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

If you have a complicated relationship with someone, an unexpected but pernicious reminder of this fact can be had, of all places, in the greeting card aisle. Here is a place where relationships are neatly divided and categorized, and none so much as in the birthday cards. There are cards for mothers and fathers, brother and sisters, and every other member of the family. There are cards for husbands and wives, and cards filed “Birthday with Romance” for that specific sentiment, when such heavy handed gems as, “It’s your birthday and I’m thinking of you... Naked”. There are “Birthday for Him” and “Birthday for Her”, some meant to be given to close friends and some meant to hand to someone in the office after the whole floor has signed it.

There is a card for everyone in your life that has a defined role, which often people do. People who you have fuzzy relationships with are either still on their way to being important enough to get a card, or on their way out of your life. In Greeting Card Land, someone is your friend, or they’re not. Someone is your boyfriend or fiance or husband, or they’re not. There is no birthday card for the man who you met when a new friend started dating him, the man who then drew you into a bizarre triangle where you provided all the abstract elements of a girlfriend—the long nights talking, the emotional support, the understanding—and the actual girlfriend bought the sex. There isn’t a card for this man who you threw yourself at while he was still dating your friend, and then again and again after they broke up, getting rejected each time. No card for someone who initiates deep kisses when they’re drunk, knowing full well your deep, abiding feelings, and then when you bring it up a day later abruptly changes the subject. There isn’t a card for the man who, despite rejecting you, expresses romantic feelings and actions to you constantly in the space of well over a year, orchestrating candle lit dinners, posing as your boyfriend at weddings, asking you to dance in bars and in his kitchen, insisting you stay over and sleep next to him, rubbing your shoulders when you don’t feel well. And there is not a good card for someone who, after being out of touch for months, starts a letter with “Jenna Baby,” and in the next sentence refers to you as his “dear old pal”. Read More »

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.

“You are in love.”

“Seriously, don't tell me that I am in love.”

(Laughs). “Why not?”

“Because if I am in love, I will get my heart broken again. And I can't take that.
“If I'm just flirting, there is no chance that I'll get hurt.”

It's an important layer of protection. If you were never going for the gold in the first place, you can't get rejected and you can't get jealous. It's just about fun.

And that's where I'm at.

No really, I swear.

Looking back, and forward. Read More »

I had a blast at The Company's Xmas party. I took the Indian as my date, and at 6:00 pm we got on the bus that would take most of the Athens attendees to the party in Gwinnett. The thing that is both cool and dangerous about taking a bus to this party is the drinking begins the moment you get on the bus. So, my estimate was totally off. Drinks included:

• Something Neil handed to me on the ride down, ordering me to “Drink this!” Even though it was pretty weak the Indian determined for me that it contained bourbon.
• three vodkas on the rocks from the bar at the party (where I had this classic exchange with the bartender):
  

  “Vodka on ice, please.”
  (Incredulous.) “Vodka on ice?”
  “Yessir.”
  (Smiling.) “I like it when people say that.”

• Something an unnamed manager came up and offered. Possibly gin with sprite.
• All of what was in my flask. (5-6 oz. vodka)
• About half of the whiskey in Neil's flask.
• and several hits off of Neil's bottle of Gentleman Jack.

An aside: while making this list, I have determined I owe Neil a bottle of something in the near future.

The party had a casino theme, and while I didn't gamble, I did stand at the end of the craps table for a little while, cheering and blowing on dice. I felt like an archetypal Vegas blonde and I loved it. I stayed off the dance floor but shook my hips to the music anyway. CB and I rapped along to Missy Elliot while Neil gave us his best faux look of stern dissapproval in our musical tastes. I didn't express it but I couldn't get over how hot everyone looked. We clean up very nicely, part timers especially.

Silliness abounded, which as it turns out, was only a precursor to the drunken melodrama that followed on the ride home. Read More »

New insanely addicting site: Make a Flake

New thing that irritates me although I can do nothing about it: sites without syndicated feeds

Favorite Song (this week): The Black Keys - 10 A.M. Automatic

Number of times I've heard 10 A.M. Automatic, according to iTunes: 21

Movie I'm addicted to of late: Donnie Darko

Song that stays stuck in my head always now, featured in the first DD school scene: Head Over Heels, Tears for Fears

Crush: still going strong

Cigarettes I will smoke today (estimate): 7

Drinks I will consume at The Company Xmas party this evening (estimate): 6

Month that I want to be over already: December

Fun post ideas stolen: 1

The Indian's thoughts on my crush:

“I think he thinks he can be that way with you, I think lots of people think they can be that way with you, because they see what we have, you and I, and they want that. They are trying to figure out that connection and how to get it for themselves. But we're unique, and it can't be duplicated.

“With you, [this dude] wants to have his cake and eat it too, but he can't. It's my fucking cake.”

I could never imbibe enough liquid courage to tell him how I really feel. These days I'm a coward with a staggeringly high tolerance.

CB (9:07:13 PM): you're a hardass. not that i condone that.
CB (9:07:16 PM): but you can drink.
Jen (9:07:36 PM): me?
CB (9:08:06 PM): yup Read More »

me: “But me and [him] is never going to happen. He's just not into me. I'm this great friend to him. I'm another guy, basically.”

her: “You never know.”

me: “I wish [he] was into me, because I think we are perfect for each other. We have the same interests and the same sense of humor... you know he's always telling me stuff that he says he doesn't tell anybody, because I'll ‘get it’... guys don't rest on their laurels the way girls do. If a guy wants you, he will let you know.”

her: “I could really see you guys together.”

me: “Well, there is no chance.”

her: “What you need to do is just get him drunk, lay it out for him and... let things flow.”

me: “I just wish he would've stuck his tongue down my throat already if he likes me so damn much, as you say.
      “But, honestly, I don't think it's a possibility.”

deedsy: “Duder, you're not cool until you have a fuzzy jacket. It's badass, man.”

I spent tonight as I seem spend many weekend nights these days: pining after someone who is not interested in me while doing my best to get drunk, so I can forget about the fact that he is not interested in me.

In this light, it's a blessing that I am in dire financial straights recently or I would be really wasted right now.

As it is I'm too drunk to be typing, especially typing and actually posting things to the Internet.

deedsy: “You don't post nearly as often as you should.”