Of the bands to come out of that time, I lived and breathed the band Bush. If you’ve been around TYK for a while, you’ve read some gems from my diary that show the extent of my fixation on Bush and my obsessive infatuation with Gavin Rossdale. But very, very few people have read the eight-page concert manifesto I wrote after I saw them in concert in 1997. That, dear readers, is the piece de resistance of my fanaticism. You thought Jingle Jam 2003 was intense? WAIT FOR IT.

If you have some time to kill and want some chuckles, you can download the PDF here. For everyone else, here are some of my favorite highlights…

You guys, I legitimately thought I was going to marry Gavin Rossdale, and no one understood my love for him.

I THINK YOU GET THE IDEA.

Well, you probably aren’t aware of this, but Bush (at least Gavin and the drummer, Robin) released a new album and went on tour this fall. My BFF Katie and I decided to go to the Cincinnati show, and she SURPRISED ME with SOMETHING CRAZY: she got us on the list for the meet ‘n greet.

Remember Rex Manning Day in the movie Empire Records?

Katie gave me a pep talk about how NOT turn the Meet ‘n Greet into Rex Manning Day. You know - don’t gush to Gavin Rossdale about how much you loved him WHEN YOU WERE THIRTEEN - that just makes everybody feel old.

But you guys? I was so geeked to meet Gavin Rossdale I might as well have been clutching a copy of “Bop.” The meet ‘n greet was composed of around 20 people, and it was super contrived - you know, wait in line, stand here, here’s the picture they’ll sign, blah blah blah.

When we walked up to the table, while my heart was palpitating and I was sweating profusely, I must have looked pretty cool, because Gavin said to us, “Wow, you girls look great.” Wait, what?

Giggle.

Blush.

“You guys definitely win. You win the best looking award.”

We got together to take this picture and we were instructed to move closer together. “C’mon,” Rossdale said. “Let’s pretend like we like each other.” AND HE PULLED ME TO HIM AND THAT’S WHY MY FACE IS SAYING, “OMG, there is only a layer of jeans and jeggings between me and Gavin Rossdale’s junk.”

Also, can I just say…

It was like 1997 all over again.

Except now I have this awesome rack.

And Spanx.

Seventy percent of my Blurty entries were song lyrics, quizzes (”What is Your True Aura Color?”), and poorly crafted images with overlaid emo lyrics that are now all the rage of teens on Tumblr. There are a lot of **asterisks** and ~~misuses of the tilde ~~. Occasionally, you’ll find a paragraph of substance or an interesting glimpse into my life at what was then the “#1 Party School in the Nation,” but mainly I come across as a manic mess of a girly girl.  This is probably a prime example.

But the entry that has given me the most shit over the years has been the Jingle Jam 2003 post. The thing about documenting your life on the internet from age 19 is that it becomes both a touching pseudo-memoir and also the bane of your existence. The Jingle Jam post is, essentially, the portrait of a fangirl.  But for those who can’t get through the first paragraph (I surely can’t, anymore) let me spare you some secondhand embarrassment and sum it up: it is a detailed account of my after-party experience of a holiday show featuring Howie Day, Guster, Maroon 5, and Jason Mraz.  (Oh, and Jared the Subway guy is also involved.)

Sometime my Freshman year, my friend Lauren burned me a mix CD of music she liked, which included Maroon 5. This was at least a year before their first single dropped, so it’s probably the first instance I can think of where that hipstery, “Oh, I knew about them WAY before…” tendency presented itself.  At that time, Maroon 5 was “indie” to me, because apparently “indie” was any band that wasn’t Dave Matthews.

Anyway, my current circle of friends never let me forget about Jingle Jam. How could they not? Here are a couple excepts:

Last night, I went to Indianapolis to see Z99.5’s “Jingle Jam”…Hands down, one of the top five BEST nights of my life. I was just incredibly giddy with happiness, and it’s one of those random nights I’ll always remember . . .

JINGLE JAM ‘03: NEVER FORGET.

Maroon5 was my favorite act. I was introduced to them a year ago by my friend Lauren, and got the cd not so long ago. But live? Oh. My. God. Adam Levine, the lead singer is like this sexy little rock god, performs beautifully. The seats vibrated when they played. Award for Most Sex-Charged Set…

Gross.

