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

There is not much to report this year, but this is a Christmas tradition. Read More »

My joke about my life now is the kind that is funny because it is painful. Right about the time I was going to graduate from high school, lo these many years ago, there were two things I was certain of: I hadn't chosen a career yet, but I knew there was no way it would involve websites. I also knew that no matter what, once I moved out of Winder, I would never, ever move back.

This, Internet, should teach you a small but important lesson about hubris.

Not only have I been building an entire business out of websites for almost three years, but about 8 weeks ago, experiencing financial hardship, I moved back to Winder. I now split my time between my parents' home and a housesitting gig for a family friend. I actually commute to my gym in Athens to work out with my trainer once a week, so great is my commitment to my muscles. Outside of that, however, the move has proved to be fairly isolating. I was pretty much decimated fiscally when I decided to make the move back, so at the present I have no money to buy gas or go get a beer with my friends, and worse, I have no cell phone.

This is the longest I have been without a phone since I was 17, and while I understand that there was a world before cell phones, I have to tell you that these days, the world is set up for mobile but connected people. So great is my longing for a new phone that I have dreamed of the one I am saving up for multiple times. Editorially I have always vowed to stay far away from gadgetry as a topic of my writing, but Internet, that should simply highlight how important this has become.

Pretty much all of my internal dialog is consumed by financial planning now, trying to figure out which bill to pay off when and how does that effect when and what I eat — and eventually, when I'll be able to move home to Athens — and while it is important to me, it hardly makes for compelling prose, so until I get obsessed with a man again, or get really depressed, or have some great news to announce, I have a feeling I am going to be quite humdrum for awhile. I hope, Internet, that you'll stick with me all the same.

I do this every year, (or, at least, every year since 2003) and it is absolutely compulsory.

As in years past, I must preface this with a warning to not proceed if you have delicate sensibilities. I would say, though, that overall, I've been especially good this year. Read More »

The funny about this was the extremely matter-of-fact tone used by the young man, who I assume was taking care of his drunk friend:

“You need to find Brad and get him to take your ass home. Where is Brad?
“Why is Brad at Toppers? Brad is gay.”

Gay men like dancing, and boobs for that matter, so I myself am not entirely surprised that Brad was hanging out at a strip club.

Busking 8/5/2007 from Jenna Tollerson and Vimeo.

Downtown Athens, Georgia, 3 AM Saturday night (or Sunday morning). August 5th, 2007.

These guys had a sign that read:

WE SING ABOUT WHAT WE SEE.
     -------------------------------------
OUR DRUMMER IS WASTED!!!

Dancing to the Bucket Guy on Vimeo

Me: “Did you see that?”

Sam: (looks) “What is that?”

Me: “It's a man in a bear suit riding a bicycle.”

Sam: “Is Conan O'Brien here?”

A few things:

• I am so totally ready for the universe to stop beating me up. I get it! I've learned my lesson re: biting off more than I can chew/counting my chickens before they hatch/eating my green veggies/various other platitudes that ultimately mean nothing. The point is, I deserve to have something good happen in my life — it's been more than a year since the last Really Exciting Change, and I refuse to believe that at 24 years old things are due to start leveling out.
• I am sure I am not the first young geek to say this, but I really wish I could work for Connected Ventures, or at least hang out with the staff on a regular basis. There are many reasons for this, too many to enumerate here, the least of which is that they spend afternoons after work making dorky music videos that come out eerily well. My new favorite reason? I just discovered that the always lovable Zach Klein is actually a stone fox.
• My friend Becca, upon arriving at my apartment this time last week and putting away some beer to chill: “Your refrigerator might be the saddest thing I have ever seen.”
• To the bad cover band around the corner I'm being forced to listen to through my open window: you have no business covering Nelly. The only thing worse than hearing “Hot in Here” for the 400th time is having to sit through a rhythmless cover version.
  I think they will bust out some 50 Cent anytime now, and then my night will be complete.
• Twilight is this weekend. It won't be as quite as fun without beer and food money in hand, but there should at least be some sights to be seen and some drunk people to make conversation with.
• They are butchering Gavin Degraw now. I am sorry that I can't be more entertaining for you today.

My years of training as wallflower patient observer (before transforming into a social butterfly) have suddenly yielded a fantastic accomplishment. My “overheard” has been published on that bastion of Classic City culture, Overheard in Athens.

Drunk girl 1: She's carrying a hairbrush in her purse! I can't believe you carry a hairbrush in your purse!
Drunk girl 2: Doesn't everybody carry a hairbrush in their purse?
Drunk girl 1: Not me!
Drunk girl 2: Well, what do you carry in your purse? A flask of vodka and a pregnancy test?

Linky-link-link to the page, completely with clever title I can take no credit for.

The first time I ever took some one's keys away, I was just a few weeks into my freshman year of college.

I know drunk driving must have been a issue when I was in high school, but it was on a different scale, because there wasn't the regular activity of pre-gaming and then going downtown. We went to parties, did shots in people's kitchens, drank Everclear mixed with coke because it was cheap and lasted twice as long. People would gather at one place and basically have a huge lock in. It was a caused by a couple of factors. In a small town where the cops don't have much to do, every one had a heightened paranoia about being pulled over and arrested. There was no where to enjoy your drunkenness except for the place where you were already drunk. If you went home, you went to your parent's home, so you might as well just sleep it off and face them sober.

I'm not a stickler for the rules, but I do feel pretty strongly about drunk driving. I've always been vehemently against it. And before I moved to Athens, I assumed this was an issue that my peers and I more or less universally agreed upon. However, just like realizing how much groceries actually cost, worrying about health insurance, and coming to terms with your parents being just human like the rest of us, part of growing up is understanding that everyone—even people you like, people you love, and people you truly admire—makes bad decisions on a regular basis. More often than learning from them they actually learn nothing from them. Especially when there are no immediate ill consequences.

However, when I was new freshman, I was still charmingly naïve. Years of PSAs and television dramas had actually convinced me that you could keep someone from driving drunk if you were determined enough, and had determined that no one would ever drive drunk on my watch.

My roommate at the time, Sonya, had a bunch of her friends visiting from her hometown, and staying with us in our tiny dorm room. They pre-gamed in our room and then it was time to head downtown.

The original plan was to walk, but standing in front of the building, facing the trek down the hill, the group, pretty drunk and unruly, decided to drive. Although I was pretty much sober, I don't remember how I managed to get the keys from the driver, but I clearly remember what happened next. Read More »