[This is, no doubt, a direct reflection of things my parents have many a time said to me. "Jesus, Jenny!" is a common phrase of my father's, after I've fucked something up (which is often). My mother often referred to me as "Sarah Bernhardt" (an early film actress) when I was being especially dramatic (which is often).]

To pay homage to this, I’m going to kick off this entry the same way I started a journal entry nearly a decade ago:

August 1, 2000

I’ve come to the decision that I’ll be mostly confused all my life.

FACT, Sixteen-Year-Old Jenn. YOU WERE SO RIGHT.

I do this often — go back to my old journals; I’ve kept them since I was eight. Remember how in history class, they’d tell you that in order to move into the future, you need to learn from the past? Yeah. Same premise. More than that, I love watching the handwriting change over the years, love feeling the impression of the ink on the pages.

But I digress. That isn’t what this is about. This is about me, feeling the imminence of a quarter-life crisis like people feel the coming-on of the common cold.

We’ll start here: I’m not unemployed anymore. I secured a full-time job - one that will require my creative skills, one in which I will be asked to write. Just..not like this [points to blog content]. It’s a great opportunity. Great. Opportunity. And yeeeeetttt… And yet. And yet. And yet. There’s that little gnat in my ear buzzing about how I got sidetracked from My Purpose [with capital letters].

I couldn’t stay unemployed forever. I was bringing in a few freelance projects, but not enough, to, you know, survive. It’s not that I don’t want it bad enough. It’s that I don’t think I’m good enough.  I’m not going to get anywhere unless I STOP THAT. YOU HEAR THAT, NEUROSES? STOP IT. I need to stop waiting for people to cradle me, give me constant validation. Because that’s just not how Life is.

“I’m going to have an 8-5 again,” I told Katie, somewhat discontentedly. She mentioned that utilizing our weekends now will be ever more important. Like regular people. That’s so sad, though, I thought. Is that all there is?

A few days later I was in a Macy’s with my mom, who was in town for the Easter holiday.  After mentioning that I had no work clothes (dress code at Prior Job was casual as all get out), she offered to purchase a couple outfits for New Job. “You need a nice skirt and jacket,” she declared, pulling a short-sleeved blazer from the rack. It was gray. Understated. Business-like. Adult.

People, I started hyperventilating. Tears started to well up. I snatched my size and scurried to the dressing room to appease her, but I tore off the ensemble as soon as I had put it on, as if the garment was on fire.

[Sarah Bernhardt moment!]

Someone needs to slap me across the face and give me one of those “Snap out of it” moments, a la Cher in Moonstruck. My sensitivity is simultaneously my favorite and most hated feature of my Self. No one needs to be tortured like this all the time, right? Jesus, Jenny. Just be happy.

“No, we broke up, like..a year ago,” I replied. “Yeah. It’s been quite a ride since then.”

Understatement of the Year.

TOP TEN RECAP.

In eleven months and five days, I :

1) Broke up.

2) Became pretty much a hot mess for a month.

3) Contemplated running away.

4) Saw the silver lining.

5) Moved in with one of the COOLEST GIRLS ON THE PLANET.

6) Defibrillated my Photography Bug.

7) Realized that, yeah, dating? NOT WHAT IT WAS IN 2005.

8) Found myself unemployed.

9) Seduced Apolo Ohno

10) ???

10) . . .

Well, I’m not sure when “10″ should be. Something like, “found myself right where I needed to be,” but less schmaltzy-sounding.

F*ck it. I’ll be sentimental.

In the midst of a year that could have easily rendered me completely useless (and let’s be honest - some days it did), I managed to surround myself with the most amazing friends a girl could ask for. Dewy-eyed romantic that I am, it takes all that I have not to continuously blurt, “I love us,” when we are gathered together. Instead, I just sigh and take another series of photographs:

Happy New Year.

I can’t believe I’ve waited a month of unemployment before using my blog as a plea for writing gigs, but here goes: DO YOU WANT ME TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR YOU, NOT FOR FREE? I’LL DO IT.

TWO.

I ALSO TAKE PICTURES.

Look! I made these!

[The Features, Monolith Music Festival 2009. Red Rocks.]

(More from this set at my Flickr)

THREE.

Are you guys on FourSquare? That’s a Thing, right?

Be My Friend?

Also, will someone please convince me how this isn’t greatly increasing my chances of getting raped?

I did not expect it to happen in the middle of January.

I had grown…restless. After two years, I had transitioned from from being a media rockstar to having panic attacks when I would look at these spreadsheets, pregnant with data. And then I did perhaps the stupidest thing: I wore it on my sleeve. 

You know when you were in high school, and you were dating some guy, but he wanted to break up with you? And instead of just manning up and breaking up with you, he treated you like shit, so you would break up with him?

I was that guy. I was the asshole. I never knew I could be the asshole.

Still, just like in any relationship, people change. I had changed. The same things that revved me up a couple years ago made me want to impale myself of an overturned chair as of late. We had given up on each other. So when the question came: “This isn’t exactly working, is it?” the answer was an emphatic, “No.”

Then, a flash flood of emotion. Shame, guilt, sadness.  Relief, happiness, pride. So I now find myself unemployed during the worst economic crisis I will probably ever see in my lifetime. And while you, the more logical of you, are bound to click your tongues and shake your heads — those of  you who know me well will understand that this is a necessary blip in the journey to fulfilling my life’s purpose.

