Posts tagged "winder"
In Which I Feel 1,000 Years Old
Today when I approached the counter at Zaxby's, there was just one older gentleman in line in front of me. He had clearly already placed his order, but was busy rambling to the teenager behind the register about football or baseball or something. The young man nodded and smiled politely, saying nothing, while I waited the 10 or 12 seconds it took for the gray haired man to finish his point and move on.
As I moved to take my place at the head of the line, I gave the teenager a smile and sort of a knowing eye roll, acknowledging to him that we are on the same team. The Old People Are Weird Team1. However, instead of giving me a subtle signal in return—something in the form of a non-verbal yeah they are or you know it—the young man gave me the same polite smile and nod as the last customer. It occurred to me in that moment that for this young man, I have crossed the adult threshold, and there is a bright line between our generations.
This of course makes sense. This month I am officially 10 years out of high school, while I would put this kid at no more than 16, so we are nowhere near peers at this point in time. Still, actually being addressed with the respect—or maybe just the indulgence—that comes with age in real time was at once depressing and exhilarating. Many things at this exact point in my life are not going quite right, but it seems I can finally be sure that not many will mistake me for a teenager, and I'm going go ahead and consider that a step in the right direction.
- 1. No disrespect, because I hope to be one someday, but they are. Weird.
I Can't Explain the Absence of Regis
I had a dream that I was driving around Winder and everything was the same except there was a giant house built on the road between the Downtown Car Wash and the old jail—I think the car wash was completely gone. I pulled into a parking lot next to a idling black Town Car; in the backseat I could see Kelly Ripa texting on her cell phone and even more inexplicably Patrick Duffy was sitting next to her drinking a highball. Naturally I hopped out of my car and hopped in next to Kelly.
At first they were both a little alarmed, but thanks to dream logic they figured out pretty quickly that I meant no harm. Patrick Duffy then totally ignored me but Kelly Ripa so was freaking nice. Sweet as you could expect a celebrity appearing in your own dream to be.
I kept trying to post to Twitter that I was hanging out in a Town Car with Kelly Ripa and Patrick Duffy1, but everytime I looked at what I'd typed into the Twitter client on my cell phone it looked like gibberish. I kept deleting the text and starting over, and somewhere around my fourth delete and retype I realized I was dreaming2.
Frustrated I violently and repeatedly pounded my phone into the seat next to me, when suddenly it was all over and I was in my room.
Year of the Loss
It feels like an eternity, but it is has been just weeks since I lost my dog, Ginger. The whole family lost her, actually, but more than any other pet I've had, I really felt like Ginger belonged to me. I belonged to her.
Ginger, March 30, 1996 - May 5, 2010
Since I moved back to my parent's house in Winder, Ginger became primarily my responsibility. In the beginning, it just meant making sure she was fed and spending a little time with her each day. Last summer, it meant bringing her inside in the afternoons and letting her sleep or pace around my room while I worked, so she could get a break from the heat and I could have a little company. Soon after that it meant anticipating when she needed to go out, and cleaning up after her when I missed the window. I cleaned up after her a lot, and so did my parents.
Ginger started getting stuck in the bushes and groves of bamboo scattered around the yard, and I had to go out at all hours, from early in the morning to after midnight, to untangle her from whatever briar she'd gotten herself snagged in. This started happening several times every week. She'd bark and bark until I went to get her out, over time I became tuned in to that bark, so I could hear it even when I had the TV or loud music on. Read More »
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
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 »
End of The Aughts
There is not much to report this year, but this is a Christmas tradition. Read More »
Boomerang Generation
My joke about my life now is the kind that is funny because it is painful. Right about the time I was going to graduate from high school, lo these many years ago, there were two things I was certain of: I hadn't chosen a career yet, but I knew there was no way it would involve websites. I also knew that no matter what, once I moved out of Winder, I would never, ever move back.
This, Internet, should teach you a small but important lesson about hubris.
Not only have I been building an entire business out of websites for almost three years, but about 8 weeks ago, experiencing financial hardship, I moved back to Winder. I now split my time between my parents' home and a housesitting gig for a family friend. I actually commute to my gym in Athens to work out with my trainer once a week, so great is my commitment to my muscles. Outside of that, however, the move has proved to be fairly isolating. I was pretty much decimated fiscally when I decided to make the move back, so at the present I have no money to buy gas or go get a beer with my friends, and worse, I have no cell phone.
This is the longest I have been without a phone since I was 17, and while I understand that there was a world before cell phones, I have to tell you that these days, the world is set up for mobile but connected people. So great is my longing for a new phone that I have dreamed of the one I am saving up for multiple times. Editorially I have always vowed to stay far away from gadgetry as a topic of my writing, but Internet, that should simply highlight how important this has become.
Pretty much all of my internal dialog is consumed by financial planning now, trying to figure out which bill to pay off when and how does that effect when and what I eat — and eventually, when I'll be able to move home to Athens — and while it is important to me, it hardly makes for compelling prose, so until I get obsessed with a man again, or get really depressed, or have some great news to announce, I have a feeling I am going to be quite humdrum for awhile. I hope, Internet, that you'll stick with me all the same.
Smile, though your heart is aching
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 »
Big Bad Kyle
Big Bad Kyle from Jenna Tollerson on Vimeo.
I found this going through files from an old computer. It was the only video I took on my very first $100 digital camera, in about 2000, I think. There was no sound on this camera, and when I got home I realized that not only was the quality awful, but I had made the now-classic mistake of taking it with a portrait orientation, and didn't have the know-how to fix it.
This is Kyle, my friend Sam's little brother, who at the time was practically my little brother too, after a middle school play in which he played the Big Bad Wolf, doing his evil bow for me not once, but twice, while I struggle with some Blair-Witch-style camera work.
This video reminded me of how much time has gone by, because I now have a much steadier hand, and Kyle is now a father. That, and I can't remember exactly which story this Big Bad Wolf is from.
This is why it is hilarious to stay with my parents
I walk into the room where my sister, Sarah, and my Mom and Dad are together talking.
“This is why I contend that demons roamed the earth before we were here.” says my father emphatically.
I assumed that I had simply come in during the wrong part of the conversation, by my mother and sister are just staring at him as well.
