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

“Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?”

It was a dinner party for my mother's birthday at my Aunt Tracy's. My Aunt Tracy is not really my aunt. She is not related by blood or marriage, but instead some 30-odd years of history and stories, first with my father, then with my mother as well. Tracy is kind and generous as well as loud and overbearing, which makes for an interesting circle of friends. We sat on the back patio, a mismatched lot with my family and Tracy's friends and neighbors who had been invited to the event. Among them were a couple that had just returned from living in New Zealand. They talked about the beauty of that place and the good nature of it's people. Living there was so different, they said. I couldn't imagine how New Zealand, what I think of as an essentially westernized country, could be so different from how I live. The man pointed out that there were no driers, so if you had to do laundry, and it was going to rain, you were out of luck. However, he always knew when it was going to rain, so they would just not hang out clothes on that day.

“How did you know?”

Tracy cut in as she cleared the plates. “Henry's a psychic.”

“I prefer to think of myself as an spiritual healer.” he said graciously, speaking softly in a strange Southern-cum-New-Zealander accent.

I nodded politely, chuckling to myself in my head. I couldn't understand most of what he said anyway and had to strain to hear. I decided I was better off. He was surely off his rocker somehow, not an uncommon theme with Tracy's friends. I mean, c'mon, she's friends with my dad. I could certainly humor this man long enough to make it through the evening.

The party progressed as every party I had ever been to with my parents progressed. My father played guitar through the light conversation. The adults gradually got more and more buzzed off of imported beer and margaritas. I smiled politely and choose words carefully when explaining what, exactly, it is that I am doing with my life—mainly, at this current juncture, being an IT professional, a web developer. And then, of course, I am always at some point asked to sing.

I ran through a couple of my standards with my father accompanying me. I received the usual accolades, and then Henry, our psychic, launched into his ‘predictions’.

“You know, I really see you becoming involved in music. Performing, on the stage, as your living.”

“Thank you, but I really have no interest in performing. My sister's the performer. I am interested in opening a record store someday—” I said obligingly, “—maybe that's what you're picking up on?”

“No, I definitely see you performing. You certainly have the gift for it.”

“Well I appreciate your compliments, but I have no plans to pursue a career in music.”

“You just wait and see. It'll happen. You're just going to fall into it.”

I was more annoyed than anything else by this. I do not believe in fate, because I believe a man should be able to make his own future, to be in charge of it. The abstract idea of destiny has always irked me, because I see many people take this idea and use it as an excuse to not make proactive change in their own lives while they wait for something to happen to them. I like believing that the only force in control of my future is me.

I just smiled at him, not acknowledging that last comment one way or another, and looked to someone to change the subject.

The evening wore on, and soon, it was time for guests to say their goodbyes. My mother and I sat at the table as Henry and his wife stood and waved, saying how-nice-it-was-to-meet-yous and we-should-do-this-agains. I was sitting at the end of the table nearest to the door, and as Henry walked past me he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him.

“I just want to share one thing with you before I go.”

I grinned cheerily. “Of course.”

He looked into my eyes and spoke slowly, dreamily. “You just need to learn to love yourself. Once you do that, the weight will just melt away.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He waved at my mother, said goodnight, and walked out.

I was floored. “I really, really don't like him.” I said to my mother.

“Why?” She was absolutely incredulous. I was furious.

“Who the hell does he think he is, saying things like that to people he barely knows?”

My mother didn't understand, she thought I was being too sensitive about being called out on my extra baggage. But that wasn't it.

The reason that I can still remember this all so clearly, the reason this particular incident is still haunting me six months later, is because that ‘healer’, that ‘psychic’, struck a very sensitive nerve within my heart of hearts. It felt like being naked in a room of strangers, the truth of my real inner life, which I share with almost no one, revealed and let out for air.

One of the great ironies of my own life is the deep schism between my overabundance of confidence and my complete lack of self-esteem. It's a bit defiant of simple logic. One would think these things would not be able to exist together, but all you have to do is be a good enough actress to fool even yourself.

