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 »

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 »

So, Internet, it's been a pretty okay summer. I've been working hard, in more ways than one, and it is starting to pay off in small, incremental ways, although it is a hard road to hoe, not to mention slow going.

The business is coming up, even if it is at a sluggish pace. I finally feel fully confident in my skills, and my ability to sell those skills to just about anybody. I haven't gotten any aghast reactions to my rates in a while, which means I'm selling to the correct market, at last. Now I just have to find the time to seek out more of that market.

I joined a gym a few months ago. I pour lots of time into walking briskly on a treadmill, and once a week I see a personal trainer who kicks my ass. My first week, I had personal training sessions on both Monday and Wednesday, and on Friday morning I was slowly waking up when I asked my half-awake self, Was I in a car accident?

Nope, I realized. I'm just that sore. Read More »

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 »

I drove away, looking up at the Cheshire Cat moon smiling down at me, wondering if I would see him again.

This is the thought I had, word for word, driving down the road on Sunday night. This writing thing is sort of a gift and a curse, because you often find yourself narrating your real life as it happens in bombastic and high-handed prose. Even the phrase “bombastic and high-handed” is fairly bombastic and high-handed. That whole sentence was like a snake swallowing its own tail.

The point is, I pretty much spend my whole day doing this, relaying this ongoing commentary back to myself, seeing the words appear before me like a close-up shot of a old fashioned type writer in action. I've been doing this my whole life, and while it has tapered back significantly in the past few years, it still happens a lot. Lately all I've been getting are turns of phrase like this one, barely fit for a bargain bin first novel.

However there is nothing of substance to write about lately. I'm working a ton, and I must admit it is a blast. At least once a day I'm typing or uploading or dragging-and-dropping and it just hits me like a freight train: I love what I do. There was a time when I thought I'd mostly be out of the web business by this age, but apparently I'm just getting started, and the extra cool thing is I'm really fucking good at it.

When I'm not working my brain spins overtime parsing this “he–loves–me / he–loves–me–not” drama, which is like something we've all seen on some network comedy somewhere, young career woman in city, focused on work but looking for love, with generous layers of sexual tension between her and the male lead. Except not as funny as that show you saw, and, unbelievably, more pathetic. They don't ultimately get together because he doesn't love her, and without the Ross and Rachael/Carrie and Mr. Big/Buffy and Angel on–again–off–again mess, the whole thing loses steam.

I'm trying to get that show canceled so I can move something else into that time. Maybe something educational. That would be good.

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 »

Each year, we at the house take an intimate look at the last 12 months, in a frighteningly frank way. This is to keep things honest, despite anything else that may have been written. This year it seems more important that ever, because we haven't been checking in as much.

As always, if you think you may be offended by cursing, graphic sexuality, talk about death, destructive relationships, or substance abuse, among other topics, turn away now. Have some kittens.

In addition, if you feel that such talk might ruin your holiday, save the read until after the new year.

And now, on with the show. Read More »

“We've got to toughen you up.”

“Is that right?”

“Totally. I'll tell you what we'll do. When I get there, we'll go down to the bar, crack some bottles over people's heads, give some noogies.
“You'll be carrying an 12 inch — no 18 inch metal rod, and I'll carry a bucket of oil slick. When the cops come after us, you throw the rod in the front spokes—”

“—this sounds like an excellent way to get arrested.”

“God, grow some testicles, Jenna! I mean, not literal testicles. Not literal.”

“I know. Metaphorical. Cojones.”

“Exactly. I mean, you don't need anything hanging down there. You have a very nice shape as it is.”

“Well thank you.”

“Anyway, you throw the rod in the wheel, they go flying over the handlebars. Meanwhile, I throw the oil slick down and the rest of them slide all over the place.”

“This is like a bad cartoon!”

“Of course it is! What do you think I have access to? There should also be like, anvils dropping from the sky and people walking off of cliffs.”

“And we can paint a tunnel on the side of a building and they'll ride right into it.”

“Brilliant!”

“Aw, you know you loved it.”

“Well of course I did. But it's not the same when there's no conclusion to the whole thing. I just got so wound up.”

“It's different for women though.”

“That's the thing, he was right there with me, if you know what I mean.”

“Huh.”

“He was in the bathroom for like 5 minutes afterward though.”

“I see.”

“He came to a conclusion on his own, didn't he?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

“Dammit. You know what really sucks? I haven't had a decent conclusion since that morning.”

“Ou, that's rough.”

“I know. right? It's like I got rewired or something. I used to be, like, master of my own conclusions!”

“The first two syllables of that phrase being the operative ones.”