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

This was only ten days ago, but it feels like years have gone by.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at Barcode; Alli's and Catie's brief visit; a light sunburn; tank tops; well-earned hangovers; making friends with certifiable bad guys; re-reading Hand Over Fist and getting it for real this time; feeling like I know every third person in this town, and being only six degrees from the rest; wallowing with the help of Elliott Smith

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'll tell you a secret: I've woken up crying for the past three days. Woken up and just sobbed for 10 or 15 minutes.

This is strange behavior under any circumstances, but especially strange because today—the third day I've woken up wondering why I bother to ever get out of bed—is my birthday. I am 22 years old today. And I've been having one of the worst weeks I've had in awhile.

If it wasn't the crippling low, it was an equally crippling bout of anxiety that lasted for my entire workday on Wednesday—nearly 8 hours of tense muscles, rapid heartbeat and difficulty breathing—that only slightly let up after I got home and incoherently babbled to Abie about nothing that I can remember now. It's been not wanting to ever get out of bed, preferring to hide in the dark and not face the world.

Here's where I need to point out that trying to hide from the world and having a birthday at the same time are totally incompatible. Even though I didn't even think they knew about my birthday at the time, Crystal and Amanda showed up at my house on Saturday night (from out of state, no less) and forced me to go a show with them, even though I had no other goals for the night than to curl up into a ball on the couch and try to disappear.

I got out of my pajamas, took a shower, and put on a show of my own: the one where I am happy and normal and not incredibly depressed.

We went to Flicker. My roommates Emily and Melissa were already there. Michael Flynn played lots of mushy love songs. He's actually fantastic, but felt distracted and in a daze.

Between sets Abie showed up, and then Bill Carson played. He's equally fantastic, and writes really sexy music, and the whole time I was thinking about how I needed to get the hell outta there into the open air, away from the crowds. I did not want to be around people at that moment.

After the set I got up and dashed out, and Abie came and found me. I related to her nearly everything, how I felt like shit, smothered by my life, that things, at 22, where not going at all the way I wanted.

Saying it aloud did help, just a little.

Just after midnight we gathered roommates and house guests and all ten of us went to the Grill.

We were all being goofy, taking pictures of each other, generally making too much of a ruckus, when spontaneously all nine people seated with me sang me Happy Birthday. It was simultaneously special, embarrassing, and the exact opposite of imperative-be-ye-not-social.

I probably needed it.

I woke up late today. My Dad called me while I was still in bed, contemplating the work ahead of me, and invited me to Winder to have dinner. I told him I had too much studying to do. He said he would come to Athens and feed me on a study break.

I got in the shower, further putting off studying, and realized there was no way I was going to pass the test on Tuesday. I got out of the shower, got online, and dropped the class.

I called my Dad. “I don't have to study anymore. I dropped it.”

“You sound ten times better than you did when I talked to you before.”

My sister and I went to Winder to eat Zaxby's with Dad. Choices in Winder are slim, see. Being in Winder made me feel kind of relaxed for some reason. Sarah and Dad talked a lot about music theory. Dad made his usual quota of bad jokes, and Sarah talked about her recent admission to a fancy music school. It was good to not be talking about myself for awhile.

When I came home at least 3 roommates blocked me from the kitchen and told me I needed to get in my room. This is a customary Apartment 6 birthday greeting.

A few minutes later, they called me into the living room. You will never guess what my cake looked like. It was the Best Thing Ever.

After I blew out the candles Abie asked me to sit down.

“We have to tell you something about your present. We all went in on something for you but it's on backorder, so you'll have to wait.”

“You guys did that for me?”

It's really awesome to find out your roommates were planning something behind your back, as long as it's not your demise.

Allison: “If you want something to unwrap I can wrap something for you—like the Prince of Weasels.”

Catie: “The Prince of Weasels is not for giving away.”

Allison: “Oh.”

I love both my families. Not because they buy me things or make me iPod cakes or pick beautiful pink flowers out for me, but because I've got people pulling for me even when things seem dark and inescapable. They love me even if I am a grump for a whole week, and they think about me even when I'm not standing there in front of them. I've been up in my own head a lot lately and forgot that I'm in a lot of other people's heads too.

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.

Somehow whenever I'm with the Indian I get dragged into completely random situations such as house parties. It always seems to happen by accident, with no sense of predetermination, and frequently with the objective of free beer.

