Category Archives: smells like quarter-life-crisis

Aug 10 2 comments
smells like quarter-life-crisis, television

Punky Power Existentialism

Every time someone announces her engagement or pregnancy, I have a two-second existential crisis.

Second One: DEAR GOD, WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

Second Two: What is wrong with ME?

Yep, I congratulate you, and then I immediately make it about me. Don’t worry, though — you ought to know that 1) I have a phenomenal therapist, and 2) this is an equal-opportunity neurosis, which also applies to people I don’t know personally. Like Punky Brewster.

I had just read an article over at Hello Giggles about Soleil Moon Frye’s new parenting book. You’ll notice that this was posted at 3:39 am. A time of night not commonly associated with clear, uplifting thoughts. Somehow I let Punky Brewster bum me out and make me feel old.

But that’s the OPPOSITE of what she was. Ladies of the 80s, you know what I’m talking about. Punky Brewster was the ISH.

(Fact: The guy who wrote the Punky Brewster theme song also wrote the themes to Cheers AND Mr. Belvedere! Where were we before Wikipedia? I don’t even want to THINK of a world where I went around unaware of TV show theme composer catalogs! I digress!)

We were all obsessed with orphans in the 80s/90s - Punky Brewster, Annie, Boxcar Children. I even had Punky Brewster sneakers (bright converse high tops, one pink, one purple). And all of us were traumatized by that “Hide and Seek” episode where Cherie hides in an old refrigerator and Punky has to bring her back to life with the CPR skills that she thankfully learned, like, THAT DAY.

OH NOES!

OH NOES!

(I even referenced this the other day, then Bogey became fascinated with trying to climb into the fridge: “Bogey!” I cried. “Don’t do that! What if I shut you in there and you’d be like Cherie when she almost died?!” / Bess: “..the fuck you talking about?”)

But, aside from all this, when it’s 3:39 in the morning, and this person who symbolizes the simplicity of your youth shows up in your Google Reader, and she has like, seven kids already and seems to be doing something really meaningful with her life, and you’ve spent your night eating a Lean Cuisine and blogging about Harry Belafonte, and where is your book deal, already, is it because you write in constant run-on stream-of-consciousness? — that’s just a lot for a girl to handle.

Then I realized that I’ve been lacking a key ingredient that Soleil Moon Frye has been rocking this whole time: Punky Power.

“It’s believing in myself, it’s never giving up, it’s faith that things are going to turn out okay. But most of all it’s knowing I can do anything I want, if I really try.”

Also, PUNKY DON’T NEED NO MAN:

I CAN CARRY MY OWN BOOKS.

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Aug 01 3 comments
blogging, smells like quarter-life-crisis

NaBloPoMo. August.

I’m sitting here, trying to think of a way to kick off NaBloPoMo August. That’s National Blog Posting Month, for those of you who weren’t around a year ago, when I did NaBloPoMo July — also known as “The Only Thing I Thing I’ve Properly Seen Through, Start-to-Finish, in My Adult Life. Except Maybe the Master Cleanse.” I’m not good at titling things.

The low-hanging fruit excuse for my recent blog hiatuses would be a quarter-life crisis, but I seem to be living in that space more often than not, so maybe this is just how I live my life now? Maybe what I think is a quarter-life crisis is really just me, not settling for the life I have, and kind of flitting about, Woody Allen style, until I find something I love and settle into it?  Commas and Question Marks, by Jenny Kriscunas.

Besides, I’ll be turning 28 this month, so it appears we’re crawling out of quarter-life, and into a third-life crisis. (Did you think I was a genius for coming up with that term?  I did, before googling it and finding 38203423 results. Way to kick me when I’m down, Internet.)

I know I’m not alone in this. I know there are a lot of us, wringing our hands and emptying our wine racks over it. But, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing we all must remember: No matter how bad things get, your life is not as bad as Jessica Simpson in this duet with Jewel circa 2004.

That’s all there is to it.

I think this video can serve as a lesson to all of us. Be more like Jewel. When life comes at you loud, breathy, and trouty-mouthed, just be cool, and easy, and smug as a motherfucker.

RECAP:

Thanks, Jewel.

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Aug 09 0 comments
blogging, smells like quarter-life-crisis

Nothing to Offer But My Own Confusion

Oh hai! You thought maybe NaBloPoMo wore the ol’ girl out, eh?

I took a nice little break there, but truth be told? I was thinking of you the whole time.

SO HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING:

We’re moving out of The Cockpit.

I know. Only a year in this hotbed of debauchery! We had fun, though, didn’t we? …We had fun.

The Short of It: My beautiful roommate is now unemployed and will either be a) moving back to Evansville at month’s end or b) scoring another job, not in Indianapolis. Before all of this went down, we had been talking about moving, packing up for greener pastures… Yes, “We,” as in, totally co-dependent. Or, “We,” as in, sisterly! Or, “We,” as in, not helping those lesbian rumors.

This just… sort of…expedited things.

