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

Dawn today found me walking home after a second consecutive sleepless night, singing Cole Porter's “I've Got You Under My Skin” in the swinging style of the 1956 Frank Sinatra cut. At the end of my street I could see the guy who works the all-night convenience watching me, most likely puzzled at what could cause me to allow my voice to echo all over the narrow street.

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear:
Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time that I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
'Cause I've got you under my skin.

I should have been thinking about why I would possibly allow myself to come home at dawn when I hadn't slept in over a day and needed to work, but I wasn't. I was thinking about the night that led up to the darkness. I was playing the horn saturated instrumental fill in my heart and trying my damndest not to spin on the street as if I was on a studio backlot in some mid-20th-century comedy musical.

I remember us at some late hour watching a bowling championship on ESPN, and he mentions that he loves bowling, and I some how work in that I can't stand it. I don't know exactly how but I'm not surprised that I would do such a thing.

“I guess we can't get married now.” I sadly say. Our eventual marriage has become somewhat of a running joke, and his tolerance of said joke indicates one of only two states of mind: ignorance or some other, slightly warmer, elusive thing.

“I guess not.” He hangs his head in mock disappointment. “Good job, Jenna!” He admonishes me sarcastically and I break down, despite the fact that the game purports to be only pretend.

“Well, if that was a deal breaker,” I say in a more serious tone than is strictly necessary, “I would learn to bowl.”

I can't sleep and it's all your fault. That's what I want to tell you, although if I was going to be grown up about it, that point is not entirely true. You are just the genesis, my relationship with you bringing to the forefront various other issues that were probably due to come up anyway. Next month I'll be a year older, and I am starting to feel like there are some things that are never going to happen if they haven't happened by now. I don't know whether such issues would be rattling around in my pretty little head if I hadn't had fallen in love with you, but you can't unfire a gun, so we'll never know. Read More »

I had a terrifying nightmare last night, disturbing enough to cause me to not even want to write about it now. It woke me up in the middle of the night, but I had already forgotten it and didn't know why I had woken up. Being the geek that I am, upon waking I wondered over to my computer to check my email. I was in the middle of surfing Consumating five minutes later when awful flashes of it suddenly started coming back to me, and I immediately opened up Notepad and typed out the details as they came back. Then I couldn't sit in the dark at my computer anymore, and I got back into bed, curling into a ball under the covers to wait for dawn, when things hopefully wouldn't be so scary. I fell into a restless sleep, and when I woke up at 6:30 I watched some Sopranos and stayed bed until the sun came up.

After all that, when I started to work this morning, I was tired and couldn't concentrate, not to mention sort of traumatized by what my brain is capable of producing. So I took up my long-dead habit of drinking coffee. Four cups later I'm wired and can't concentrate, not to mention sort of traumatized by what my brain is capable of producing. I drugged myself into mania and nervousness.

I think I miscalculated.