Today was “Day One of Being Unemployed,” or as I like to call it,”Being an Unmarried Housewife Until the Money Runs Out.” Not every day is going to be like this. But I needed today to be JUST like this.  I needed to watch Martha Stewart and Julie Andrews make fairyland terrariums. I needed to catch up on my stories (General Hospital). I needed to eat cookie cake.

Perhaps the best decision I made today was listening to the Funny Girl LP while cleaning the kitchen. If this blog teaches you nothing else, let it be this gem: When you find yourself at a crossroads, turn to Barbra Streisand. 

CASE IN POINT: FUNNY GIRL

“I’m the greatest star.”

“Who is the pip with pizazz? Who is all ginger and jazz?” (”ME! I AM!” you answer, hands thrust into dirty dishwater, sudsy rag thrown over your shoulder.)

“Someday they’ll clam-uh for my dram-uh.” 

“Ooh life is juicy, juicy and you see, I gotta have my bite, sir.” 

“First, be a person who needs people.” (’cuz they’re the luckiest. the luckiest people in the world.)

“Life is candy and the sun’s a ball of butt-uh.”

WAY TO GO, BABS. Way to hand me this musical torch, lit with gusto and moxie. 

I CAN DO ANYTHING.

Riiiight after I finish this cookie cake. 

However, it’s stuff like this that makes me proud to be in the industry:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=orukqxeWmM0

[Link to video]

[via my pal, Eric Phillipson]

ONE!

Lockerbie Pub.  My favorite bar in the entire world.  Largely because I frequently gather there with my favorite people.  Moreover, it is the quinessential, no-frills, no-bros kind of establishment. The jukebox is kickin’, the drinks are strong, and the conversation is stellar. Love love love.

TWO!

Jeff at Lockerbie Pub.  Speaking of love, I notice I go through periods where I’m kind of in love with everyone I meet? (Question mark? I’m being conversational?)  It’s almost as though I have an addictive personality, but instead of drugs, I get addicted to people, becoming annoyingly fascinated and enamored with certain individuals.

ANYWAY. Jeff is this bartender, nay, THE BEST BARTENDER, mainly because he flatters me by calling me by name and remembering that I drink jack-and-cokes. And sometimes he’ll touch my shoulder after asking me if I need anything, and I’ll look at the other girls all wide-eyed and grinning, and we will giggle like a middle school lunchtable. Every woman that I’ve taken to the Pub has this reaction, and I think it stems from TWO FACTS.  A) You want to go where everybody knows your name. (Cheers Theorem) B) Tattooed and burly, Jeff looks like he can kill someone with his hands, but you also kind of want him to use his hands on you.

I mean, he’s married, so, it’s all in good fun. AHEM. (MrsJeffpleasedon’tcomeandkillus.) Also? When you meet him, ask him about the time a certain MUSICIAN came in and ordered a “Roy Rogers” and he told him to eff off.

What else..oh -
THREE:

Work/Attempting to Look Like I Know What I’m Doing. Now that Flake ‘N Bake is over and I’ve been put on other accounts, I’ve been given quite a bit of responsibility. Which is good. But with more responsibility comes more client contact, which means I can’t wear my orange-plaid boots, and I’m always going to be the girl that wants to wear orange-plaid boots. I’m not sure how else to be.

FOUR:

“Cooking.” I’m also the girl who consistently drops things when attempting to cook. I refuse to measure, not because I’m good at eyeballing it, but because I rarely have clean measuring cups.

FIVE:

Radiohead.  DID YOU SEEEE THIS? (should take you to the video but they keep taking it down left and right but it is AMAH-ZING.)  “15 Step” is one of my favorite Radiohead tracks they’ve ever done. And the fact that they were backed by the USC marching band NAILED IT, because, as you know, I am a band geek.
This was made evident by the words that escaped my lips upon hearing “15 Step” for the first time, which were: “GODDAMN, I LOVE a song in 5/4 time.”

NERD!

But seriously. Brillz.

[If this entry was one of those children books with the sound effect buttons on the side, every time I mention "FLAKE 'n BAKE" I'd want you to hit the button that went "BOOOOO! HISSSSSSS!"  Can you imagine that for me? Good, good.]

Today, I completed the VERY LAST THING I had to do for the Flake ‘n Bake account, which was to drop off invoices for their media billing. I had this fantasy where I’d walk up to the receptionist and SLAM the manilla folder down on the desk, spit some one liner and then cooly turn and walk away.  And then maybe the logo-etched glass doors would shatter behind me.  And then maybe the building would blow up as I walked calmly back to my car.  Basically, dropping off billing + Michael Bay. That’s what I was thinking.

So I head to FnB headquarters and step into the elevator, which was being held for me by a middle aged man who was jokingly telling me to hurry up.  “Where you headed?” he asked. “Five,” I cheerily replied, happy to be doing this for the last time. “Flake ‘n Bake!”

“Flake ‘n Bake, huh? Is the receptionist right there? Right when you step in?”

“Yeah.”

As if the personal space in an elevator isn’t awkward enough, he got real close to my face, and through clenched yellowed-teeth, sneered,

“Tell her the MILKSHAKE MAN says hello.”

He departed on level three, giving me two levels to wonder what the eff happened before the doors opened to the corporate cesspool that is Flake ‘n Bake headquarters. The elevator encounter was so weird that it totally thew me off as I approached the receptionist.

She was on the phone, so that one-liner would have been completely wasted. And surely I would have been blown up with the building, waiting for that damn elevator.