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

Loooooong, slightly masturbatory essay. I apologize in advance.

“Jenna,” He stuck his chin out and whined with faux exasperation, “why do you hate me so much?”

Everyone's got that one friend who uses some variation on this phrase as a way to tell you to just lighten up when you are trying to get them to do something completely reasonable. Like stop drinking when they've clearly had enough. Or get in the car when it's 5 in the morning and obviously time to head home. Or to please, just put some clothes on. While you're just trying to get through to the end of the night, your friend basically says to you, Stop being so uptight. You're totally harshing my mellow. Read More »

This morning, on the way to my car, I was approached by two gentlemen slightly older than myself, wielding a small hand held camera with a large, red-carpet-at-the-oscars microphone wired to it. They asked if I could help them with a project, and ask me “some questions about the birds and the bees.” Usually, I would laugh and brush off anyone trying to interview me on the street—I have walked past a fair number of petitioners, student film makers and news anchors in my short life—but something about these guys made me rethink just saying that I was in a hurry and dashing past. They smiled genuinely and asked politely. They just seemed so damn sincere.

I relented, and the camera started to roll. I immediately went into panic mode, as if I was addressing an entire room. Not good. Definitely not good.

“Did anyone ever sit you down and tell you about the birds and the bees?”

Well, I got a extremely weird speech from my mother when I was about 10? I think? The only thing I really remember about it was that she kept referring to my potential future husband—a person who was completely mythical at the time and moreover, I could not care less about at ten years old—as my “mate”. As in, “One day you will grow up and choose a mate.” Like the only thing my life was good for was growing up and popping out more little Jennas, to ensure the survival of the species. As if I were endangered, like a panda. She gave me the speech after cornering me while I was taking a bath, so I'm sitting in the tub naked, and I remember trying to disappear under the water so she would just leave me alone. She droned on for so long that the water got cold around me but I wouldn't get out because it felt safer than standing and getting even colder. I'm pretty sure that incident fucked me up for life.

“No.” Read More »

Random guy walks up to me at the Bain Mattox show at Tasty World. I notice he's wearing a hat that I own, but he's otherwise completely unfamiliar to me.

“Hey! Is your sister here?”

“Yeah, she's close to the front.” I point to where my sister is standing with her friend watching the show.

“Where?”

“Right there, in the turquoise.”

“Oh, cool!”

He stands next to me for a couple of minutes, facing the stage. I'm little intoxicated, and I start to blame my drunk memory on not remembering this guy, but I realize that he doesn't even look slightly familiar. I screw up a little courage and turn to him.

“I'm sorry, do I know you from somewhere?”

“No, no, I just recognize you from myspace.”

He was even serious.

***

I'm at my bar enjoying a delicious beverage. My friend is at my left, his coworker is at my right. The coworker is quite rotund, wearing a shirt that says, ‘When you masturbate, God kills a kitten.’, keeps proclaiming loudly to the whole bar that someone should help him lose his virginity tonight, and has had one—count it, one—Smirnoff Ice. He has the social skills of a home-schooled kid except without the helpful element of shyness. He and I are not getting along, although I'm sure that would be a surprise to him. He thinks he can woo me, and attempts to work his game, giving me a smooth line that he's probably been waiting to use on someone for weeks.

He turns to me, unprovoked, and says with utmost sincerity, “You know what? Even though I haven't been drinking, you're still really cute.”

He looks at me expectantly, wondering why I'm not falling into his arms or at least blushing and giggling like a school girl. I don't even blink. After the half an hour or so I had already spent with the coworker, this comment just seemed par for the course.

My friend on my other side hadn't heard any of this due to the volume of the noise in the bar, so I turned and relayed it to him, scoffing. We then laughed together, manically as we are wont to do, and the coworker just sat, bewildered.

“What did I say?”

Due to a boring series of events that lead to the misplacement of my debit card, followed by one of my perfectly good credit cards getting inexplicably declined the very next day, I have felt very devalued the last few days. It's not that my self-worth is tied up in money (which would be sad), it's that my sense of power and freedom is tied up in money (which is just as sad, but not unfounded).

