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

Three weeks ago my 27th birthday came and went. I had a marker post planned for that time, all full of longing and regret for time gone by. A few histrionic sentences about how though I've reached the same ephemeral age as every member of the 27 Club, I'll just be another year older by this time next year and will have probably accomplished little.

I may still write that post eventually, but so far this year I haven't had time to dwell on my lack of artistic genius. On my birthday, my paternal grandfather—the only one I have ever known—had to go into the hospital. His cascade of problems started with a case of pneumonia, and finally progressed to him losing a leg. A leg. It was just a lack of oxygen that landed him in the hospital in the first place, and just over two weeks later, he'd undergone an above-the-knee amputation. Amputation. I can't stop wiggling my own fingers and toes, wondering what it's like when your toes are suddenly no longer there to wiggle, wondering where that leg is, previously flesh, bone and titanium that was a part of my grandfather, now medical waste somewhere, somehow not a part of my grandfather. 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.

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 »

New design: 9.0, “Critical Darling, Commercial Flop”.

I also rewrote some of the About page, although I am throughly convinced that no one reads it but me. I've often said that this site functions as my memory, and in this context I must admit that the About page generally serves to remind me who I am. I find it comforting in a way that makes me feel guilty, because I'm enjoying my own writing too much. I feel it lacks some humility.

When I was seventeen, I went to my first real rock and roll show.

Yes, I like to act as if I've been in the scene forever, but your little Jenna, who is at once a professional fan and pretentious, unforgiving music critic, had at one time completely given up on anything remotely resembling contemporary music.

I listened to nothing but the local oldies station all through middle school. This was back when “oldies radio” meant the '50s and early '60s, and not any year remotely approaching the year of my birth in the early '80s. I didn't have any strong affinity for oldies radio, but a person has to listen to something while doing homework or falling asleep, so that is what I kept the clock radio in my bedroom set to.

At the end of eighth grade I was advised (more or less) that everyone my age listened to 99X, which I believe, at the time, was billed as “Alternative Rock”. Whatever that means. I remember the exact conversation sitting in the computer room in the hallway where you took all your electives, next to this girl whose name I will not publish but do remember. For some reason I perceived her to be cooler than me, and when she heard that I listened to Fox 97 (“Good times, great oldies”) she tried to chastise me, and fully succeeded. So I switched.

What followed that was a few festival type concerts, the kind of all day events with too much sun and overpriced food. I thought that's what live music was. I had never been to a club show, and I think I was completely ignorant of their existence. And while I generally had fun playing in the sun all day and into the night, throwing up rock hands and dodging the feet of wayward crowd surfers, I never felt like I had seen a tremendous amount of music. The performers at these shows were often hundreds of feet away and projected onto large screens at either side of the stage. I often wondered to myself why I was paying so much money to basically sit in the hot sun and watch broadcast television.

I distinctly remember, at 15 years old, lying in the sun, in the middle of the stadium at the International Horse Park, catching a nap during the Fuel set. Granted, Fuel isn't the most amazing band, but I was 15 and this was 1998. I should have been nuts for them. It seemed like everyone else was. Read More »

There's a feeling I sometimes get before going to a party. This sensation that I'm about to step into a den of lions, where I have no control. Where there is a possibility, though sometimes faint, that I'll be eaten alive.

I've always been fairly big on comfort zones. I like knowing my surroundings, spotting all the emergency exits, finding my allies in the crowd. Not having these things makes me nervous, not just for comfort reasons but also for safety. Read More »

Last night I had a dream that I got my old job back. It wasn't a fun place to work anymore. My coworkers all hated me for some reason. The ceilings were much lower and more oppressive than I remembered. I sat with my back to the aisle, where I sat before I was promoted the last time. I clocked in at eight, worked all day with my headphones on, and clocked out at five, not speaking a word to anyone and trying to ignore every one's dirty looks. Last night, this went on for weeks. Everyday was the same. The weather outside was in constantly thunderstorm-like, grey and dark and dusky. My superiors yelled at me constantly and tore me down. I was miserable, and I felt trapped.

However, there was another emotion making a play: relief. Misery or none, I had a steady paycheck again, so I knew I would now be making rent on time and eating on a regular basis. And in this dream, this paycheck was worth my self respect and my freedom.

In real life, I got a few calls from recruiters last week. I don't know what happened, but I seem to be something of a hot commodity suddenly, or at least a lukewarm one. The problem is everything involves permanent positions and relocation and worst of all: going back to work in a cube, with a manager, and all the Office Space like trappings. There would also be a steady paycheck involved.

