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

This weekend has been pretty rockin'. Arlington Priest played 106 West on Friday and dedicated a song to the Tollersons, at which point Sarah and myself almost fainted like fangirls.

Not really, but we sure sounded like we were going to, being all gushy.

Saturday I went to a party and got to hang out with the nicest man in the world, Matt Anthony. We ended up at the Waffle House and hilarity ensued.

Today, I slept. All. Day.

This is a bad job, except that I finally feel rested for the first time in at least a week.

Now I'm using Bailey's to lull myself back to sleep. We'll see how that works.

Butch Walker can have my children any day of the week.

I'm now completely wired, and I've lost my hearing and my voice. Somehow, I'm ecstatic about all of this. This is the effect Mr. Walker has on people.

“Jaded people, go home. Hipsters, go home. We are going to have an arena rock moment here in Athens, Georgia.”

I haven't jumped or screamed or danced like that at a show in so long. Butch Walker always manages to remind me why I started going to see live music in the first place.

And he sets the bar pretty high.

In other news: even though I don't really care for their music, I still find American Hi-Fi's guitar player totally hott. He and other members of AHF were Butch's backing band for the evening, and goddamn, he's just quite good at what he does.

Also, I have to be up at 8. Gross.

G'night.

Now that I have my super cool new workstation set up, I was able to scan for everyone's pleasure the candybar Abie brought me from the weird country of Japan, where they have a vending machine for everything.

Is that not the best thing ever?

In other news, I'm still reeling from this whole “owning a car” business. It's really kind of amazing. Yesterday I drove myself and Melissa to Best Buy and definitely made her listen to a lot of Kanye West. I missed it but apparently some Fratty McFraterson was sitting in traffic next to us, tilting his head, probably amazed that a white girl in a busted old red Honda knew all the words to “Get Em' High”.

I'm using iTunes now, and it's easily the best music program/jukebox/whatever I have ever used, and I've been around for awhile, so that's saying something. I'm ripping my entire record collection onto my computer, and mixing it around! WOOT!

So, I finally own a car.

There is a red 1990 Honda Accord Coupe with AC, a CD changer in the trunk, and a newish transmission parked in a downtown lot, and it belongs to me.

I drove all over the place over the weekend, shopping and visiting my parents and flying around town with my girl Abie.

I love driving. Some people feel like driving is simply a way to get from place to place, some people use driving as a way to extend their ego from their microscopic section of the universe, but if you are like me, driving is both a symbolic act of freedom and an activity of absolute pleasure.

My father insists that the love of driving as an activity in and of itself is something I inherited from him, and glows with pride when exclaiming, “You're just like me!”, as if he finally found something we have in common, and it had never been pointed out to him that we both are major computer geeks, both love to sing, both drive my mother insane, both are stubborn and of strong conviction, both enjoy watching corny late night tv, both are surgically attached to our mobile phones, both are total insomniacs, and both laugh at all the same jokes.

This is putting aside the fact that looks-wise I'm simply the younger, much prettier version of my father.

But I digress. The point is, I have a car! And I LOVE it!

Need a ride?

I've been running a fever all day.

I don't know if you've had this problem, but fevers always make my brain boil just a little, and so at work I moved at a snail's pace, had to think extra long about everything, and was am very grumpy.

My sinuses are all bleh, and my nose is all stuffy, my whole head hurts, and when I talk I sound like a boy.

Need cheering up?

Go here and click on the little TV to watch the greatest. video. ever.

Three years ago, when I was standing on Legion Field watching Jump, Little Children, if someone had told me that the next time I would be back there it would be to watch a hip hop show with my frat boy friend who I met at my office job, I would have laughed.

Heartily.

“Me?” I would have remarked. “Hip hop? Frat boys? A desk job?”

And then I would have laughed some more.

Anyone who may claim that college doesn't truly change people is off their rocker.

Somehow whenever I'm with the Indian I get dragged into completely random situations such as house parties. It always seems to happen by accident, with no sense of predetermination, and frequently with the objective of free beer.

There was a party being thrown by some new residents in my apartment building on Friday, and the Indian and I of course ended up there. I didn't particularly want to be there but friends stick together.

Everyone was very nice, but I was tired, and bored. I left a couple of times, running over to the smoke shop or running upstairs in search of decent beer. Out of sheer boredom I macked on this cat (known hereafter as K) who kept flirting with me, but it came increasingly clear that it was going nowhere. K was kind of cute, and only kind of dumb at first, but got stupider and stupider as time went on, no doubt helped along by massive amounts of beer. I gave up on getting any action after this exchange:

K (whining a little): “I wanna go downtown!”
J: “You are downtown.”
K: “I know, but I wanna go to some bars, listen to some music.” (Begins doing the drunk white guy dance.)
J: “What bars are you planning on going to?”
K: “Bourbon Street!”