In an attempt to have something in hand (greenbacks) in order to give me a greater sense of security in my monetary worth (cash never gets declined), I went to the bank today to obtain a temporary ATM card, which is something Bank of America offers while you wait for your new check card to come in. It doesn't give you debit access but does give you access to cash via ATM machines. I usually never carry cash, but I figure it's better than credit cards or (gasp!) writing checks for the next however many days/weeks it takes for my new card to get to me.

I went inside the the bank for maybe the third time ever in more than four years of living here; I spent 15 minutes with a teller and made away with my temporary card, no sweat.

Then came the gawd-awful touch screen ATM. Only fellow BoA customers know my pain; 90% of the time, the touchscreens don't work as expected or don't work at all. In this case, because I had a brand new card, it wanted me to choose my “ATM customizations“, beginning with my language. I pressed English.

Nothing. I pressed it again and again. After a period of time in which the machine felt there was no response from me, it asked me if I would like more time. the only way I could get it to respond for my request for more time was to press enter on the actual goddamn keypad.

I went through this song and dance with my Automatic Teller four times before leaving the building and walking around to the red-headed stepchild ATM in the back, which, while ghetto fantastic in only two colors and no “customizations“, at least has real buttons that fucking work. I mean really.

The machine being a little out of date, I had some slight trouble getting it to take my card at first, but eventually I got it going and we were well on our way. No selecting languages, no looking at mortgage advertisements while they “process my transaction” just PIN, Fast Cash, and Amount. Get the the cash(! yey!) and grab the card... which seemed to be stuck in the machine.

“Thank you for visiting. Please enter your card to continue.” The black screen mocked me with it's lime green 16-bit illustrations of a chubby hand feeding a card into a hungry, devouring ATM. My card was no where to be found. Frustrated, I threw my hands into the air and screamed “FUCK IT!”. I turned to walk to work, gesticulating and speaking to no one in particular as I strode angrily down the sidewalk. “I GIVE UP!”

This is really one of those stories that works better out loud; one can amplify the importance and entertainment of otherwise mundane details with tone, sarcasm, and general merriment. I told this story to coworkers or sets of coworkers at different times throughout my day and was met with great empathy, and laughter. I actually got all the frustration about my ever-increasingly ridiculous plastic situation out in the course of the conversations, and I would normally not even write out a “better-out-loud” story, the exception being made tonight to expose one significant, potentially narrative-altering detail: in the course of balancing my checkbook this evening, what I found, in my wallet and in perfectly plain sight in a clear vinyl pocket—that damn temporary ATM card that was “eaten” by the ghetto machine.

Remember, I was standing at the ATM when I decided I had been taken. This was probably only a moment after I took the card from the machine with my own hands and placed it back in my wallet. The thing is, I have absolutely no recollection of this happening. If I were to believe my own memory instead of the clear physical evidence in front of me, I would still swear that my card was eaten, as I clearly remember being enraged and frustrated by the whole course of events. It doesn't feel fuzzy at all; it feels completely lucid and true. A lucid and true event where I apparently blacked out for 10 seconds at 10:15 in the morning.

What can we conclude from this? I don't know if it's a mark of stress or just plain lunacy, but the fact is, Jenna Tollerson is loosing it.

I. Dig Your Own Hole.

Due to my especially caustic and matter-of-fact nature, I outright insulted the music taste of a dear friend on Saturday, calling him, as I recall, “a type”, protesting that he only enjoyed pretentious alternative rock, and pinning down that he is obviously a big Radiohead fan. Which is all true. So why do I feel bad about saying it?

II. Kissing Cousins.

Besides the inherent way you relate to them, I think this is the big difference between having men for best friends (read: family without blood relation) instead of women:

You don't have very sexy dreams about one of your female friends that, while pleasant (read: hot.) at the time, upon awaking leave you feeling quite uncomfortable and possibly incestuous. At least, I don't have those kinds of dreams about my female friends.

