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

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 »

On Friday my Dad invited me to dinner in Winder in honor of my grandfather's birthday. I walked to my downtown parking spot straight from work and hit The Loop™ on my way to 316. I was cruising along, jamming to a random shuffle on the iPod when the car jolted several times. Speed up, shudder, slow, speed up. Russo (my Honda) was throwing himself in and out of Sports Drive (or Super Drive, or Over drive, depending on your own car's make and model. There are probably half a dozen more names).

I can tell you than randomly accelerating and decelerating, jolting forward at haphazard intervals while all the time wondering if your brakes still work, is not my idea of a good time. Determined not to be stranded on the side of the road, I got off and parked at a gas station, taking great care to not hit anyone with my car that had a will of it's own.

I called Dad. He told me to check my transmission fluid. I had absolutely no idea how to do this. I pulled the Honda repair manual from my trunk and consulted it. It contained lots of words that are new to me like “transaxle”. It told me the dipstick for the “transaxle” fluid should be on the passenger side of the engine. I looked and looked but I was so not finding it. Dad volunteered to come rescue me, at which point, any pretense of getting to eat with my grandfather was given up.

While I waited for Dad to show, three young men parked near me and got out, asking if I needed any help.

Exasperated, I laid it down for them, “Well, actually, I'm having a really dumb problem. I'm trying to check my transmission fluid and I can't find where I'm supposed to check it.”

The three of them volunteered to take a look. I was sure I was about to be shown up by men and their useful vehicle knowledge.

They proceeded to spend the next ten minutes searching under my hood for the spot. They couldn't find it either. About seven minutes into it, I exclaimed, “I am so happy I'm not the only one who can't find this!”

They all gave me good natured looks-as-if-our-manhood-has-been-threatened nods and smiles. Then one of them had a eureka moment, reached down into the bowels of the engine and retrieved the dipstick, something I was not able to do later without burning my hand on the still-hot engine.

Even though they claimed to know nothing about cars, two of them accompanied me inside the store to search for transmission fluid. Finding nothing of any use, we all walked back outside, where the most attractive of the three advised me the his “daddy refuses to work on those sideways motors.”, indicating something about my car that I myself had just learned—the engine is set left to right instead of the standard and predictable front to back position. “He's all American.”

“That's pretty funny.”

“I don't know what to tell you.” He grinned. “Buy a Chevy.”

I laughed, and thanked them for their time.

Dad arrived, and after a brief diagnostic in which we discovered, among other things, that I was low on oil, he drove me over to Wal-mart where I purchased fuel injector cleaner, oil, and very expensive transmission treatment ($10!). We then drove back over and applied these various treatments.

I don't know exactly which fluid hit Russo's sweet spot, but in any case, where he was indecisive and uncooperative before, he was now a smooth operator. Fluids in every orifice brought back his stamina, and he was happy and sated. Through, after all that he did have a little trouble getting going again. Russo's pick-up hasn't been the same since. He now needs lots of extra encouragement, like he's self-conscious after being all probed and explored.

I will say that this experience has informed me that I am indeed the girl who doesn't take care of her car. I kept meaning to do all the check-up type things that would have prevented this whole episode, but I just let it slip my mind while I worried about make up and boys.

I course, had I done all the check-up type things, I wouldn't have had the more salacious experience of learning all about what Russo has under his hood.

This week I was afflicted once again by bronchitis (probably). I ran a fever, kept a sleep schedule even more irregular than usual, and would get severely winded walking from my bedroom to the kitchen or even talking to my roommates. I had to miss two days of work, spend a rather ridiculous amount of time coughing, and skip a number of meals due to the unpleasant thought of trying to push any solid food down past my tightened sore throat and lungs.

Discounting shortness of breath and occasionally hacking up a lung, I was beginning to feel like I was on the tail end of it late Friday afternoon and volunteered to take Sarah shopping. We are sitting at the light in front of Target on the Atlanta Highway and everything's fine. The light turns green, we start moving and I hear a peculiar sound coming from outside my window.

“Is that my car?”

I find my way off the road, get out, and my rear driver's side tire is completely flat. I felt this was a very unceremonious flat—I still have no clear idea of how it happened. There was no loud popping, no loss of control. After I unpack my trunk and realize I'm missing a crucial element for this whole procedure—“How do I not have a jack?”—Sarah walks over to the nearby strip mall and solicits help from a father and son picking up their pizza. They drop what they are doing and come over and change the tire for me.

These are the times when I really love being a woman for real. Laying on the ground, wheezing with sickness while trying to jack up my car was not the way I had intended to spend my Friday evening. And I didn't have to!

However, I reminded that while being an ultimate symbol of freedom, Russo (my car) is also now a child I have to take care of, and children are so damn expensive. Their rubber soles wear out so much faster than you think they will, and a month later they need new shoes! Russo doesn't understand how broke his mother is.

This week I have also developed a pronounced aversion to people. Everywhere I go I feel extremely crowded. In my apartment, in the street, in class, at work, everywhere. I would just like to be alone for more than an hour and I am never alone. There is always someone there. Around every corner there is someone I know, someone who needs to say hi, someone who is a presence that is in my way, has to be counted in my train of thought. It is driving me crazy.

I have no rational explanation for this, of course. Mostly, everyone has been wonderful to me. All the people in my life have been friendly and sweet, my roommates have taken great care of me during my illness, my family's cutting me slack all around. I just feel closed in. Pressurized on all sides. Precisely because no one has done anything to make me feel like this, I am trying my damnedest not to explode onto anyone, not to let the sound of voices or the warmth of bodies get to me. I was planning a little “who knows where I'll end up?” excursion with my Sunday to shake some of this off, but seeing as how I won't be able to take care of the tire problem until Monday and driving aimlessly on a spare is probably inadvisable, I'll just have to find some alone time closer to home.