This incident has been played over and over in my head for the past months every time I think about how badly I want to loose weight. I finally realized some days ago that the reason that comment struck such a chord with me is this: every time I'm seriously thought about doing something, about making some sort of drastic change, it's never been for me. It's never been because I want to be healthier, or fit into smaller sizes, or have more energy. The reason I cannot maintain ANY momentum is because the effort feels empty of worth. I've always wanted to change for everyone else; to raise my social worth, to be more attractive to friends, jobs, men. This leads to the problem with feeling inherently worthless, an empty investment, therefore, not worth my time and effort to salvage.

Look at the words I use. I already think of myself as a salvage job, as damaged goods.

The only way I can make a change is decide that I'm actually worth changing for. And that starts with believing the things the people I love say about me, and to stop undermining my own value to myself in the lonely hours of the night when I'm off stage, out of my confidence-costume. When I can make a change for myself, solely because I want to make myself happy, I've got to believe that at that point I will be able to. And I'm actively working on getting to that point.

As much as I hate to say it, Henry was right.

Does this mean I also should be trying to get a band together?

“abstract dreams of self introspective with a hint of cinnamon”, The Shizzolator, know what I'm sayin'?, “something about a date masquerade celebrity showdown at tastyworld”, these photographs, these photographs, my Hipster PDA, being addressed as “baby doll” and being told everyday that I rock—I'm going to miss you chucklehead.

Usually we at the House do not sink to low levels of depavity for a cheap laugh. Although we are in fact depraved, and cheap, we usually like to reveal it in a more intimate fashion than the Internet.

However, in lieu of being able to post anything of greater length at this time, we submit this card, sent to my dear friend and roommmate Abie by her man in the UK, David.

I will warn you, it's not for the kids (and probably not safe for work). Read More »

“I was thinking of trying to pack you up in my suitcase and bringing you to work.”, Jackson 5, the fact that I'm earning PTO, Nine Inch Nails, the idea of sunshine, “You're just so handy! Everyone needs a pocket Jenna!”

“So... any boyfriends?”

“Boyfriends?”

“Or relationships. Whatever you call it.”

“Nothing that turned into a boyfriend.”

Heather looks at me, quizzically, interested.

“There was this one guy, [Shortstop]. I kinda sorta hooked up with him... in my roommate's bed.”

Laughing. “Where did you meet this guy?”

“He's friends with my roommates. I really had met him only about six hours earlier when they brought him over to the apartment.”

“Was alcohol involved?”

“Of course. But we just made out for awhile, nothing serious.”

Laughing. “How was that?”

“Drunk. He was drunk. I was drunk too. We were both pretty drunk. It was fine.”

We sit in silence for a moment.

“He is really cute though.”

“Yeah?”

“And before all the activity I talked to him for awhile, and he has this really fascinating internal life, and he's smart and funny—”

“—so you really like him.” Heather makes the declaration for me.

“Yeah. Yeah I really do.” I give a half-hearted sigh. “I don't think he likes me though.”

“Well that's a shame.”

“Yeah it is. But that's the way things go sometimes.”

Due to some uncharacteristic nervousness about making my flight, about being on time, I arrived at my gate more than 2 hours early, with nothing but time to kill. I sat and played Lemonade Tycoon on my cell phone and did some people watching.

There's a metrosexual young man seated on the other side of my duffle bag, talking on his cell phone. He has gelled hair that has been professionally colored and highlighted, shined shoes and and outfit that is entirely black—black tailored pants, black button-down shirt, black footwear. His streamlined outfit bothers me, like he's making the rest of us—the people with outfits for traveling in comfort rather than style—look mussed and ragged by comparison. He's wearing a ring that is a king's crown wrapped around one finger, and he uses his other hand to thump an empty Dansani bottle against his knee as he talks. I feel the tinge of class warfare come over me as I watch him, resentful.

I shouldn't be so judgemental, I think. I'm the one drinking Perrier.

His ease, treating air travel as such a non-event, is a sharp contrast to the young woman seated across from me with her mother. Her dress and manner could easily make her a native of Winder or a similar town. She wears an oversized sweatshirt, tight leggings and sneakers. The whole getup makes her like a shapeless blob perched atop two legs. I conjecture she's actually much thinner under her sweatshirt tent, even if she is carrying one of Dr. Phil's weight loss books in her purse. She dresses, sits and speaks as if she doesn't travel into the city often, as if she simply doesn't notice how outlandish she seems against the backdrop of business travelers and suburban parents.