If you’re playing The TYK Home Game, this is normally the part where my brain goes, “HOLY SHITBALLS &$%*#&@ ABORT ABORTTTTT.” Because, if we’re moving out? That means I’m temporarily moving into my dad’s apartment on the Northside, and while I ADORE my pops (read: Best Guy Ever — Setting an Impossible Standard for Dudes since 1983!), and he’s only there four days a week, and I’d get really, really good at Beatles Rock Band — it’s just not ideal. (WHAT’S UP, RUN-ON?! WHERE’S MY BOOK DEAL, AGAIN?)

I’m not set on signing another lease because, well, I think it’s time to say goodbye, Indy. I just don’t know exactly how or when yet. There might be an opportunity here to start from scratch in a new city.

A girl does a lot of soul-searching at a time like this. <– Gross.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: This is the Time for Thinking Big. See, ever since college graduation, I’ve ebbed and flowed between these pockets of intoxicating courage and crippling self-doubt. (Exhibit A: This Entire Blog.)  I guess I’m speaking specifically to my abilities as a writer/artist/creative-type/whatever whatever.

(POP QUIZ!! Q: How many months of therapy did it take before I could call myself a writer? A: Three.)

I’m not alone in this, right? This: Months of  “I-was-born-to-do-this!” bravado followed by months of, “Billy-Joel-wrote-Piano-Man-at-24-and-I-blog-about-Conversations-I-Have-in-Line-at-Taco-Bell.”

But I’ve bounced between the two so many times that I’ve arrived at this new place, a place where my inner monologue has turned into some twisted pep-talk, like,

“Jenny, if you don’t find a way to use your words, you’re going to die a slow, agonizing death. Is that what you want? No? Then figure it out already.

You have this voice, and it might not be the best voice,  but someone out there wants it. Surely there must be a use for material on getting shunned at the Indiana primaries or that kid that made you the flower pot.

And if you don’t figure it out, you’re an asshole.

Yours Truly (LITERALLY!),

You.

PS: Remember: Even if you fail miserably, you have a network of adoring friends and family. And a fantastic rack.”

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Jul 21 1 comments
Dialogue, smells like quarter-life-crisis, television

TODAY IS! WHERE YOUR BOOK BEGINS! THE REST IS STILL…

There’s a reason There’s Your Karma has a tag for “quarter-life crisis.” While I’ve been cringing at that term nowadays, there’s no better moniker for these little pockets of restlessness that seem to pop up on an all-too-frequent basis. The pattern is always the same: I’ll settle into something in my life, follow my tail in a circle three times before sinking into that bed of stability, thinking that it’s going to tide me over until my “real life” begins.

It never does.

I get anxious to start the next chapter, to push the re-do button until I stumble upon a Life that makes sense to me.  Luckily, I’m not alone in this one. My beautiful BFF Katie and I have spent endless hours on the Cockpit Couch, imagining a total overhaul of our lives. We don’t know where it will take us — or if we’ll take on the adventure together or apart. We just know things need to change. And when we get tired of talking about it?

We watch The Hills.


…like for 6 hours, on a Sunday. Both of us were fair-weather Hills fans, only tuning in for a couple episodes here and there. But a few Sundays ago, we needed complete, mindless escapism. Enter MTV. We got so into it that we planned our entire Tuesday night around the series finale, complete with a bottle of wine (PER PERSON). We laughed about it, mocked ourselves…until three glasses in, and Kristin says something like “I need a change, y’know?” and we slurred, “Oh my gaaaaah, this is SO US. SO. US.”

Hence, this G-Chat conversation:

Jenn: We need a theme song.

Katie: Something like…’feel the rain on your skin.’

Jenn: Oh yeah. DUH.  We already have one.

Katie: Hahaha.

Jenn: Shit…and then when we’re feeling super emotional, we have to find that unplugged version.

Katie: Oh man, the unplugged version! Omg I’m listening to it right now…why does it somehow make me feel better? This is sick.

Jenn: I don’t know. This is totally one of those things where we like it ironically until we start to like it unironically.

Katie: Okay, I’ve hit a wall. That must mean lunch time.

Jenn: GO GIT IT! Your lunch is still uneaten.

Katie: Wow.

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Jul 12 2 comments
music, smells like quarter-life-crisis

Music is my Woobie.

I don’t remember having a “woobie” as a kid.

[I frequenty lugged around a favorite stuffed animal, a Pound Puppy half my size that looked kinda like this, named Fred. But I didn't NEED Fred to, like, function. We gave each other space. He was a good pal, though, and is still kenneled somewhere in the recesses of my childhood closet.]

I find it funny, though, the pacifiers we take on as adults: Cigarettes. Alcohol. Sex. Food. Marathons of The Hills. You know, those instant gratifiers, guaranteed to quickly soothe our daily agitations. Today, for example. Today was one of those days where maybe nothing monumentally bad happens, but three or four people unknowingly chip away at the very core of your sanity.

Chip, chip, chip.