I later explained to the Indian that I was not going to chase K into that place because I imagine that Bourbon Street is the kind of place where “you catch an STD just by walking in. You come through the door and bang! You've got herpes.”

Except for some funny exchanges with the Indian, it was kind of a waste of an evening.

Tonight I watched Peter Pan all the way through, finally, and I highly recommend it. Catie and I made a liquor store trip, where I purchased peach flavored morning vodka, because it was on clearance, and I just had to after hearing all about it. I'm sure this is just one more step on some cosmic checklist to becoming a respectable alcoholic, but the comic effect of actually having that on hand is something I had to experience.

I just bought a new computer, which is being custom built in a warehouse somewhere and should be in my hands and set up in just a couple of weeks, so if for some reason you would like to opt of the CD-mix-making extravaganza that will promptly ensue, speak now, or prepare to receive and listen to many songs you may or may not want to hear.

Awesome things happening:

• By this time next week I should have my first car.
• I paid off one of my credit cards today.
• Talib Kweli is playing Legion Field on Monday, for free.
• Sarah is moving to Athens.
• Abie and Allison are coming back from their respective vacations, so we will be a family again.

The one thing that must be said about awesome events: the anticipation is killing me.

K [14:50] I'm dead Rick Jaaaaames!
J [14:50] bitch!
K [14:50] Yes, thank you. I'll take the short one. Yes, the short bus straight to HAILLLLL!!!!
J [14:50] HAHAHAHAHA
J [14:50] awesome

This weekend was pretty crazy.

We are going to play a game. It's called:

No questions.

See, it all started out with a bear. He killed a hooker. We had to bury her, because we didn't want the bear to get in trouble.

Somewhere along the way there was also a moose, and a guy in a Ford Tempo on the side of a mountain. The moose, the guy, and the Tempo all stood on their hind legs, bared their teeth and growled like dinosaurs.

Shhhhhh! I thought I told you, no questions.

Work today was looooooooong. Everytime I was about to go home for lunch something would happen (I'd get a rush incident, torrential downpour would begin outside, someone would get me started ranting on something) so I ended up working 7 and ¼ hours straight through with no real break and no food.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted and cranky, looking forward to a small bowl of curried fried rice, and maybe some cheese eggs and toast.

I forgot my key, and the door was locked. I laid my head against it and pounded three times. I had a very singular vision in mind: I had to nuke rice. I had to do it now.

Melissa answered, all smiles, as per usual. You can count on her to be upbeat. Abie greeted me midway through the hall and scratched my back. It's one of her superpowers. It has the greatest, most soothing, stress releasing effect for such a simple action. And to top it all off: the Indian was in the kitchen, making food. Making fettucini alfredo with homemade sauce and grilled chicken. Melissa was steaming zucchini and broccoli. They were going to feed me. I was going to have a real meal, my first real meal in at least a week. One that didn't involve rice or cheese eggs. This was officially the Best Thing That Had Ever Happened To Me.

Well-nourished and full of vitamins and protein, I was able to get some laundry done, go on a beer run to Wally World and take a long walk with the Indian. It was a good night, the most charming part being when my straight but very metrosexual best friend spied the maroonish shoes next to my bookshelf and exclaimed with masculine delight,

“Are those Steve Maddens?”

They are. I was promptly scolded for not wearing my very cute shoes more often and had to put them on right away.

...

Three am. There is a long series of loud booming noise outside in the hall. Having become accustomed to loud disruptive noises of all sorts due to construction, I fully ignore it for five minutes until it dawns on me, it's three in the goddamn morning. No one gets started this early.

I go to the front door and look out the peep hole. This is the only thing I have ever used the peep hole for: checking out the door of #5. I'm laughing at the scene in the hall for another four minutes, also concerned about the noise—which is ongoing and is now accompanied by some very loud and violent cursing/yelling—when Melissa awakes.

“Jenna, what's going on?”

“The drunk bitches across the hall are locked out of their apartment.”

These two girls are pounding, kicking, screaming at the door, no pause. The one who obviously orders the other one around (that's always the case in a pair of bitchy girls) has a cell phone, and she keeps getting irate and shouting at her cell phone to the person who is not answering her calls. (“Motherfucker pick up the fucking phone.”, “ARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!”, etc.) I do not know what she thinks that will accomplish.

Pretty soon Catie is up, ready to start throwing things at them.

“What is it about this building?!? Why do we get all the crazy neighbors?!?”

Easily 10 more minutes into pounding/screaming/cursing, we are seriously thinking about calling the cops, and then the Indian is up, and is the only one ballsy enough to actually open up the door and say something.

Indian: “Fucking quiet down, people are trying to sleep.”

He shuts the door. The Noise continues. He walks back and opens it again.

Indian: “We're trying to get some sleep over here!”

Drunk Bitch #1 (squawking): “Yeah well we're trying to get into our fucking apartment!”

