Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 9.0 // Critical Darling, Commercial Flop

Each year, we at the house take an intimate look at the last 12 months, in a frighteningly frank way. This is to keep things honest, despite anything else that may have been written. This year it seems more important that ever, because we haven't been checking in as much.

As always, if you think you may be offended by cursing, graphic sexuality, talk about death, destructive relationships, or substance abuse, among other topics, turn away now. Have some kittens.

In addition, if you feel that such talk might ruin your holiday, save the read until after the new year.

And now, on with the show. Read More »

On my popularity:

(Wearily) “Yeah, so I'm going to get some food, and then I have to go to Barcode, because if I don't show up, I'll get all kinds of calls and text messages: ‘Where the hell are you?’, you know?”

“Wow, I wish my whole body could be as in demand as your pinky toe! I couldn't get the hot dog guy to pour hot grease on me if I was freezing!”

(Sheepishly) “I guess I'm complaining about a problem that isn't really a problem, huh?”

“Exactly.”

In which I lay bare my dizzying intellect:

“You keep asking me why you can't pick up girls downtown. I'll tell you why—because instead of actually talking to them, you've spent your whole time here with your phone open text messaging your ex-girlfriend.”

“No, no, that's not it.”

On being Thom Tollerson's daughter:

“I love drunk text messaging. Hey! I still have your dad's number. I should drunk text message your dad!”

“Do it.”

“Naw, naw, I won't.”

“Go ahead! It wouldn't be the first time he got a drunk dial from someone who has played at 106 West. One time—I can't remember his real name now for the life of me but everyone calls him Pepino—”

“Pepino?”

”—yeah, Pepino from Davisstreet was in here and he said he was going to tell on me; he was going to call up my father and tell him I was out drinking! At a bar! My dad's attitude was basically ‘Eh? What else is new?’”

In which I feel vindicated for my hard stance on drunk driving and refusing to let someone drive last weekend:

“Thank you so much. Seriously.
“You probably saved my life that night.”

In which I am touched, in a weird way:

“I'm a little too drunk.”

“I wish you could transfer some of your drunkedness to me; I'm still sober.”

“I could throw up in your mouth!”

“You know what, if I could manage to keep it down, that would probably be effective.”

“We'd be like birds!”

“Yes!”

“And you could be my baby!”

“I'll be your baby anytime, Jackie.”

“Yeah, but you'd be my bird baby.”

On the afterparty and my being in demand:

“So, are you coming with?”

(Reluctantly) “Um, sure. Why not.”

“Kick. Ass!” (With accompanying high five).

We do this every year. Frank, R-rated discussion of friends, drinking, sex, music, money, illness, politics, and many other subjects follow. If you are a sensitive, delicate flower, I suggest you go elsewhere. Particularly if you are over 50 (if you baby boomers proceed anyway, I'll bear no responsibility for possible heart attacks). Read More »

For kicks, or maybe because I'm just feeling beat down by the world today, I headed over to OK Cupid and retook The Death Test. The last time I took it was ages ago, back when OK Cupid was still wet behind the ears and was a place people actually visited. At that time, The Death Test predicted I would die at the age of 24, with the probable cause “sealed for privacy”. (The only reason I even know this is because OK Cupid saves your results; I had remembered it as 35 years old or so. Boy was I off.)

Since I took this test those many years ago, I have stepped up my drinking habits to a near alcoholic level, I became a smoker instead of someone who smokes sometimes, I've engaged in some lite but nevertheless illicit drug use, I've partied hard and all night, I've left my drink unattended in a crowded bar, I've driven drunk, I've kissed more people than I can count, and I've gotten into a few sticky (ahem) situations with men.

I took the Death Test this time around fully expecting at the end a fullscreen pop up that said something to the effect of OMGWTFBQQ How are you not dead already? flashing at me over a chorus of moaning evangelical Republicans.

Wait, are you maybe writing from the afterlife? 'Cause that would be so badass.

But this is not what happened. Instead, the test now says I'll die at the ripe old age of 28, of cancer. So I managed to add four years to my life, despite all my less-than-wholesome activity, but I don't get that fun feeling of wondering what cause would warrant a “sealed for privacy”. So I get to live longer, but I no longer have, say, the distant possibility that I'll die from drowning because I fell off a diving board where I've been straddling a hot Cubano pool boy, you know what I'm saying?

Did I just get more or less interesting as a person?

The first time I ever took some one's keys away, I was just a few weeks into my freshman year of college.

I know drunk driving must have been a issue when I was in high school, but it was on a different scale, because there wasn't the regular activity of pre-gaming and then going downtown. We went to parties, did shots in people's kitchens, drank Everclear mixed with coke because it was cheap and lasted twice as long. People would gather at one place and basically have a huge lock in. It was a caused by a couple of factors. In a small town where the cops don't have much to do, every one had a heightened paranoia about being pulled over and arrested. There was no where to enjoy your drunkenness except for the place where you were already drunk. If you went home, you went to your parent's home, so you might as well just sleep it off and face them sober.

