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

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?

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!)

“Excuse me ma'am? Do you think that's where your cigarette butt goes?”

I could only stare bewildered at the officer for a moment. “Sir?”

CB stood next to me, also stopped in his tracks. I had just thrown the end of my cigarette onto the black asphalt, into the gutter as I stepped off of the curb. It was the middle of the day, and we were going across the street to grab a soda before heading back to work. This is not the time of day one is normally in trouble with the cops.

“Do you think that's where your cigarette butt goes?”

He was using a smug and condescending tone, sitting up above me on his bike on the curb, his mirrored sunglasses making him appear blank and impersonal.

They're kind of insect-like. I thought. But they probably make him feel safe.

There was no good answer for that question, so I replied interrogatively, trying to diffuse whatever was about to go down. “No?”

I so do not need this right now.

“You know, I stopped here just to watch you people. I see you out here everyday doing this. You know, those butts get in the water system and stop things up. And then someone has to fix it.”

“That's too bad.”

“Did you ever think about where that goes when you just throw it on the ground?”

“To be honest, sir, I never gave it much thought before.”

He looked at the ground and shook his head in an angry and exasperated way, as if I had just told him the deceased grandmother he adored as a child was actually the town whore. This statement was unacceptable.

“You know that's littering.”

“I realize that.”

“Do you know much that ticket is?”

“No, I don't.”

“It's pretty expensive.”

“I imagine so.”

At this point he just stared, confused that I wasn't cowering before his awesome ticketing power.

Meanwhile, I was now losing my patience with this man. “Sir, is there some kind of action you'd like me to take here? Are you just giving me a warning?”

He kept on his diatribe as if I hadn't spoken at all. As he spoke he rocked backwards and forwards on his bike, clutching the hand brake again and again in pure agitation. “You know, I live here, and I pay taxes, and those taxes pay for people to clean the street, but I don't think this is their job.”

It became clear then that I was not just dealing with a power-tripping cop; rather this gentleman took personal offense at the fly-by-night students that are dirtying is lovely city. Nevermind that the students are responsible for the prosperity of the entire city, and nevermind that I myself am not a fly-by-night student.

“Sir, what is it that you would like me to do, exactly?” Clock is ticking, dude.

“I'm going to give you a warning this time, but I would like you to pick your cigarette butt up.”

“Okay.” I turned with great flourish and retrived my butt from the array of them on the ground behind me. I could tell which one was mine because it was black.

I was more or less fuming and I don't remember if he even wished us a nice day. I carried the butt across the street with me and threw it in the trash.

CB spoke up in the relative safety of the elevator. “You know, what's clear is that you really don't like cops.”

“I was polite!”

“Kinda.”

“I'm just sick of getting into trouble for being young; I never had any problems with ACC cops before today. It was the Winder cops who were always the real assholes to me.”

“I know, you've told me.”

“I understand that the man has to enforce the law when he sees someone breaking it, but if I was twenty years older the whole conversation would have gone much differently. There was no reason for him to be so disrespectful.”

As I walked to my desk, I gave a great big smile to my boss and proclaimed to him and my coworkers that in the scant 15 minutes that I was downstairs, I had managed to get in trouble with the law!

I related the story to much laughter, with many exclaimations of aren't-there-any-real-criminals-to-deal-with.

Phillips let loose, “He's just upset because he's not getting any real action on the day shift. You should have told him that you know you pay more taxes than him because you know you are making more money than him!”

Then Dixon chimed in, “You could have just gone with the old classic: ‘You know, I pay your salary!’”

I walked from Copper Creek and stood in front of my building (also, stood in front of the bar on the first floor of my building) and people watched while I finished my cigarette. Three men—all clearly old enough to be my father—stood off to my left. Two of them walked inside the bar after being asked by someone working the door to say off the sidewalk with open bottles. I don't know how the one who approached me managed to say outside with his bottle of Sam Adams, but there he was, arms stretched to either side, ready to envelope me. I put the hand that was holding my purse gently to his chest, halting whatever campaign he had decided upon. He looked very put out by this.

With my hand steady at his chest and his arms still out, I gave him a friendly “Hi.”

He stared at me for a moment. He was obviously very drunk already, especially considering it was only 10 PM. “Do you have a light?”

