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

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 »

Well, what can I say, Internet? It has been kind of a crazy few weeks. I have been so busy with normal, day-to-day living, as well as just mentally unpacking all that has gone on, that I haven't been checking in as much as I would like.

We'll start with the basics, because that seems like as good a place as any to start. There was the Boston trip. There was a great deal more family conflict than I really cared for. I didn't get to see much of the city, spending most of the time being shuffled from location to location or trapped in an apartment.

On the upside, I got to spend time with both my sisters, which was lovely. I got to meet a few of Sarah's dear friends, who were for the most part great people, and made me feel like my baby sister is being taken care of up there in the seemingly cold north. I walked a lot, which I feel could only be good for me. And while I loathe being away from home, for some reason I love the act of the roadtrip -- driving through a part of the country I had never seen before, stopping at random gas stations and restaurants, and that feeling of being on your way somewhere. That feeling that makes you temporarily forget every goal besides your destination. There is something kind of meditative about that part. When you can ignore the screaming and antagonism from the other passengers, that is.

Things I learned on the road to, and from, Boston: Read More »

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 didn't get to sleep until six this morning. I had been nothing but exhausted all day yesterday, but when it came time to actually relax, my brain was having none of it. There is way too much crazy bullshit going on in my life lately, and as a result I'm sort of trapped up in my own head all the time.

Ironically enough working — actual problem solving and coding, not this 24/7 hustle I seem to have going lately that consists entirely of solicting — is the one thing that makes me focus on something that is not me. Unfortunately, at the moment, I am not getting enough work, and that is causing a majority of the stress. I'm not sure if that's the correct English professor definition of irony but it's damn close enough for me.

So I finally get sort of unconscious, and I kept dreaming of being trapped in a haunted house with the ghosts of some sick people. I don't mean ill. I mean ill in the head. It was terrifying. I'm pretty sure I woke up about every five minutes, until my empty stomach said “No more!” and forced me awake for good. That was 8:30 this morning.

So here I am, awake and oh-so refreshed on a bright Tuesday. I'm not going to go into specifics but so far today has been nothing but bad news. I'm guessing I have until end of business to turn things around, but lately I don't feel in control. I feel like I'm at the mercy of the universe, and if I believed in God, I would have to assume I'd done something awful and I must be smited. As it is, being a non-believer, I think I'm just running into multiple random acts of badness. Even so, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.

The fear that you won't wake up on time. Again.

This is entirely counterproductive.

Start with two Irish Carbombs. Add two overpriced cigarettes and and two Smoked Porter brews from Copper Creek. Mix well until there is a pleasant, steady buzz. Laugh loud at the Brit and smoke another cigarette on the way home.

Arrive home before midnight. Change into pajamas, slam two huge glasses of water. Climb into bed at 12:03 am, excited about the long night of rest that lies ahead (a whole nine hours!). Fall asleep painlessly and instantly.

Your phone will ring at 12:57 am, waking you, but don't answer it. Instead, inspect the time, decide that it is one in the afternoon, that you overslept, and are now late for work. Begin formulating excuses for your boss.

30 seconds after the ring, the mind cloud lifts, it's one am again. Go back to sleep without trouble or incident.

At 3:45 am, wake up suddenly and completely, without cause, and stone sober to boot.

[It should be noted here that there are two main kinds of insomnia: the people who can't get to sleep and the people who can't stay asleep. I have always been one of the former. I am not too keen on becoming one of the latter.]

Lay in bed, still dead tired but now unable to sleep, for two hours. Get up and write, believing it will help. It won't. Get back in bed until 7:00, and then give up and get in the shower.

After getting all fresh and clean, go the kitchen to make breakfast. Knock a box full of pasta off it's shelf. When you go to pick it up in your groggy state, the box will be upside-down. The top will come completely undone, and you will have ruined dry pasta all over the floor.

Sit on the floor in your bathrobe, heave a big sigh, and clean it up.