Being from such a small town myself, it's a quality I've come to recognize easily, largely so I may fight such characteristics from coming out in my own behavior and appearance.

The young woman keeps proclaiming loudly to someone on her cell phone that she's never flow before. She stresses over and over how nervous she is. I can see the cold sweat across her forehead. Her mother keeps chanting to her, like a mantra: “You're going to have fun. You're going to have fun. You're going to have fun.”

The woman takes deep breaths and complains that the Dramamine she took is making her drowsy. As high strung as she is, however, I think it may be best if she can sleep through her first venture into air travel.

The metrosexual and the young woman and her mother board the flight before mine and depart for Pheonix. The chairs around me empty and suddenly, I'm all alone. The air is cooler and I worry less about the metrosexual glancing over and somehow reading the less than flattering description I've scrawled in my notebook.

I mean, he's probably just a person like everyone else.

I sit and play more cell phone games, and then get up and go to the rest room. When I come out, I realize I've been here for quite a while. I check the time.

6:20. I'm scheduled to depart at 6:40, but there is no significant number of people sitting at my gate, and more importantly, no one at the counter. Looking in that direction I realize the information above the counter says that the next flight is going to San Francisco at 7:20.

What. The. Fuck.

I recheck my boarding pass, put it away, and then take it out and check it again. Everytime I check it, it still reads gate A21. I'm at A21. Something has been switched up on me, and I have 20 minutes to figure out where I'm actually supposed to be.

I haven't panicked, but it's going in that direction for sure. I look up at the various, essentially useless “information screens” mounted above the fray in the terminal. Nothing. I decide I need help. Needing help irritates me, as I like being self-reliant, but I decide I have no choice. No matter, I was made to feel like a fool no matter how self-reliant I wished to be.

I walk across to A19, where there are Delta employees at the counter who do not look extremely busy but somehow still manage to look extremely put out when I politely ask them for their help.

“Could you please help me figure out where I'm supposed to be?”

“Where are you going?”

“Seattle.”

“What does your boarding pass say?”

“My boarding pass says A21,” I counter, “but A21 is not going to Seattle. I am going to Seattle.”

He asks for the flight number and I provide it for him without looking at the pass, as I have closely examined all text on the pass over and over in near panic.

He types briefly and reading off the screen he says, “197 is now boarding at A25.”

“A25?”

He looks up at me like I'm being completely unreasonable, like needing one additional verbal confirmation after the mixup makes me into some kind of detail-obsessed savant, and he is amazed I was able to get this close to my flight by myself. “Yes, A25.”

I say my thanks and rush off, arriving at my gate just as they are boarding my “zone”. I settle in to my seat, and when we are up in the air, I spike my ginger ale with Jack Daniels. I've earned it.

On Wednesday night, my roommates called me into the living room to receive the previously mentioned special backordered gift. Wondering what it was had been driving me crazy for three days, but even more so, I was worried that after all the build up I wouldn't look excited enough. I'm not a great gift receiver, and never know how to properly show my gratitude.

In this case, I needn't have worried.

They had hastily wrapped it up in the cover of this weeks Flagpole Magazine. It was a small box, and I had no idea what it could be, until I cleared away the newsprint and saw the brand name on the top of the gift box.

I must have turned pale at that point. There is no way they actually bought that for me.

I opened the box, and they had, in fact, bought me the locket I had daydreamed about receiving for Valentine's Day.

Catie asked, “Jenna Tollerson, will you be our Valentine?”

It took just about everything I had in me not to cry.

Dear Apartment 6:

I don't know if I tell you enough, but living at Apartment 6 with you, my great friends, is the happiest I have ever been in all my 22 years. Not just the happiest, even, but the first time in my life I have ever been truly happy. The work and thought everyone put into my birthday is just one more reason I feel that moving into that apartment was the best decision I ever made. I love you.

I'm wearing that locket even now, as I sit in my sister's home office in Redmond, Washington. I've only been here 24 hours, and at some point there will be much to tell, but there has been so much airport-havoc-people-watching-meeting-people-and-dogs-talking-til-dawn that my head is spinning as I attempt to process all the details.