I noticed he was holding an unlit cigarette, so I pulled out my Zippo.

Looking at my Black in my other hand he asked, “What are you smoking?”

“Cloves.”

He took my cigarette from me and took a drag. When he handed it back, I asked if he still needed a light.

This is when he asked, and I am not making this up, “Can I touch you?”

I smiled. “No.”

I lit his cigarette for him, and his friends, still with the open bottles, came out onto the sidewalk looking for him. They were also very drunk and had somehow gotten the impression their friend was making a very successful conquest. I backed away in small steps as the man who had propositioned me insisted to his friends that they needed to go to “Chelsea's, I'm telling ya. Chelsea's.” (Chelsea's is one of Athens' local girlie bars. I think they offer “private lingerie modeling” or somesuch nonsense.) One of the friends made an off hand motion to me encouraging his friend, as if I was an acceptable strip club substitute, but I was on my way upstairs, and left those creeps in the dust.

However, it was less scary than amusing, and nothing could have dampened my mood. Free beer + time with Neil = loving life right now.

New insanely addicting site: Make a Flake

New thing that irritates me although I can do nothing about it: sites without syndicated feeds

Favorite Song (this week): The Black Keys - 10 A.M. Automatic

Number of times I've heard 10 A.M. Automatic, according to iTunes: 21

Movie I'm addicted to of late: Donnie Darko

Song that stays stuck in my head always now, featured in the first DD school scene: Head Over Heels, Tears for Fears

Crush: still going strong

Cigarettes I will smoke today (estimate): 7

Drinks I will consume at The Company Xmas party this evening (estimate): 6

Month that I want to be over already: December

Fun post ideas stolen: 1

Start with two Irish Carbombs. Add two overpriced cigarettes and and two Smoked Porter brews from Copper Creek. Mix well until there is a pleasant, steady buzz. Laugh loud at the Brit and smoke another cigarette on the way home.

Arrive home before midnight. Change into pajamas, slam two huge glasses of water. Climb into bed at 12:03 am, excited about the long night of rest that lies ahead (a whole nine hours!). Fall asleep painlessly and instantly.

Your phone will ring at 12:57 am, waking you, but don't answer it. Instead, inspect the time, decide that it is one in the afternoon, that you overslept, and are now late for work. Begin formulating excuses for your boss.

30 seconds after the ring, the mind cloud lifts, it's one am again. Go back to sleep without trouble or incident.

At 3:45 am, wake up suddenly and completely, without cause, and stone sober to boot.

[It should be noted here that there are two main kinds of insomnia: the people who can't get to sleep and the people who can't stay asleep. I have always been one of the former. I am not too keen on becoming one of the latter.]

Lay in bed, still dead tired but now unable to sleep, for two hours. Get up and write, believing it will help. It won't. Get back in bed until 7:00, and then give up and get in the shower.

After getting all fresh and clean, go the kitchen to make breakfast. Knock a box full of pasta off it's shelf. When you go to pick it up in your groggy state, the box will be upside-down. The top will come completely undone, and you will have ruined dry pasta all over the floor.

Sit on the floor in your bathrobe, heave a big sigh, and clean it up.

After breakfast head to Starbucks to kill time before work. Listen to lavishly and obnoxiously arranged version of “O Holy Night”. Note that Christmas music before Thanksgiving is part of what is wrong with the world, and is certainly a sign of the rapture.

Move quickly (trying to outrun the music) out of the coffee shop. Mix well with one overpriced but delicious eggnog latte, charged to a credit card, and send to work for 6 ½ hours.

Serves no one. And everyone.

It's been a long day.

I smell like a bar.

Stale cigarette smoke all through my t-shirt, sweat thoughout my hair, and even faint scent of alcohol rubbed off when I hugged someone who had be the victim of spillage. Or purposeful pourage, if that makes any sense.

I love this smell. I love Veblen. And I'm starting to think that nobody knows how I feel. It's not because all the members are so easy on the eyes, or the people I see at shows, or getting to go do something in Athens. All that stuff is great, but I seriously love the music and the energy and... I don't even think I can explain it. The thing I do know is at Veblen shows I get the concert euphoria, the buzz, the high, followed by the crashing exhaustion.

If that's not love I don't know what is.