After breakfast head to Starbucks to kill time before work. Listen to lavishly and obnoxiously arranged version of “O Holy Night”. Note that Christmas music before Thanksgiving is part of what is wrong with the world, and is certainly a sign of the rapture.

Move quickly (trying to outrun the music) out of the coffee shop. Mix well with one overpriced but delicious eggnog latte, charged to a credit card, and send to work for 6 ½ hours.

Serves no one. And everyone.

It's been a long day.

Annie of "Annie Waits"

Frightened to death at the prospect of being alone for the rest of your life, you're desperate and ready to please whoever will have you. You're ready to change, though.
"Annie sees in dreams: Friday bingo, pigeons in the park. Annie waits for the last time."

What Ben Folds song character are you?
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I woke up at 3:30 and haven't been able to get back to sleep. Goodness knows I have tried, but my body is just not cooperating. What else is new, really?

I've been having a lot of random thoughts the past couple of days, especially many crazy Tyler Durden-esque ones about throwing bricks through plate glass windows just to watch the way they shatter, or tearing open my own flesh just to look at the muscle. Thankfully a compulsion for self-preservation (and a healthy fear of the law) keep me from acting on any of this.

(I swear, the destroyed window of George Dean's on Clayton, TOTALLY NOT ME. Although I kind of wished I was there when it happened.)

I am sure that part of why I can't go to sleep is that currently, I am quite frustrated. However, I went out earlier tonight (first to Molly O'Shays, then Copper Creek), and had so little to drink that I managed to sleep for 3 hours and wake up prematurely, but stone sober. That's either a testament to how well I'm handling it, or evidence that my malcontentment is simply manifesting itself in new ways.

Still awake 2 ½ hours after the fact, I'm guessing it's the latter.

I cannot wait until the holidays are over. I'm ready for a new year.

Click here for what Abie describes as “scary”. [09.23.2004, 714 KB image]

It has been a pretty aight week so far. Work has been semi-stressful, but the ties that bind always keep me going. School, as usual, is sort of a non-existent force, which for right now is really fine.

Despite the annoying return of sleeplessness, I feel pretty good about life in general, although I am a bit apprehensive about getting advised for Anthopology.

Yes, I changed my major last week. It has become clear to me that the art school is never going to let me in, and even if they did, I don't have the heart for it anymore. So I'm going the academic route, in a small, highly acclaimed department, in a subject I actually have a good deal of interest in. It's not practical for anything I want to pursue in life, but I'll be able to graduate before I'm going to UGA with my nieces and nephews, and that is surely a plus.

I'm trying to make some changes, and take control. I know I can take control, okay?

...

Profundity: “Sorry if you think I rudely put my opinions and thoughts in your life, I just don't want to be like everyone else in life that just nods and concedes without making an effort, even if they are wrong or don't apply.

“It's what makes better friendships.”

...

J (12:41:34 AM): I'm just saying
J (12:41:59 AM): man, I try to be so difficult sometimes
N (12:42:57 AM): you do.
N (12:42:59 AM): its ok.

I can't sleep.

I don't like it.

Memo to my brain: slow the hell down for five minutes so I can get some freakin’ shut eye.

I mean, I know I'm blessed with many natural graces, but a girl still needs her beauty sleep.

...why I do the things I do.

Like right now. I'm getting up early tomorrow, being a good art student and going outside in the morning light to work on my perspective drawing (the shadows will only be any good between about 10:00 and 11:30). I could've/should've gone to bed about an hour ago. But for whatever reason, I feel like I'm staying up just to be up.

Or in a broader sense, why am I in art school at all? Is it by default, because I can't come up with anything better? Am I supposed to be burning with a fiery unpredictable passion or is it really enough to just try and do good work?

My life lately is feeling like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books: When you start it seemless like there are endless possibilities but in reality your choices are limited and you always end up in the same place time after time.

Wow, I am so dating myself with that metaphor.

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is