…So afterwards, Em and I call Micah, the audio engineer for Mraz that we had met in Ball State on Halloween. He invites us over to their hotel, to the VIP After-show party. We got temporarily lost as we drove around Christmas-y decorated Indy, giggling about what the night would entail.

We had no idea.

I think this stemmed from that MTV show, “Diary”? Where the celebrity would always say in the intro: “You THINK you know - but you have NO IDEA.”

…I did meet the lead singer for Maroon 5, who was pretty cool, but toward the end seemed pretty bored/tired by the whole party thing. Transitioning into my tipsy stage by this point, we talked about how this wasn’t a true party because there was no music and how I was pissed because there was no dancing. (I’m sure Adam Levine was impressed by this. God I am such a dork.)

At least I was a little self-aware. I’m trying to picture what I was wearing this night, but I guarantee I was wearing a choker necklace (despite the fact that they had gone extinct by ‘97), bootleg jeans, and a fake tan. WHY DIDN’T YOU RAVISH ME, ADAM LEVINE?

Now, eight years later, I find myself about to attend another Maroon 5 show. You might be asking yourself, “Why, Jenn? And how? With your snooty music opinions, and the knowledge that TRAIN is co-headlining?”

Well, Bess and I were supposed to see Janet Jackson last night at the Indiana State Fair, but she cancelled. Super bummed, we decided we’d go to the fair anyway and eat our feelings, replacing Janet with meat on a stick and fried kool-aid. Unfortunately, Bess had to work late, so we missed out. Womp, womp. She mentioned she could get free tickets to the Maroon 5 show at Conseco. So why not, I guess. Janet was supposed to be my birthday concert, but I’ll see Adam Levine slink around for the sake of nostalgia.

This morning, Matt asked what I ended up gorging on at the fair:

“We didn’t GO because BESS had to WORK LATE. So I had a SALAD, which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of FRIED THINGS. But we’re ironically going to the Maroon 5 concert tonight?”

“I think this worked out for the best,” he said. “You don’t hate yourself today, and you get to see Adam Levine pretend to be relevant.”

But c’mon. We all know that while I’m rolling my eyes behind my big, judgey Ray Bans that inside me there is a 20-year old girl in a choker and bootleg jeans, ~*fah-REAKING OUT. *~

Honestly, I haven’t been to the drive-in since 2002, and that was a VERY DIFFERENT SCENARIO. I was in Michigan and went with my boyfriend, Adam. I was 18, and I’m pretty sure we made out in the bed of his truck the whole time? Are you humming “Strawberry Wine” in your head? You should, because that’s how insufferable and nauseating we were.

I do remember this much: The feature was “Halloween Resurrection,” featuring a fine performance by rapper BUSTA RHYMES, whose (spoiler alert!) catchphrase was, I am kidding you not:

Yes, those were different times, indeed. But just because I didn’t have some lusty man-child trying to put his hand up my shirt didn’t mean that I couldn’t LOOK for love on a Monday night, in a nearly deserted drive-in theatre…

We each checked in on Foursquare.

“Ooh, the MAYOR is here, right now,” I cooed.

[Because you get points if the mayor is "in the house." Because the more points you get, the closer you are to...winning? Winning Foursquare? Do we know what the point of Foursquare is yet?]

Out of sheer boredom, Bess clicked on his profile. WHO IS THIS MYSTERY MAYOR AMONG US?

Bess: “He’s kinda cute. Oohh, he’s in med school.“

Talk about a meet-cute, right? Drive-ins mean the movie-film GREASE, and so this was kind of how I pictured the scenario:

(You guys don’t know the trouble I go to to do such fine ’shop work for you. Did you notice the red cross? CUZ HE’S A DOCTOR. And also because I couldn’t draw a stethoscope freehand.)

“OooOOOhh. Maybe I should feign an injury!” I decide brilliantly. “But it would have to be a sexy injury, ya know? What would be the SEXIEST injury I could get right now?”

Without skipping a beat, Bess: “You sprained your… VAGINA….doing…KEGELS. That’s probably the sexiest. Or the grossest. I can’t tell.”

