbled out of bed, showered, threw some belongings in a bag and off we drove into the sunny afternoon. It wasn't until we arrived in Covington, nay, until we were at Priscilla's driveway, that Dad told me he hadn't warned Priscilla of our arrival. It was also not until this time that I remembered that Priscilla literally lives in an antebellum mansion in the nicest part of Convington. I don't know how that slipped my mind.

We went through the back entrance into the kitchen only to find that no one was home. Dad sat down and wrote a note while I wondered around the first floor of the house. The house is so frozen in time. Two parlors are set up on either side of a grand entrance, perfect for receiving guests. There is not a tv of stereo in sight. The whole place is filled with antique furniture and persian rugs, except for the playroom in the basement, which was filled with toys when I was a child (I doubt it is now, I preferred not to check). I remember being completely fascinated with this whole place, and to this day, it reminds me of being very young, and holds the distinction of being the only place that makes me at all nostalgic for a childhood that was occupied mostly by what is normally classified as trauma. Seeing it with the occupants absent only emphasised the reminiscence, because while they have aged, the house hasn't changed in a decade or more.

Letter completed, Dad came to collect me, and we were on our way back to Winder. He went to work, and I went back to the house, where I mostly watched TV and played with the dog. JJ called and invited me over, and during my visit it was decided that, whether I like it or not, I am going to Music Midtown with him. He also wants Maggie, Ellis, and “you know, the whole crew” to get together and go. I don't think they know yet. In any case, they know now. So, despite my test the Monday after, I am going. Lord help me, I am going to Music Midtown once more.

I left JJ's, got Waffle House to go (beer always makes me want Waffle House, who knows what that's about), went home and watched something on TBS, waiting for sleep to come on. Which it did. And it stayed til 5:30 in the afternoon. What the hell?

After that, Sunday wrapped up quickly, with some dinner with Dad, Simpsons, grocery shopping, and finally arriving home at half past midnight.

How was your weekend?

Tonight, I made my first foray back into the art world.

I started drawing again.

This one small task, this simple action of opening my sketchbook and applying conte crayon to the page, was an act of will, not desire. I've got to start drawing again, even if it means that I see how good I'm not, even if it makes me realize that the two months not attempting to do anything gave me no less than two giant steps back in my progress.

I think the scariest thought is I could give it my all and still not get in next semester.

I don't know if I can take the crushing of my soul again. It won't be as sturdy next time.

I used to love drawing. Now I hate that I ever loved drawing.

I just wish I knew what to do with my life.

This morning I was walking to work, through downtown Athens. Athens is a college town. 9 AM, Christmas Eve, downtown Athens, it's empty. Besides being eerily quiet, there are also about a billion parking spaces. And yet, there she was, the meter maid, wearing a Santa hat, giving out parking tickets to all the naughty boys and girls.

Merry. Freakin'. Christmas.

A YEAR IN RETROSPECT... a survey that actually means something, stolen from here. Read More »