It could just be the illness, but my chest feels incredibly tight. I need some decompression.

...

J: “But I've decided he's just a friend.”
E: (with horrified look) “Why?”
J: “It's just better this way. Easier. He's totally out of my league anyway.”
E: “But you like him so much! No one is out of you league, Jenna.”
J: “The deal is I can keep obsessing or I can move on. I know that it's not going to happen. I can settle for having a friend. And we have the potential to be really good friends, it's there.”
E: “It's just so sad. It's like you are giving up on romance.”

This past weekend Will and Sam came to see me at my home in Athens and also to transfer me back to Winder. I was a lovely afternoon including Starbucks, people suspended in the air, Audioslave, and a trip to Barnes & Noble, where I bought, among other things, the Playboy Bartender's Guide, which curiously does not contain the recipe for a Sex on the Beach but does have one for Sex in the Desert. Somehow that seems rauchier.

A short trip in Will's ghetto-fabulous car put us at the Winder Sonic, where it promptly and quite suddenly died.

Just running along and then — nothing.

Will called up his "deddy" who arrived in no time flat and diagnosed the problem as the alternator. I have no idea what this means, but he and Will decided this after much standing in front of the open hood, frowning and nodding, so that's got to be significant somehow.

Will and his father switched cars, and we followed the ghetto fabulous car in the truck to the dealership where they left it for the weekend. Then we drove "deddy" home; on the way there Will and his father seemed like the older and younger version of one person having a conversation with himself.

On Sunday Maggie and I went to see Damien Rice at the Cotton Club and holy freaking hell! It was one of the best shows I have ever seen. I also have developed major Volcano-envy because he brought a girl from the audience up to sing the female part of "Volcano" with him. I was soooo jealous.

And also very happy for her.

After that this week has been a blur of stress, lack of sleep, art, mind crunching, and trying to stay confident in my abilities. Because I am a genius. Or something like that.

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

Tuesday, 9:30 AM. I wake after having been asleep for roughly 17 hours, on and off. It's not important to my story except that I woke without an alarm, which put me in a good mood, and my Poli-Sci class starts right at 9:30, so I was skipping. Again.

I grab my showery things and walk down the hall to the shower, being happy because it's morning and I'm rested and the day is ripe with yummy possibilities. I get out of the shower at about 5 til 10. To get to work at 11:30 I have to eat lunch at about 10:30. (I know.)

I reach my door and turn the handle. Locked. I think my roommate must be getting dressed, so I knock.

No answer.

I panic, and knock several more times to no avail. I sit on the floor, slump again the wall and think. I now have two options:

• I can wait until my roommate gets back, which may be 12:30 or 1:00, and miss work while sitting out in the hall for 2 hours in my bathrobe, OR

• I can go check out a key.

Simple, you think. Easy. Go check out a key. Everything will work out fine.

Here's where I start thinking, "This is going to be a great story to tell at the Waffle House someday."

Where do I have to go to check out a key? The community office. And where is that? In a trailer in the middle of the quad. Past some construction workers, across the lawn, though the building to the desk. And then I have to talk to someone and explain why I'm standing there in my bathrobe, still very wet.

Thank goodness it was a warm day.

I walk down the stairs, take off my flip-flops and scurry over to the office door in my bare feet, tightly holding my robe shut against the blustering wind, and go inside. Breathe a sigh of relief that there is a girl sitting at the desk, check out a key, and scurry back over to the building, without being seen by almost anyone. Yey for that.

When I went back to turn my key in, I was wearing my Will Hoge shirt, and the girl at the desk is like "You like Will Hoge? I love him!" We get to talking about them, but now I will always associate Will Hoge with being naked. And not in the good way.

After work Melissa and I drive 2 hours to Turner Field to watch J,LC play four songs. It was so fun though. They were being broadcast on a big screen right above the stage (and I suppose, also on the big screen inside the stadium) and for some reason it just cracked me up, and I could not stop laughing hysterically even with Anne Martinez faux-scolding me. It didn't help either that there was even a zoom-in on Matt's pink mandolin, which to me just looked like they were zooming in on his crotch. Gives a whole new meaning to the term Jumbotron. (Bah-Dum-Ching!)

I should have some pictures up soon.

For anyone who has not heard yet: 106 West, Closed, This weekend. There is a wedding that Tollersons are attending and thus, not enough staff to run the place. Sam and Dixie Kirby in their never-ending indispensability have dressed me for this wedding and damn if I don't say I'm gonna look gooooood. Yeah.

Finally, for anyone interested I am currently signed up for the following for next fall:

(ANTH)CMLT 3180. Introduction to East Asian Cultures.

CMLT 3110. Literature of the Self.

MUSI 2040. History of Popular Music.

NMIX 2020. Introduction to New Media.

Of course, these are all subject to change.

If you've never stood at the side of 316 at 10:00 at night and tried to get an unstartable car to start, boy howdy are you missing out.

Jessica called me because she ran out of gas (or that's what we thought at the time) and me and Dad headed out to bring her some.

Only first, the Volvo overheated to such astronomical proportions that I coasted down the atlanta highway and then made an illegal turn into a gas station to get a drink for my car. Poor Bruno (name of the Volvo). We almost broke him.

The irony. Read More »