There was a party being thrown by some new residents in my apartment building on Friday, and the Indian and I of course ended up there. I didn't particularly want to be there but friends stick together.

Everyone was very nice, but I was tired, and bored. I left a couple of times, running over to the smoke shop or running upstairs in search of decent beer. Out of sheer boredom I macked on this cat (known hereafter as K) who kept flirting with me, but it came increasingly clear that it was going nowhere. K was kind of cute, and only kind of dumb at first, but got stupider and stupider as time went on, no doubt helped along by massive amounts of beer. I gave up on getting any action after this exchange:

K (whining a little): “I wanna go downtown!”
J: “You are downtown.”
K: “I know, but I wanna go to some bars, listen to some music.” (Begins doing the drunk white guy dance.)
J: “What bars are you planning on going to?”
K: “Bourbon Street!”

I later explained to the Indian that I was not going to chase K into that place because I imagine that Bourbon Street is the kind of place where “you catch an STD just by walking in. You come through the door and bang! You've got herpes.”

Except for some funny exchanges with the Indian, it was kind of a waste of an evening.

Tonight I watched Peter Pan all the way through, finally, and I highly recommend it. Catie and I made a liquor store trip, where I purchased peach flavored morning vodka, because it was on clearance, and I just had to after hearing all about it. I'm sure this is just one more step on some cosmic checklist to becoming a respectable alcoholic, but the comic effect of actually having that on hand is something I had to experience.

I just bought a new computer, which is being custom built in a warehouse somewhere and should be in my hands and set up in just a couple of weeks, so if for some reason you would like to opt of the CD-mix-making extravaganza that will promptly ensue, speak now, or prepare to receive and listen to many songs you may or may not want to hear.

Awesome things happening:

• By this time next week I should have my first car.
• I paid off one of my credit cards today.
• Talib Kweli is playing Legion Field on Monday, for free.
• Sarah is moving to Athens.
• Abie and Allison are coming back from their respective vacations, so we will be a family again.

The one thing that must be said about awesome events: the anticipation is killing me.

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.

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.

I finally found a station with a west coast feed of Loveline.

You have no idea how happy this makes me.

Today was okay. Work, followed by some work. Then I came home and watched the original version of Ocean's Eleven with the little ones.

Then I told them all about my grandfather's obsession with spraypainting everything.

His shoes.

His garden statuary.

The doors inside his house.

His '69 Impala.

(maybe I forgot the Impala?)

I raise my rock hands in salute to the Abinator!

Goodnight.

So guess what: I'm WUOG's music staffer of the month (Well, myself and a male counterpart by the name of Robert. All things being equal, you know).

This may seem kinda silly but this feels like a big deal to me. I'm not your student-council-event-organizing-worker-for-the-community. I'm just me, and someone like me thinks that you do things because you like doing them, and the things you like, the things you are good at, are not really the things that people actually get recognized for.

But there was my name, emblazoned in red magic marker (or perhaps red Sharpie, since they are required equipment for WUOG) on construction paper beneath the banner proclaiming "Staffers of the Month". It felt good. It brightened up my whole day.

And then, like the good staffer I am, I cut out of our staff meeting early, to go see Angie Aparo at the 40 Watt. It was great. He is awesome, and funny, and gracious. And I literally starting crying during "Cry". He moved me to tears, can you believe it? And at one point he was randomly calling out city names to get cheers (because the crowd was cheering equally for every geographic location) and he actually goes, "You know, I was in Winder today...". Angie Aparo knows where Winder is. I am only so impressed by that because I am in awe of him. If you ever get the chance, you should see Angie Aparo play live.

Perhaps the nicest thing about going out was the company. Allison, Dave, Abie, and Catie are awesome people. They don't put up these walls you have to break down, and they somehow make me feel like a part of the group. I'm not watching what I say or afraid of looking or acting stupid or of laughing too much. They just make me feel really comfortable being me. There are only a handfull of people in the world that do that.

The girls and I went to Blue Sky after the show (coolest little coffee house in Athens, for those not in the know), and then Abie was kind enough to give me a ride home. She noticed that her gas light was on, so we went in search of gas. Do you know there are no gas stations open near campus at 2 in the morning? Crazy, right? We did ultimately find an Amaco way up on Broad, and the gas excursion came to an end, but it was actually pretty fun. Anything not to go home, right?

But I did come home, I had to, it's a school night.

Which means I should be in bed.

I'm trying to relax.