I'm not a stickler for the rules, but I do feel pretty strongly about drunk driving. I've always been vehemently against it. And before I moved to Athens, I assumed this was an issue that my peers and I more or less universally agreed upon. However, just like realizing how much groceries actually cost, worrying about health insurance, and coming to terms with your parents being just human like the rest of us, part of growing up is understanding that everyone—even people you like, people you love, and people you truly admire—makes bad decisions on a regular basis. More often than learning from them they actually learn nothing from them. Especially when there are no immediate ill consequences.

However, when I was new freshman, I was still charmingly naïve. Years of PSAs and television dramas had actually convinced me that you could keep someone from driving drunk if you were determined enough, and had determined that no one would ever drive drunk on my watch.

My roommate at the time, Sonya, had a bunch of her friends visiting from her hometown, and staying with us in our tiny dorm room. They pre-gamed in our room and then it was time to head downtown.

The original plan was to walk, but standing in front of the building, facing the trek down the hill, the group, pretty drunk and unruly, decided to drive. Although I was pretty much sober, I don't remember how I managed to get the keys from the driver, but I clearly remember what happened next. Read More »

Singing the Beatles' “Blackbird” to myself softly in the Sam Deeds arranged style; going through old parts of my flickr for no reason and remembering things I had forgotten; Sarah Tollerson's solo performance giving me goosebumps; hanging out with Maggs, who comes to my bar just to see me; Happy Hour with Matt and Chris, who throw things a lot; Happy Hour with Ripley, who can pop it with the best of em, and who queued up my song without me asking; hanging out with Zach, who I've missed dearly; making a Happy Birthday video to send to Abie; all of Brett's damn enthusiasm; Stephanie adjusting my shirt to show more of my breasts, despite my insistence that maybe that button should stay buttoned; finding out I can go a damn long time without eating a thing as long as I keep drinking and smoking (breakfast of champions!)

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at Barcode; Alli's and Catie's brief visit; a light sunburn; tank tops; well-earned hangovers; making friends with certifiable bad guys; re-reading Hand Over Fist and getting it for real this time; feeling like I know every third person in this town, and being only six degrees from the rest; wallowing with the help of Elliott Smith

Many people have asked me how the month of sobriety went, or even stranger, “how the not-drinking is going”, present-tense. It made me realize that I never wrapped it up, never gave it a conclusion in the narrative of my life. Someday, I may have a publicist for this sort of thing, but for now, I'll have to make the announcement myself—and ramble out some thoughts on the whole matter. Read More »

Often, it just takes one sharp pain in your gut to snap everything else into focus. That's what recently happened to me. The pain wasn't the worst I had ever felt, in fact, it wasn't distinguished in anyway. It didn't feel awful, it just felt like more of the same. The pain was just one more thing in a long series of events that indicate to me that perhaps I'm sometimes lacking some needed rule of self.

These turns of fortune, quiet murmurs when separated, gathered together at the sore place and had a pow-wow, where suddenly, in a group, they were able to make a lot of noise. The clamor was basically a plea for Jenna Tollerson to stop acting like all rules are there to be uptight and puritanical and for once take responsibility and reign herself in. I pride myself often enough on being easy-going, aiming to party, and always laughing in the faces of those who insist my less-than-wholesome behavior has any sort of destructive quality.

However, I've chosen I need to prove something to myself.

For once in my life, I need to make myself do something that I may not enjoy, for my own damn good. Forcing myself to do unpleasant-but-personal-growth-producing acts has never been my strong suit; an all-but-failed academic career is evidence enough of that. But it's something I need to be able to do if I want to get anywhere in this life. So, starting this weekend and throughout the entire month of February, I'm not going out drinking on weekends. I'm not doing this because I think my drinking is a real problem. I'm doing it to show that I can. I don't just want to say I can quit anytime I want, I want to be able to point and say, “That was a time when I said I was going to abstain and I did.” I want to know that even though that I may never care to again, that I can put down the bottle whenever I damn well please.

This reason, this needing to know, has become doubly important as I mulled over this decision for the last 48 hours. Why? Because once I decided what I needed to do, giving up my weekends at Barcode—even just for a trial period—has started to sound just this side of impossible. Of course, this serves well to underscore how badly I need to do this.

Here's the thing: between getting ready to go out, going out, and then sleeping it off, I usually pretty much manage to use up my entire weekend, every weekend. Sure, sometimes there is some leisure time in the afternoon when, still a bit groggy, I watch DVDs, maybe getting up to check my e-mail. Often though, I'll sleep from sun up to sun down, and when I greet my favorite bartenders on Saturday night, it's less than 12 waking hours since I last saw them.

I'd like to see what will go different this month. I plan to use my weekends to organize, clean, do the laundry that's been piling up for multiple weeks, and read. When the sun's out I could take photographs, walk around the neighborhood, and if it really warms up, use a mid-afternoon to lounge a bit on North Campus. I want to use a little less time being up all night and a little more time digging some sunshine.

If you'd like to engage in good Christian-youth-type activity with me, such as seeing a movie (something I now do maybe twice a year now, when given the amount of leisure time I boast should really be so much more), getting coffee, or, quite frankly, anything that will force me to get up, take a shower and leave my apartment before one in the afternoon, please do be in touch.

I feel like such a major square for doing this, but I just gotta remember, it's not forever. My birthday celebration at Barcode the first weekend in March will feel so much sweeter and more special if I've spent a month and some change getting my life together rather than just having a good time.

A House Christmas Eve Tradition. Read More »