And maybe the words they said, when you say them again out loud? Aren’t even particularly critical. But maybe by afternoon you’re already fragile and teetering on the edge of self-loathing, so any phrase that isn’t wrapped in praise and rainbows sounds like an insult to your competence.

Chip, chip, chip.

I think it was around 4:22pm when I threw up my hands in surrender, cried “You win, Monday!” and bitterly sulked to my car. I instinctively turned to the old standbys - a cigarette on the drive home (just one, mom), anticipation of a few drinks later on (just a couple, dad), but more than anything I wanted the infallible balm to my weary soul: Track two of “Plastic Ono Band” on vinyl, and the hardwood floors of my apartment.

I’ve mentioned this before. But now, I think I can confirm: this is my woobie. This is my Pavlovian response to anxiety, to that-which-I-cannot-control: listening to “Hold On” on repeat and just lying perfectly still. Like today? I busted through the door, dropped my keys wherever they fell, kicked off my shoes, and dove headfirst into our box of records. My heart was palpitating; my fingers couldn’t find it fast enough.

We have a shag rug in the listening room, now, and I actually PULL IT BACK so I can lie DIRECTLY ON THE FLOORBOARDS. I don’t know why this is important, but it just IS. Those poplar panels have been there since 1865, and I often think about the faces that have been pressed against them, cool wood and hot tears.

The song is short, of course, and sometimes requires a readjustment of the needle several times over.

But I’ll be damned if I don’t stand up a new woman, every time.

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Jul 06 2 comments
smells like quarter-life-crisis

Rubbing Elbows with the Moon

Hello, my name is Jenn.

And I’m an insomniac.

It’s not that bad; I know people have it much worse. [In fact, I’VE had it much worse, than this.]

But that’s not what I’m thinking about when I’m snarling at those numbers on the alarm clock and they’re glaring back at me, smug and defiant (especially the 3’s. And the 4’s).

I experience two kinds of insomnia. The Nighthawk kind, and the The Neurotic kind.

The Nighthawk kind isn’t so much “insomnia” as it is

A) Surrendering to the fact that I function better between 12 and 3 am than their pm counterparts, and

B) An intense curiosity for what goes on while I should be sleeping/the fear of missing said goings-on.

“You were always like that,” my dad said last night. He told a story of singing me to sleep as a baby (“If you want to call it singing,” my mom interjected. “It was more like a series of la-la-la’s with no apparent melody.” This jab likely stems from the fact that my mother is pretty much tone deaf, while my father actually has great pitch. Seriously, people have told him this in Church.  I digress.) Baby-Jenn could be rocked and lulled into a half-slumber, but the second it stopped? Hi! What’s happenin’?! I was up, alert, not wanting to miss a damn second. During middle-school sleepovers, I was always the last to go to bed, the first to arise.

By my early twenties, I had gained some sort of kinship with the wee small hours of the morning. I could concentrate better. My thoughts flowed more easily. Ideas came more fluidly. In the latter years of college, I scheduled my classes so that my morning was everyone else’s afternoon. And let’s not forget the two years of working overnights at the radio station. Listeners would call in and we’d chat, sharing that unspoken sense of superiority to the sleeping world.

But the nights that spanned years twenty-two through twenty-six brought a lot of changes: jobs and relationships and dreams, and the pursuit of them and the failing at them and the wondering why I was failing at them. Knowing I’m inevitably going to fail again and trying to figure out ways to fail better – that’s what still keeps me up at night. Enter the Neurotic kind of insomnia. On particularly confusing nights, my body is flooded with the reactions to events that haven’t happened yet. Events that might never happen.

If you don’t know what that’s like, let me demonstrate with a very scientific and masterfully crafted diagram:

It’s just…my mind. I can’t quiet it down. And my stomach is like, “I CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL AND FAKE! BLUGHEHRHEHE NAUSEA.” By 3am, it’s too late to take anything for sleep, when my only refuges are my books and the exercise my shrink taught me to “bring me into the present.” [In this moment I feel my body against the sheets I feel the cotton against my skin I feel the weight of my head on the pillow I hear the train whistle in the distance I am breathing and healthy and alive and alive and alive right here right now in this moment].

Oddly enough, the past couple weeks? Some weird hybrid of the two has formed. It’s a restlessness that seems to say, “You’re sort of quietly freaking out here, but it’s because you’re capable of doing something awesome. You just don’t know what it is.” Like instead of that jumbled nest in my stomach, I am pregnant with all these unformed ideas just waiting to be hatched. (THAT IS A DISGUSTING METAPHOR THAT DOESN’T EXACTLY MAKE SENSE. GO WITH IT.) I have no idea what it’s about right now. But I hope it’s good, you know? I hope it’s The Greatest Story Yet to Be Told, and not… Chronic Indigestion.

I know this phase will pass; I’ll get back to my regularly-scheduled snoozes. Down the line, I hope to have the type of career that allows me regular, voluntary dates with 3:30am again. Some day, my eyes will close with the satisfaction of being exactly where I need to be.

But until then, they’ll spend a few more nights boring a hole into this skyline.

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