So I've been writing in a notebook for the past couple of days. Paper and pen, the old-fashioned way, and trying to jot things down, from my head, no self editing and none of the weaving into what would normally make it into the public domain. I'm doing this so I don't miss anything.

Details are, of course, what turns a series of events into a story. I continute to be, more than anything, in the business of Jenna Tollerson mythopoeia.

We at the House are not giving up cyberspace. You can trust that the stories will indeed follow. Soon.

I'll tell you a secret: I've woken up crying for the past three days. Woken up and just sobbed for 10 or 15 minutes.

This is strange behavior under any circumstances, but especially strange because today—the third day I've woken up wondering why I bother to ever get out of bed—is my birthday. I am 22 years old today. And I've been having one of the worst weeks I've had in awhile.

If it wasn't the crippling low, it was an equally crippling bout of anxiety that lasted for my entire workday on Wednesday—nearly 8 hours of tense muscles, rapid heartbeat and difficulty breathing—that only slightly let up after I got home and incoherently babbled to Abie about nothing that I can remember now. It's been not wanting to ever get out of bed, preferring to hide in the dark and not face the world.

Here's where I need to point out that trying to hide from the world and having a birthday at the same time are totally incompatible. Even though I didn't even think they knew about my birthday at the time, Crystal and Amanda showed up at my house on Saturday night (from out of state, no less) and forced me to go a show with them, even though I had no other goals for the night than to curl up into a ball on the couch and try to disappear.

I got out of my pajamas, took a shower, and put on a show of my own: the one where I am happy and normal and not incredibly depressed.

We went to Flicker. My roommates Emily and Melissa were already there. Michael Flynn played lots of mushy love songs. He's actually fantastic, but felt distracted and in a daze.

Between sets Abie showed up, and then Bill Carson played. He's equally fantastic, and writes really sexy music, and the whole time I was thinking about how I needed to get the hell outta there into the open air, away from the crowds. I did not want to be around people at that moment.

After the set I got up and dashed out, and Abie came and found me. I related to her nearly everything, how I felt like shit, smothered by my life, that things, at 22, where not going at all the way I wanted.

Saying it aloud did help, just a little.

Just after midnight we gathered roommates and house guests and all ten of us went to the Grill.

We were all being goofy, taking pictures of each other, generally making too much of a ruckus, when spontaneously all nine people seated with me sang me Happy Birthday. It was simultaneously special, embarrassing, and the exact opposite of imperative-be-ye-not-social.

I probably needed it.

I woke up late today. My Dad called me while I was still in bed, contemplating the work ahead of me, and invited me to Winder to have dinner. I told him I had too much studying to do. He said he would come to Athens and feed me on a study break.

I got in the shower, further putting off studying, and realized there was no way I was going to pass the test on Tuesday. I got out of the shower, got online, and dropped the class.

I called my Dad. “I don't have to study anymore. I dropped it.”

“You sound ten times better than you did when I talked to you before.”

My sister and I went to Winder to eat Zaxby's with Dad. Choices in Winder are slim, see. Being in Winder made me feel kind of relaxed for some reason. Sarah and Dad talked a lot about music theory. Dad made his usual quota of bad jokes, and Sarah talked about her recent admission to a fancy music school. It was good to not be talking about myself for awhile.

When I came home at least 3 roommates blocked me from the kitchen and told me I needed to get in my room. This is a customary Apartment 6 birthday greeting.

A few minutes later, they called me into the living room. You will never guess what my cake looked like. It was the Best Thing Ever.

After I blew out the candles Abie asked me to sit down.

“We have to tell you something about your present. We all went in on something for you but it's on backorder, so you'll have to wait.”

“You guys did that for me?”

It's really awesome to find out your roommates were planning something behind your back, as long as it's not your demise.

Allison: “If you want something to unwrap I can wrap something for you—like the Prince of Weasels.”

Catie: “The Prince of Weasels is not for giving away.”

Allison: “Oh.”

I love both my families. Not because they buy me things or make me iPod cakes or pick beautiful pink flowers out for me, but because I've got people pulling for me even when things seem dark and inescapable. They love me even if I am a grump for a whole week, and they think about me even when I'm not standing there in front of them. I've been up in my own head a lot lately and forgot that I'm in a lot of other people's heads too.