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

“I've gotta say Jenna, you're pretty stubborn. I mean, you're the one who only eats once every three days.”

Gumby continued with an imitation of me. “‘I don't need food; I'll just snack on my ego!’”

In theory, I should take this opportunity to complain.

Why? Life is stressful, and over the years, when my life is stressful, I go on the Internet and whine about it. You could say this is because I'm a blogger (a term I abhor, by the way) but I think it makes me more of a livejournaler.

Zing!

In any case, registering complaints with the ethereal “out there” has become totally boring. Yeah, I'm freaking out about (my lack of) money most of the time and I don't leave the house as much as I probably should and I spend a bunch of time up in my own head worrying about the future, but do I have to keep talking about it? It's old news!

What am I going to do instead? Focus on the cuteness of my new, shorter hair, of course:

Curious about the state of things? Well, although actual funds tend to be slow to trickle in, my business is brisk, and I am working steadily on a wide variety of projects. Most of the time I am actually having a great deal of fun “at work” and more importantly, being consistently challenged. Sure, there were a couple days this week when I didn't eat at all but that is a small price to pay for being able to set my own schedule, and not having to report to a manager or worry about office politics. I mean that.

Of course, the one downside to being so busy is not having energy—creative or raw—to pour into much else, so that's why it's a currently a Tollerson family Christmas on this site. This usually means that we managed to get the decorations up, but because we lack general time and initiative, we probably won't get them down until sometime just before my birthday in early March. It's just like being a kid again!

Apropos of nothing: someday, I would like to go back to my old style of writing. Not the whiny one but the other one, in which I tell outrageous stories of misadventure. The only problem is, I don't get into as much trouble as I used to. This is something I feel I need to remedy—lately I feel like I'm aging a little too fast.

“I’m 23. Remember how old 23 seemed when you were little? I mean, I thought people were going to be traveling in airlocks, and I would have 5 kids.
Here I am. 23.
Things are um, they’re basically the same.
I think time’s running out to do something bizarre. Somewhere around 25 bizarre becomes immature.”
- Singles

I need some ideas: how do I raise $600 in 5 days without resorting to prostitution or say, violent robbery?

With that kind of financial problem you'd think I'd copped some kind of fantastic narcotic habit, but the truth is, I'm just trying to pay my bills.

If I was a heroin user it would give this near poverty lifestyle I'm currently living a much more romantic spin. Then I could sell my memoirs.

Hungry
Originally uploaded by Jenna Tollerson.

I ate my last two eggs and my last glass of milk this morning, and now this is the contents of my refrigerator. Now that I don't have food it's pretty much all I can think about.

You know that stuff you buy because it looks good at the store, but when you get it home it doesn't seem as good? So it gets shoved into the back of your cupboard until the day you clean or move and you throw it away? That stuff you never eat?

I know what it's like to eat that stuff.

I officially have no more foodstuffs in my home outside of ramen noodles. I haven't bought groceries in at least 3 weeks and I'm unsure when I will be able to buy more.

Being self employed is an adventure. Hopefully, soon, I'll look back on these days and laugh.

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.

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.

S (12:17:46 AM): this morning crap sucks
S (12:17:53 AM): I have to wear closed toe shoes to work
S (12:17:54 AM): that sucks
S (12:17:55 AM): ass
S (12:17:57 AM): double ass
S (12:18:09 AM): if you can't tell, I'm really tired, and I just saw anchorman
S (12:18:11 AM): it sucked
S (12:18:12 AM): ass

Tonight I met my Aunt Tracy, drunk circa 1975. She talked like her, she walked like her, and got way too close when speaking to me. She was really nice(!), but a lot to take. I was also tempted to tell her that I can see her future: a nomad that finds Jesus Christ and drives all her relatives insane (the latter not actually related to the former).

But she will anything for anyone she loves, and will randomly pull amazing things together, impressing everyone.

Just like anyone else, good with the bad.

I realized yesterday that I have somehow managed to nearly give up drawing for the summer, completely by accident. The last time I drew was when I was in Blakely, in my Uncle Charles's farm house, trying to draw his wife, my aunt. At the time I was running on about 3 hours of sleep, and gave up pretty quickly and went to take a nap in the guest room.

And that was the last time.

Lately I haven't been hungry. I'm constantly forgetting to eat, and if I'm not going to work, I won't get out of bed til 3, 4, 5 in the afternoon. I rarely want to do any of the things I supposedly enjoy—drawing, photography, writing, even listening to music—but I feel fine. I believe that I am happy, or at least content. And I feel okay. I think.

This is much different than any other depression I've experienced in my short time here. I just feel off, not down. It's unsettling.

I'm trying not to bitch. But I also believe that if I put this out there, then it will be away from me, outside of me, and then I can move on with things.

Then I can regain my passion for things, and go back to being funny.