I'm going to blame it on the drunk sleep and never speak of it again.

III. Vanilla Caramel Cologne

Even though it was Monday morning, 8 am class, I was excited about going to class this morning. I felt that the week was rich with possibility. I sat at one of the ridiculous constructed desk-and-chair-in-ones in the classroom and waited, taking out my new spiral notebook and pen, eager to learn.

We had a paper to hand back, and instead of having us pass them to the front from where we sat (which would have made so much sense and which I so wished had happened), my teacher invited us to walk up and hand them them in.

Standing from one of these previously mentioned desk-and-chairs has never been a very easy feat for me. It seems I possess the grace of a baby elephant in these circumstances, and today was no exception.

I made movements to stand. The desk wobbled. The coffee which sat on my desk wobbled, and tipped. Verona blend coffee and Vanilla Caramel coffee mate went all over my desk, all over my new notebook, but worst of all, all over the right side of my person.

I exclaimed “Shit!” at what I believe was a clearly audible level no doubt heard throughout campus, and stood completely, attempting to keep my cool. Covered in coffee, I approached my teacher, handed him my paper, and promptly left the room in search of paper towels.

I returned and attempted to clean up, but no matter how much I cleaned more coffee seemed to come from somewhere. Even when I did get everything up, the desk where I sat was sticky, and worse, I was sticky. And I smelled like coffee, an increasing unpleasant odor that begin to fill the room, or at least permeate the air around me in a way in which I couldn't escape it.

I had to pretend that this was a completely normal day for me, and when I left to go to my next class, I had to calmly walk down Baldwin Street, sunglasses and headphones on, smoking a cigarette, pretending that the coffee stain covering the right side of my torso was the new cool thing.

I can only hope that the school year will go up from here.

Due to some uncharacteristic nervousness about making my flight, about being on time, I arrived at my gate more than 2 hours early, with nothing but time to kill. I sat and played Lemonade Tycoon on my cell phone and did some people watching.

There's a metrosexual young man seated on the other side of my duffle bag, talking on his cell phone. He has gelled hair that has been professionally colored and highlighted, shined shoes and and outfit that is entirely black—black tailored pants, black button-down shirt, black footwear. His streamlined outfit bothers me, like he's making the rest of us—the people with outfits for traveling in comfort rather than style—look mussed and ragged by comparison. He's wearing a ring that is a king's crown wrapped around one finger, and he uses his other hand to thump an empty Dansani bottle against his knee as he talks. I feel the tinge of class warfare come over me as I watch him, resentful.

I shouldn't be so judgemental, I think. I'm the one drinking Perrier.

His ease, treating air travel as such a non-event, is a sharp contrast to the young woman seated across from me with her mother. Her dress and manner could easily make her a native of Winder or a similar town. She wears an oversized sweatshirt, tight leggings and sneakers. The whole getup makes her like a shapeless blob perched atop two legs. I conjecture she's actually much thinner under her sweatshirt tent, even if she is carrying one of Dr. Phil's weight loss books in her purse. She dresses, sits and speaks as if she doesn't travel into the city often, as if she simply doesn't notice how outlandish she seems against the backdrop of business travelers and suburban parents.

Being from such a small town myself, it's a quality I've come to recognize easily, largely so I may fight such characteristics from coming out in my own behavior and appearance.

The young woman keeps proclaiming loudly to someone on her cell phone that she's never flow before. She stresses over and over how nervous she is. I can see the cold sweat across her forehead. Her mother keeps chanting to her, like a mantra: “You're going to have fun. You're going to have fun. You're going to have fun.”

The woman takes deep breaths and complains that the Dramamine she took is making her drowsy. As high strung as she is, however, I think it may be best if she can sleep through her first venture into air travel.

