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

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 »

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 »

There is not much to report this year, but this is a Christmas tradition. Read More »

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.

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 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.

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.

studying my cashflow forecast, looking for expenses to cut; planning my 401(k); planning to move; productivity system planning (with GTD); playing a lot of Sims 2; my diy hipster pda; Pac-man with sparklers; being begged for my attendance to a party; being forced to act my age (which is still quite young); a new hat; weighing much less (with clothes on and pockets filled) than I did a month ago (naked); my tried-and-true-til-the-end relationship with CB; being able to count on some friends even though you rarely even speak to them; being randomly checked up on by Neil; a good cry; the systematic purging of all the crap in my old room at my parent's; knowing that when I think that all hope is lost, I can count on my sisters

When I started my job at my current place of work, my part time position was called, no joke, ‘Junior Web Author’. I always resented the ‘Junior’ and routinely trimmed it out of conversations and correspondence. Eventually this title was changed to the more respectable ‘Associate Web Developer’, but by that time the connotation had stuck. Some kind of intern. However, I have made the most of it, pushing for more hours and more challenging work, innovating processes, and turning myself into an important asset.

This has paid off.

Last week one of my managers called me into his office to deliver some good news: my move up to the full time position that I had been fighting for was official, and would take effect on Monday, May 16th. The move is contingent on me continuing to go to school and eventually finishing, which means, starting in the fall, I'll be working a 40 hour work week (the late shift for West coast support, 11 AM to 8 PM) plus taking 2 to 3 classes in the morning (including 8 AMs, I'm sure). Because I have not taken school at all seriously for the last year and a half, it will take me another 3 to 4 years to graduate. The whole 12-hour day thing is going to kick my ass, and crazy me, I'm excited by the prospect! I think this is how it feels to have goals. And it feels really good.

Continuing the theme of ‘Bigness in the Life of Jenna’ I signed a new lease last week, for a studio apartment about half a block from where I live now. While the new place isn't a swank as the place I currently share with five others, it will be entirely mine. No longer sharing a bedroom with another person (even if that person is the fair red headed friend) is going to be a plus, even if it's just so I can set 4 different alarms without waking up anyone but myself.

For the first time in a long time, things are going really well. So well, in fact, that aside from the initial shock of nearly ending up in the hospital, the car accident I was in over the weekend presented itself as a minor inconvenience. This is preferable to allowing it to induce panic over how can I possibly deal with one more bad thing, which would have been my reaction just a short time ago. Read More »