Indian: “I don't really care. Just shut the fuck up already.” Slams door.

DB#1 (through door): “My ass!”

Catie (facetiously): “That is absolutely the most appropriate response in this situation. ‘My ass!’”

30 seconds after that someone showed up/answered the door and finally let them in.

I think it's safe to say we will not be making friends with our new neighbors in #5.

This morning I was simply attempting to exit my apartment, when I opened the door and was greeted by a giant pile of construction flotsam and jetsam, sitting on our doormat, quite literally blocking my way.

I did what you would expect me to do it the face of such adversity. I yelled,

“What the hell?!?!”

and began moving some of it out of my way so I could just sidle around it, freakin’ leave and go to work. Is that really so much to ask?

Vin Diesel (as my roommates refer to the construction worker for his similar appearance) came barreling around the corner, apologizing profusely, looking very upset, claiming that “this will all be outta here in just one second”, and moved some stuff for me so I could get by.

I have to say, getting to righteously yell at someone first thing in the morning made me feel a little less powerless in this whole getting-fucked-by-my-landlord scheme of things.

I can't wait for the day when I can leave my apartment and get all the way to the street without having to move carefully around raw materials and say “excuse me” and back against the wall for the 15 men carrying bulky objects up the stairs.

Someday. Not today.

One of the things I really love about Catie is that she will laugh enthusiastically at all the inane things I have to say, even when it's before 9 in the morning.

We had a “scheduled” power outage from 3 am to 7 am, but the power was still off when I left at 10 til 9. I normally don't even get up until 10:00, but being without a fan or AC, and the need to get a hot shower before all the water ran out actually nudged me awake on just 4 hours of sleep.

I'm like, a completely inconsistent freak of nature.

I went ahead and came to work (without clocking in), because here we have civilized things like AC and coffee and the Internet. I believe this is the way humans were meant to live.

I'm started to feel like some kind of third world citizen, for chrissakes. My power's going out all the time (and always accompanied by the obligatory middle of the night fire alarm), the street in front of my building literally smells like sewage because they are digging up the infrastructure, there are constantly circular saws and CAT diggers and construction workers in my life, and all I'm eating is cheese eggs and toast.

!!!

For serious, something has got to give soon.

I can't wait to get out of this godforsaken town for the weekend.

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.

I finally learned how to use chopsticks. Not as complicated as I had imagined.

I spent a lot of time today yelling (in my head) at cute greek boy to stop being so hott. I mean, damn.

I'm not wearing my contacts right now (they've been giving me excessive trouble lately) so presently I'm sporting the naughty librarian look:

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Hottness.

Weekend has been good so far. I really can't believe it's only Saturday (Sunday morning?), because it seems like so much time has gone by since I clocked out of work at 6 yesterday.

Big changes at Apartment 6—we have new roommates: Melissa and Emily are taking over the loft spaces with no walls. Since we actually care about how much sleep they get we are making a concerted effort to be quiet when they go to bed. It's weird. We've all gotten very used to running around and making too much noise this summer.

I'll also have to get used to sharing a bathroom with girls, which has both many good and many bad points.

But (besides the fact that there is no url to which I can link either of their names, the weirdos) they are wonderful and great company and totally okay with the fact that their rooms were built for Oompa Loompas.

I have the feeling it is going to be a splendid year.

. . .

Next weekend, Abie, the Indian and myself are going to Nashville to party down. Abie was selected to speak at the Costume Society of America Symposium, on a circa-1860's housedress that she sewed entirely by hand, just to investigate how long something like that would take. She got a grant from the university to do it, and she did it, and it made her totally insane, but, when she was finished, she had this really cool tangible thing to show for it. Icing on the cake is she was picked as one of two undergraduates to speak at this symposium, so I am just insanely proud of her.

Also, she got a travel allowance to pay for the hotel room, so we have a free place to stay, and that’s pretty rockin’, because I'm totally broke.

I can not spare 1¢ in the next couple of weeks for anything but Nashville, so if you were going to ask me to do something, please do not even tempt me. It will only leave us all dissapointed. I'll get paid again on the 13th, at which time we can resume our regularly scheduled programming.

At that time I should also be very close to owning my first car(!)

. . .

Sarah (2:59:59 AM): other people say it!
Jenna (3:00:01 AM): bunk
Jenna (3:00:05 AM): or bump?
Sarah (3:00:15 AM): oh well he says bump
Sarah (3:00:17 AM): but I say bunk
Jenna (3:00:43 AM): ah
Jenna (3:00:57 AM): I say it in my head all the time now
Jenna (3:01:36 AM): whenever I am actually saying "eff that" I think "bunk that" because of you
Jenna (3:01:42 AM): and it cracks me up
Jenna (3:01:49 AM): and I laugh out loud
Jenna (3:01:53 AM): and get funny looks
Sarah (3:04:12 AM): Yay!