So clearly, based on this conversation, we’re both a little more THIS:

(That’s supposed to be me as “Rizzo.” With a cigarette complete with billowing sm–OKAY, I GET IT, I DON’T UNDERSTAND PROPORTIONS.)

Anyway, none of this matters because I never found The Doctor. Instead, I ended up getting distracted by the various food offerings of the Snack Shack. Pretty typical.

Also, I obviously didn’t want to be seen by ANYONE, as I was wearing a muu-muu:

(IT WAS HOT, OKAY? This was when it was sweltering hot day after day, and I didn’t feel like putting on pants, or anything that was going touch my body beyond the purpose of keeping the damn garment on my person.)

THE END!

I don’t know how a child of six or seven manages to fixate on the idea of playing a particular musical instrument. I don’t know if I saw it on Sesame Street, or if a character from Punky Brewster played the French horn. Either way, I was obsessed with it. It’s weird, but considering the kind of adult I grew into (see last night’s post about purchasing a ukulele), no one should be surprised.

My parents took me to the Grand Rapids Symphony a lot when I was little. One evening they had an “instrument petting zoo” in the lobby, where you could walk up to the musicians and test drive their instruments. (O HAI, GERMS!) I remember walking up to the lady with the French horn. “This is my destiny, lady, I got this,” my little self thought. She explained how to buzz your lips into the mouthpiece. I took a deep breath, put my mouth to the brass, and…Pffffft. Nothing. “Fuck your horn, lady!” I snarled. Just kidding. I was seven.

I then approached the guy with the clarinet. I played a note. The note was “E.” “Rad,” I thought (because it was 1991 and that was something we said back then). A few days later, my mother asked nonchalantly, “Do you want to play the clarinet?” And I was like, “Okay?” because, why not, I had nothing else to do.

In third grade, I started taking lessons from an old gentleman named Mr. Emerson. When I say old, I mean Mr. Emerson was the band director of my dad’s high school, WHEN MY DAD WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. But he was kind and patient as I honked my way through Hot Cross Buns. Mr. Emerson would look at the scales I scribbled out, remarking, “Your notes! They’re so fat and happy.” When I got visibly bored playing classics, he brought out a book of Elvis tunes and let me play from that. Despite all this, I decided to quit after the first year — to which my mother said, “How about you give it just more year. After that, if you don’t like it, you can quit.”

I didn’t quit for another 8 years. (MOMS, how do they work?!)

And I was good, for a while. But somewhere, atop my throne as first chair in my high school’s highest band, playing music stopped being fun. It got ridiculously competitive, and I just wanted to play some Benny Goodman and call it a night, man. I packed my clarinet up in the summer of 2000, only breaking it out on a handful of occasions. . . .until now.

[An aside: I was inspired by the weirdest source. A few years ago I was watching "Cathouse" on HBO - you know, the one about the Moonlight Bunny Ranch? One of the girls plays the French horn. Like, in between banging dudes for money, she sequesters herself in a corner and busts out an etude or two. She said it was relaxing and kept her mind sharp, or something. "I should be more like this prostitute," I thought.]

So on my way home from work last Wednesday, I stopped by a music shop on the eastside and bought the thinnest clarinet reed possible. I smiled as I put the clarinet together; I imagine this is what it feels like to lock together the pieces of an old, familiar gun.

I took a breath, blew into the mouthpiece, and awaited the rich, sultry tones of my yesteryears.

Instead, I heard a goose, dying a violent death.

Yep. I sucked. So back to Hot Cross Buns.

THIS CHICK KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maAypenj0E

I like how she runs this video like it’s a lounge act. “Aaaand that’s my interpretation of Hot Cross Buns, everybody. Remember to tip your waitresses.” Julia, if you’re reading this, please do a mic drop in your next video.

“Don’t let me forget,” my dad said to my mom as he headed into the kitchen. “You need to put some neosporin on my scalp.”

(Earlier today, a dermatologist had removed a couple little bumps from his noggin. They were benign, but since skin cancer runs in our family, we’re all quick to take a scalpel to that nonsense.)

I looked up from my laptop and chuckled, “That’s marriage. That’s 30+ years of marriage, right there.”

Mom didn’t get it.

“Just the way he said it, so matter-of-factly,” I went on. “Like you’ve been around each other for so long, that saying, ‘You need to put ointment on this gaping wound,’ doesn’t phase anyone.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she replied.