The metrosexual and the young woman and her mother board the flight before mine and depart for Pheonix. The chairs around me empty and suddenly, I'm all alone. The air is cooler and I worry less about the metrosexual glancing over and somehow reading the less than flattering description I've scrawled in my notebook.

I mean, he's probably just a person like everyone else.

I sit and play more cell phone games, and then get up and go to the rest room. When I come out, I realize I've been here for quite a while. I check the time.

6:20. I'm scheduled to depart at 6:40, but there is no significant number of people sitting at my gate, and more importantly, no one at the counter. Looking in that direction I realize the information above the counter says that the next flight is going to San Francisco at 7:20.

What. The. Fuck.

I recheck my boarding pass, put it away, and then take it out and check it again. Everytime I check it, it still reads gate A21. I'm at A21. Something has been switched up on me, and I have 20 minutes to figure out where I'm actually supposed to be.

I haven't panicked, but it's going in that direction for sure. I look up at the various, essentially useless “information screens” mounted above the fray in the terminal. Nothing. I decide I need help. Needing help irritates me, as I like being self-reliant, but I decide I have no choice. No matter, I was made to feel like a fool no matter how self-reliant I wished to be.

I walk across to A19, where there are Delta employees at the counter who do not look extremely busy but somehow still manage to look extremely put out when I politely ask them for their help.

“Could you please help me figure out where I'm supposed to be?”

“Where are you going?”

“Seattle.”

“What does your boarding pass say?”

“My boarding pass says A21,” I counter, “but A21 is not going to Seattle. I am going to Seattle.”

He asks for the flight number and I provide it for him without looking at the pass, as I have closely examined all text on the pass over and over in near panic.

He types briefly and reading off the screen he says, “197 is now boarding at A25.”

“A25?”

He looks up at me like I'm being completely unreasonable, like needing one additional verbal confirmation after the mixup makes me into some kind of detail-obsessed savant, and he is amazed I was able to get this close to my flight by myself. “Yes, A25.”

I say my thanks and rush off, arriving at my gate just as they are boarding my “zone”. I settle in to my seat, and when we are up in the air, I spike my ginger ale with Jack Daniels. I've earned it.

This morning I woke up the first time my alarm went off.

This never happens.

I'm fairly certain it worked this time because I've replaced the squawk! squawk! squawk! of my clock radio with my new mobile phone alarm, playing my Love in an Elevator ringtone.

I climbed out of bed, did the morning thing. I had time to make French bread pizza for breakfast, take a lot of vitamins to combat the cold I am suffering from, and give some clear thought to my goals for the day. I wasn't feeling terribly chipper about going to class, but I was making good time, and if I booked it I'd only be about a minute late.

I pulled on my lucky hat, started up the iPod and bounded down the stairs.

At the second floor landing I nearly ran into a guy coming out of the hall right off the stairs. In a gentlemanly move he motioned me past him. I smiled and rushed down the steps.

I ended up going a little faster than I cared to.

I'm not sure what the liquid on the stairs was. It looked like water, but it could have been anything. Whatever it was, it was grimy and oily. I remember thinking—in the moment just before I stepped right into it, gliding across it, losing my footing and sliding down half a flight of stairs at a high speed—that I should maybe try to avoid the splotches of liquid, a trail leading down decorating a dozen steps.

The world swirled for a moment while I was airborne, and then I was swept back to reality by the pain. The lovely pain. I do know now that, despite habitual binge drinking, all my nerve endings are still working.

The young man who had ushered me past (and in light of this, I must say I feel especially terrible that I can't conjure up his face in my head for the life of me) came down the stairs and genuinely expressed concern.

“Are you okay?”

Gasp. Squint. “No—” I strained through gritted teeth, “—definitely not.”

I was still sitting where I had landed, contemplating what it was going to feel like to stand. He stood there in front of me, looking half-worried and half-obligated, and offered to stay there for a moment, presumably in case I couldn't get up on my own.

I insisted this was not necessary. “No—go ahead.” I spoke with a tightened chest and short, abbreviated breaths. I think I was trying not to cry.

