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

Loooooong, slightly masturbatory essay. I apologize in advance.

“Jenna,” He stuck his chin out and whined with faux exasperation, “why do you hate me so much?”

Everyone's got that one friend who uses some variation on this phrase as a way to tell you to just lighten up when you are trying to get them to do something completely reasonable. Like stop drinking when they've clearly had enough. Or get in the car when it's 5 in the morning and obviously time to head home. Or to please, just put some clothes on. While you're just trying to get through to the end of the night, your friend basically says to you, Stop being so uptight. You're totally harshing my mellow. Read More »

Next week I'm traveling to Boston with my parents see my sister, Sarah, graduate college. My parents have rented a minivan for the occasion. I can promise you that even with the current price of gas, going by automobile is much less stressful than trying to convince my father to fly; not to mention the general farce that is the airline industry these days.

The big downside to driving is I can't get drunk and doze off.

Sarah and I are discussing the upcoming trip, in which my father, my mother and I will be trapped in a rented Kia minivan together for hours on end.

“That is going to be really entertaining; I wish I could be there.”

“Well, maybe I'll have to take notes.” I laugh. “You know, they've talked about putting me down as one of the drivers, so that should be interesting.”

Sarah pauses a moment, then says in a slightly serious tone, “Now I'm picturing you driving a minivan.
“It's a pretty disturbing image.”

I think there is some part of me that is sick in the head and/or just really, really tired, but this is one of the only things that has made me laugh today. You should know that I did not just laugh, I cackled. At a loud volume. And for unnecessarily long time.

If you build a man a fire, he will stay warm for a day. If you light a man on fire, he will stay warm for the rest of his life.

You notice how it's funny, but not that funny? Because I didn't for at least ten minutes.

The funny about this was the extremely matter-of-fact tone used by the young man, who I assume was taking care of his drunk friend:

“You need to find Brad and get him to take your ass home. Where is Brad?
“Why is Brad at Toppers? Brad is gay.”

Gay men like dancing, and boobs for that matter, so I myself am not entirely surprised that Brad was hanging out at a strip club.

“You should put that story on your website.”

“It's not my story!”

“But you just told it to me.”

“I told you — I heard it on the radio!”

“Oh. But you retell it really well. You should put it on your website anyway.”

“I can't put a story about a little boy and his teddy bear on my site. Right now the site is all about how depressed and cynical I am.”

“Oh, I see — so you can't break character.”

“Precisely. I've got an arc and I've got to stick to it.”

Me, earlier: “You know you are like the third person this week who has told me that they're working up to a point where they'll want me to work for them exclusively?”

“We've got to toughen you up.”

“Is that right?”

“Totally. I'll tell you what we'll do. When I get there, we'll go down to the bar, crack some bottles over people's heads, give some noogies.
“You'll be carrying an 12 inch — no 18 inch metal rod, and I'll carry a bucket of oil slick. When the cops come after us, you throw the rod in the front spokes—”

“—this sounds like an excellent way to get arrested.”

“God, grow some testicles, Jenna! I mean, not literal testicles. Not literal.”

“I know. Metaphorical. Cojones.”

“Exactly. I mean, you don't need anything hanging down there. You have a very nice shape as it is.”

“Well thank you.”

“Anyway, you throw the rod in the wheel, they go flying over the handlebars. Meanwhile, I throw the oil slick down and the rest of them slide all over the place.”

“This is like a bad cartoon!”

“Of course it is! What do you think I have access to? There should also be like, anvils dropping from the sky and people walking off of cliffs.”

“And we can paint a tunnel on the side of a building and they'll ride right into it.”

“Brilliant!”

“Aw, you know you loved it.”

“Well of course I did. But it's not the same when there's no conclusion to the whole thing. I just got so wound up.”

“It's different for women though.”

“That's the thing, he was right there with me, if you know what I mean.”

“Huh.”

“He was in the bathroom for like 5 minutes afterward though.”

“I see.”

“He came to a conclusion on his own, didn't he?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

“Dammit. You know what really sucks? I haven't had a decent conclusion since that morning.”

“Ou, that's rough.”

“I know. right? It's like I got rewired or something. I used to be, like, master of my own conclusions!”

“The first two syllables of that phrase being the operative ones.”

“Life never gets easier. It just gets harder and harder until the stress kills you.”

“That's about right.”

“Then what's the point?”

“You just have to enjoy each day while you're here.”

“It's not enough.”

“Maybe we need to get you on mood altering drugs. I know a guy who sells speed.” Laughs.

“It certainly would help with my productivity.”

“I was kidding.”

“Well, it would.”

“Until you crash and burn.”

“Eh, I'm always gonna crash and burn anyway.”

“Ultimately all you have are your experiences, and it's hard to write about that because if you do—”

“—everyone will know.”

“Exactly.” He took a long drag on his cigarette.

We sat side by side in silence for a full minute before I got the courage to speak up. “I used to write characters that were just thinly veiled versions of people I wanted to be. They had all the qualities I wished I had.”

“Fight Club syndrome.”

I turned to look at him.

“You know, ‘I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I do what I want to do’.”

I looked at the sidewalk between my feet and smiled. “Yeah, that was pretty much it.
“The problem was they were so perfect that they were never in peril.”