“I mean, what’s a little incision, when YOU’VE gone through CHILDBIRTH?! Was dad like, RIGHT THERE when I was born?”

“Well yeah, he cut the cord.”

“Was it gross?”

“Probably.”

I burst out laughing. My dad came back into the living room to investigate: “What are you guys talking about?”

“I asked if you had seen me being born,” I explained. “And when I asked her if it was gross, she said probably.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” he responded. “Y’know, I used to field-dress deer, and stuff like that…”

“Hahah….Wait…Did you just compare my BIRTH to FIELD-DRESSING A DEER? Thanks, Dad.”

My Great-Grandmother Kristina, or Grandma Bucia (BOO-shah), Polish for Grandma.

My Grandmother, Irene, although everyone called her Tootsie.

My Mother, Christine.

Me, Jennifer, and MY BAD ATTITUDE.

I must have been three when this was taken. Sure, there’s a good version of this photograph somewhere — one painting the desired picture — “serene matriarchs through the ages.” But this one cracks me up because LOOK AT THAT SOURPUSS.  I hated wearing dresses, I hated sitting still, and I hated being told what to do. And now, well… I love wearing dresses. Ah-wink.

Photograph by my Father, circa 1986. I just introduced Randy to Flickr, so he’d probably get a kick out of it if you peeped his Flickr page.

And by brief love affair, I mean a fling.

And by fling, I mean I was totally his rebound.

I knew he had a girlfriend (she was studying abroad in Australia at the time) but the sparks between us were pretty palpable. She cheated on him with some Aussie, and on the day they broke up, he showed up at my door, looking all forlorn. HOWEVER, I was getting ready for a date. Ha! I had a date for a frat party. With a Hawaiian theme. “Kamanawannalaya.” (College!)  However, if there’s a blueprint for seducing any dude, it’s allowing him to watch you get ready to go on a date with another dude. Sure enough, a week later, we were making out under the cheap Christmas lights adorning my bedroom in the Varsity Villas. (College.)

The guy was from Chicago, and he was completely obsessed with a little-known rapper named “Kanye West.” “Have you heard of him?” he said, on one of the rare instances we’d come up for air. We were taking a break from “studying for exams,” and had popped The College Dropout into my stereo. It was 4am, and we were on our way to the Waffle House. (College!) “Toooooootally, I looooove him,” I surely cooed in response. A complete and utter lie, as I loved Jason Mraz and Maroon 5. (AT THE TIME.) A few weeks later, Spring Semester was over, and he handed me a cd of Kanye West stuff before we parted ways for the summer.

That thing never came out of my cd player. And it was the only token of that relationship that lasted: He got back with his ex, and I was upset for, oh, about five minutes.

Since then, I’ve pretty much just soaked up everything Kanye West has put down, despite my indie hipstery tendencies. And the cockier he gets? The more I love him. To me, Kanye West has more or less turned into a caricature of himself, and I can’t help but applaud that, because I think it’s entertaining as all hell. So you can imagine my excitement when Yeezy joined Twitter this week. His tweets are either a blatant showcase of his egomania? Or a total fun-poke at his egomania? ONLY KANYE KNOWS. IT’S JUST GOLDEN. He’s been the highlight of my Twitter stream all week. Was there anything better than waking up this morning to find out that Kanye West drunk-tweets?

In other news, UM - NABLOPOMO? PWNED.

31 days. 31 posts.

I DID IT.
AND IT FEELS LIKE THIS:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRjb8sMjYu8

FACT: I had the sheet music to the Linda Ronstadt/James Ingram version of this and played the guitar solo ON MY CLARINET. (COOL POINTS — RACKIN’ UP, AMIRITE, GUYS?)

(spotted on The Daily What.)

“Oh my God,” I said, to no one, since I was alone. “I had this picture in my locker!”

Yes. This image, printed on my parents’ bubble jet color printer, graced the metal doorframe of my eighth grade locker. It got me thinking…what other studly men had this honor?

Of course, back in the DAY, there was JTT.

Joey Lawrence, maybe?

Definitely Zach Morris.