I have to admit, it's tempting. Quite recently it feels like my priorities have shifted from finding happiness in this life to just plain surviving. Every day it seems like there is a new crisis; I feel like I'm spending all my time catching up with the rest of the world and putting out fires. There is a part of me that wants to go back to working for someone else; I like the idea that there is security there. But you are never secure when you are working for someone else, because you are taking your fate out of your own hands.

I know where my heart is, and I'll tell you why: when I woke this morning, the relief that I hadn't gotten my old job back completely outweighed the relief I felt when I thought I had. I'm broke, and I'm stressed out, but I'm free, and in control of my own future. Even though things are bad now, I have a really good feeling about what's to come.

People have asked me many times how I could write about my whole life on the Internet. Anyone could read it! Dire consequences might follow! They want to know how I keep it safe, keep it secret: a website bearing my real name.

My answer is always the same; honestly, I have nothing to hide. I'm an adult, I'm responsible for myself, and I own my mistakes. For many years I've been the type to give direct answers to direct questions, and while there have been times where I might imply that I have more (or less) experience with certain things, on these pages I've been pretty straight with the ethereal out there. There never seemed to be any point in hiding that I'm a drunk, or overweight, or sometimes pretty fucking lonely. Besides, I believe that reading about my life is probably like watching Nascar: no one really wants to see anyone get hurt, but if it happens, no one wants to miss it either. Having to run across a university quad in broad daylight wearing only a bathrobe? Fantastic! Walking home alone, drunk, in the middle of the night? Well, it was a close call, but I got home okay. Finally being painfully rejected by a longtime crush? Learning experience. Hungover and puking on a public intersection at high noon, with cars all around? Comedy gold.

My humanity and ability to err are the things that have made my life interesting. In the past couple of years or so, however, things have gotten much less compelling on paper. Not bad, per se, but not as riveting as things might have been in my younger days. I spend much more time just chilling out, or talking to my friends, or working, and not getting into anything really resembling trouble. On the one hand it can be comforting to have things be so constant, on the other I've almost been waiting for something to happen to me, because while I can go back to many times in my adult life and read about how things were, I feel like I'm going to go back to this time in my life and find an empty hole, resembling in that way my life before high school, of which I remember very little.

And yet.

The past couple of weeks have been different. I've felt like someone else, and that Jenna is totally irresponsible, blows off work, doesn't keep in touch with family, and is at times dishonest. That Jenna does things that draw blood. This person that I am not has felt more alive than I ever feel, but also manic, crazy, and fantastically selfish. On the one hand I want to be more like this woman, and on the other, I wonder how long I might live if I let her truly run wild.

Lately I've done enthralling things, actions and thoughts that make for compelling, if not necessarily happy or comedic, reading. I composed the essays in my head one million times, tossing and turning in my bed, trying to wrap my head around who I might become if I don't keep this all in check. Then it hit me: I finally have some things that I need to hide. I can't, at this time, live my life in public the way I used to, so I can't vent, I can't work it all out for myself in essay form and publish it for the world to see. Let me tell you, for someone who has a years-old habit of living her life out in the open, having secrets is actually pretty fucking stressful.

I realized that I've stopped talking about the unpleasant feelings all together.

I've praised myself these many months for my ability to stay positive, stay on message, eyes on the prize. With friends, I talk about work a lot, and how hard it is right now — but if anything truly dark materializes, I discard it. I convince myself there is no use in succumbing; I know that to be successful in business and simply stay on my feet, I should act in a confident and charismatic way, and more importantly, believe my performance with all my heart.

I've become a much less interesting but much more content person. My writing has become passionless and dry, a collection of sly quips and shallow comedy, which go down easy. I guess I should be taking photographs or drawing, but instead use my time away from work to watch the same DVDs over and over, or head down to my bar to have the same meaningless, flirty conversations with the same people. Read More »

A lot has happened and nothing has happened while I've been away, Internet. I did Christmas with the family, Charleston with my friends, said goodbye to the single most influential force in my life thus far, and met a dozen or so new and wonderful people.

Then I came back to Athens. And I've felt completely weird ever since. It's a feeling I always get in Charleston, which, being a city I don't particularly care for, has a tendency to throw me way out of my comfort zone on those extended stays. There is no good way to describe it other than I feel “off”. I expected it to release it's hold on me when I came home, but it's hung around in one way or another. This is only a hollow sinking feeling in my gut though. In reality, I own the motherfuckin Classic City. I have friends, regular haunts, a job where everyone digs my work, a swank apartment, and depression-wise, I'm feeling less episode-dy than I have in years. I get up everyday excited to get some shit done (after a shower and a few big gulps of a caffeinated beverage, anyway). It doesn't take every sheer ounce of will I have to make myself walk out and face the world in the morning. This is progress! Read More »