The gentlemen left. I sat there for a moment, pondering blowing off class, walking back upstairs, laying down on the couch and sobbing for awhile. However, at this point, it seemed much less painful to go down stairs than climb back upstairs, so I took a deep breathe and stood.

It hurt even more than I thought it would.

Where I stood, I face a wall where someone had scrawled a too-late warning.

“Be Safe”

The final verdict? I twisted my shoulder when I grabbed for the rail, my right wrist is still throbbing from when I landed on it, and there are a few ungrateful spots on my back and spine that came into violent contact with the stairs when I flipped backwards. I'm a mess.

“Plus,” I told Neil later, “I probably have a bruise on my ass the size of Texas.”

I walked from Copper Creek and stood in front of my building (also, stood in front of the bar on the first floor of my building) and people watched while I finished my cigarette. Three men—all clearly old enough to be my father—stood off to my left. Two of them walked inside the bar after being asked by someone working the door to say off the sidewalk with open bottles. I don't know how the one who approached me managed to say outside with his bottle of Sam Adams, but there he was, arms stretched to either side, ready to envelope me. I put the hand that was holding my purse gently to his chest, halting whatever campaign he had decided upon. He looked very put out by this.

With my hand steady at his chest and his arms still out, I gave him a friendly “Hi.”

He stared at me for a moment. He was obviously very drunk already, especially considering it was only 10 PM. “Do you have a light?”

I noticed he was holding an unlit cigarette, so I pulled out my Zippo.

Looking at my Black in my other hand he asked, “What are you smoking?”

“Cloves.”

He took my cigarette from me and took a drag. When he handed it back, I asked if he still needed a light.

This is when he asked, and I am not making this up, “Can I touch you?”

I smiled. “No.”

I lit his cigarette for him, and his friends, still with the open bottles, came out onto the sidewalk looking for him. They were also very drunk and had somehow gotten the impression their friend was making a very successful conquest. I backed away in small steps as the man who had propositioned me insisted to his friends that they needed to go to “Chelsea's, I'm telling ya. Chelsea's.” (Chelsea's is one of Athens' local girlie bars. I think they offer “private lingerie modeling” or somesuch nonsense.) One of the friends made an off hand motion to me encouraging his friend, as if I was an acceptable strip club substitute, but I was on my way upstairs, and left those creeps in the dust.

However, it was less scary than amusing, and nothing could have dampened my mood. Free beer + time with Neil = loving life right now.

“Um, Jenna?”

(Not even half awake) “Yeeeah?”

“Phone for you... Someone broke into your car.”

(Suddenly completely alert) “My car? You're fucking kidding me.”

My parking service had called the police and had an officer waiting on the scene when I arrived with Abie.

I walk around to poor, wounded Russo. His driver's side window was busted in. Nothing was even taken. The CD changer was still in the trunk. My glove compartment had been rifled through, but all my paperwork was still there. My one comfort is that the interior lock on the driver's side doesn't work, so whoever was responsible had to lean through the window, all over the broken glass, and hopefully will be finding glass in their clothes for a few weeks.

My roommate Allison's car was also broken into overnight. She parks two lots down, a block away. The officer asked Abie and I if we have any enemies we could think of that would have targeted us.

No, I said. It's just an unhappy coincidence.

If nothing else, I now feel like I've gotten the full urban experience. Yey.

Jenna
     [11:05] to top it all off I now have a mondo headache
     [11:31] make my head stop pounding, won't you?

Neil
     [11:32] biggidy bam.
     [11:32] how is it now?

Today at about noon, there was a woman walking down Clayton towards College Avenue. She was carrying a bottle of Powerade and looking uneasy. She walked very delicately.

At the corner, she suddenly stopped short. Her eyes got wide, and she put her hand to her mouth. It was a futile gesture; she vomited on the sidewalk, in full view of anyone near that intersection.

She turned her head away, wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jean jacket, straightened herself, and kept walking as if nothing had happened.

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Read More »