Wait…was I too old to have these dudes on my locker? Maybe these were just posters. I don’t know. This got embarrassing all of a sudden.

My late-nineties locker was probably just wallpapered with this guy, as I was obsessed:

GLY-CER-EEEENNN!

Who was on YOUR locker door? I’m curious! Post em in the comments.

It’s something we did all the time, especially throughout my adolescence. Obviously, it helped that the Red Wings were Stanley Cup champions a few times over. I also owned a Blackhawks jersey, although I can’t really tell you why. But my FAVORITE player was #88, Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers. And that’s because he was ADORBS:

MAJOR mid-nineties crush of mine.

Take it away, 12-year-old Jenny…

December 14, 1995

Dear Diary,

I LOVE ERIC LINDROS! Isn’t that cool? He is so cute! Today he’s playing. I’m surprised he doesn’t melt the ice.

Meanwhile, I’ll be glued to ESPN2! Bye!

“I’m surprised he doesn’t melt the ice”?? That’s kind of cheeky. I like it. I had a poster hanging on my door, kinda like this:

Now, y’all remember that show, The Torkelsons? You know how, at the end of every episode, the Torkelson daughter would sit on the window seat and talk to “the man on the moon”?

I kind of desperately wanted to be her. But we lived in the woods, and I didn’t always have a clear view of the moon. So, I ended up talking to my Eric Lindros poster. And with that, dear readers, I have for you, THE SADDEST ENTRY IN MY DIARY HISTORY [jk I'm sure there are sadder ones]

December 24, 1995

Merry Christmas Eve! My life sucks again. My mom is on my case for talking back to her. She doesn’t get that I’m growing up & that in the 90’s kids are different. Today, I sassed back to her and she hasn’t talked to me all day. I just hide out in my room. If she’s not gonna talk to me that’s HER problem.

Funny, I find myself looking at my Eric Lindros poster and kind of telling it my problems. It helps me, and it gets my feelings out so I fell relieved and free of these pressuring tensions.  Plus he’s a really cute “listener”! Eric listens great too, and he doesn’t talk back, doesn’t make any faces, and I can talk to him whenever I’m in my room. Plus he only cost what — $4? It’s worth more than that 2 me.

Don’t think I didn’t Google “Eric Lindros married” just now, either. The Internet gave me NOTHING, so there might be a chance for me yet. (Eric, caaaallll meeeee.)

Speaking of weird expressions of my desperation, “Seducing Apolo Ohno” has been updated.

….Do I have any readers left?

EDIT: For your convenience, I will be compiling my twirts* into a separate section called “Seducing Apolo Ohno” which you will find over yonder —>

* Twitter + flirt! Twirt! I totally made that up. *quick Google search*…Dammit.

Yeeaaaah you want it

Guess I’ve always had a thing for boys on skates…

See: an excerpt from my diary during 1992 Winter Olympics.

Jenny, age 8, on figure skating:

Feb. 16, 1992

Dear Diary,

Today I got in to the figure skating mood. These are the people I like. Christopher Boulmen  (I don’t know how to speel it) is a babe. But he knows he’s a babe, that’s the truble. See he knows it and he makes himself smile to make the crowd cheer. But then he doesn’t do a good job. So I watched him yesterday, he didn’t even win a meadal! But I have to admit, I’m in love with him.

Okay so the favorite skaters…Scott Halitton (But he’s not a babe), Paul Wylie (from U.S.A.), Viktor Petrenko (Russia), Petr Barbo (Czechoslovakia). Now to the one girl I like: Kristi Yamaguchi.

A few things.

1) My comment about Christopher Bowman was DEFINITELY regurgitated from my mother, who no doubt clicked her tongue at his cheesy showmanship. I think it was her way of saying, “Don’t be so flashy that it impacts your performance. That’s not a good quality, Jenny.”

“Jesus. Let the man be showy!” I thought just now, rebelling against something my mother said EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO. “What’s ol’ Chris Bowman up to now?” Apparently he died in LA of a drug overdose. Sooooo that happened.

2) Sorry for the diss, Scott Hamilton.

Stay tuned for Part II , which includes a simultaneously sad and adorable hockey crush.

PART A: “Renversé, turning”

PART B. “Fall.”

Rehearsing this was my mom’s worse nightmare, because every run-through ended with “..make me, wanna scream….  …music..music..music……. BANG!” I had to practice it over and over, so I could conquer the art of contorting my body mid-air into a position where I could land flat on my back. Ten years of dance to correct a lack of motor skills, and there I was, falling. With a purpose. Because it looked cool.

Bess and I were talking about how MJ’s death has hit some of us harder than others, and she made the observation that her friends that were dancers seem to be the most moved by it. I’m noticing that, too. We all aimed to have one ounce of the effortlessness, the Cool that he had.

I found this video that had the remix, along with some nicely edited clips that illustrate my point.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4eUTp0WYzE

Finally, I cannot talk about Michael Jackson without incorporating my most recent memories --  dancing to P.Y.T at pretty much every opportunity this year. My friends and I have stuffed jukeboxes, requested it from DJs, even demanded it at piano bars.  It was an homage to the past while celebrating new beginnings.

Obviously, my sadness at Michael Jackson’s death goes deeper than the artist himself.  It’s a realization that I am not that young anymore, that those carefree days are gone, and that life gets more complicated than I ever anticipated. I’m almost embarrassed to be making such grandiose, retarded statements at the age of twenty-five and as the result of a dead pop star, but I don’t know how else to feel, what else to say.

He was brilliant.  I’ll probably never see another artist like him in my lifetime. Rest in Peace.

The Michael Jackson karaoke cd had a couple songs I didn’t recognize, deeper cuts off the Thriller album. You know people have been coming out with these poetic stories about how they first heard Thriller, how they bought it the day it came out, how it blew their minds? I bought Thriller because I wanted to know how the songs went, so I could sing them on karaoke. This doesn’t exactly score me any cool points. To be fair, that album came out before I was born, and I should give myself credit for paying heed to a musical masterpiece while my classmates were touting the greatness of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

Then, of course, Dangerous came out, which many people forget about, but WHICH WAS AWESOME. Pretty sure me and Emily Friar warped both copies of our cassettes on that one.  How many times did we play this song from Free Willy, Em? My estimate: Eleventy Billion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvYygjcMDdQ

Every Day of 1992:

Dad: Will you please pick another song to sing?

Me: What?

Dad: I’ve had enough of that song for today.

Me: What song?

Dad: The one about the River Jordan!!!

To Part IV

I had one year of dance classes under my belt and had just discovered my sense of rhythm.  After a few years of walking into walls and a few scary tumbles off the school bus, my mother sought the advice of my pediatrician.  “There’s something wrong with my daughter,” she had said.  My doctor suggested a way to actively develop some motor skills. “Put her in gymnastics,” he recommended.  “Dear God, no. She’ll kill herself,” my mother retorted.  “Maybe something creative? She sings, all the time. ALL THE TIME.”  It was true.  “Dance, then?” the doctor suggested.  And so it began.

I shuffle-ballchanged into the world of dance, hoping that someday I’d be as good as my teachers, who performed a routine to “Smooth Criminal” at that year’s recital. I think that’s why my parents ended up buying me Bad that summer. Plus, CDs were still considered new, so it was probably slim pickins at the ol’  Sound of Music. Plus, my older cousins liked it, so it was probably what they thought was “hip.”  Plus, my love of the Beatles at that time was probably bordering on obsessive, so they were likely seeking relief from hearing the  “Help!” album on loop, seven times a day.

Still, I’m sure my parents were thinking more “Ben” MJ than “Bad” MJ.  That was the day of lyrics printed in liner notes, and I poured over them. They scoffed at the line “Your butt is mine” and they didn’t really approve of that “Dirty Diana” song (which of course then became one of my favorites). They could have done without all of the crotch-grabbing, the pelvic-thrusting.  Too young to watch MTV,  I somehow snuck a glimpse at the Smooth Criminal dance sequence. It was like discovering for the very first time was “cool” was.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-WVpQ0ZG8Q

The decision was made. That. I wanna do THAT.

So I started choreographing in my living room, whereby “choreographing” I mean jumping around and singing and maybe leaping from time to time. I didn’t have a fedora, but by god, I had a cowboy hat. And that winter, my mother thought she was losing her mind, constantly having to search for the companion to one of her white sparkly isotoner gloves.

To Part III