Category: Journal

i’ve been kinda sad the past few days. part of it is this tsunami business. i mean i know that people die and stuff but a lot of it really just messes with me. these people died of things like drowning (obvious) or the force of being slammed into the ground by these waves. can you imagine that? yikes. it’s so shitty. and then whats worse is that now pakistan is giving aid to india. which is good, y’know, we should aid our neighbors. but i hate it that it takes a tsunami to make nations get past their differences. and some of the countries are now allowing NGOs in which they hadn’t done before. so that’s good. and maybe something grand will come of it but it worries me a lot. there is a poem on my opendiary and the poetry section of my blog entitled “the ocean falling like bombs” that’s about this peace at time of tragedy. it’s eery.

christmas went incredibly well. i only asked for three things really and i got all of them. ie. a 320+ cd case. and i have it filled. i do have dvds and software/backup-files in the back of it but still. there are 320 disks in that folder. its crazy to think that i have that many. i need to sit down and put them in alphabetical order so that i can find them easier than now but its nice to have them all collected and protected. i also got milk thistle face moisturizer from bath and body works and a true blue spa pedicure set too. plus money for suits.

i got a bunch of clothes and things that were nice and i kept a hoodie and one of those shawl-esque contraptions all the cool kids are wearing. also, mom got me leather shoes which i thought was really funny. what pissed me off about the shoes most was that i think they’re really damn cute and i can’t keep them (i already returned them) because they’re leather. and that sucks. but i know that they have nonleather pairs at kohls for not too much more. so perhaps i’ll replace them.

i spent 70 dollars on two bras from victoria’s secret with the return money (some of it). like whoa. when i’m not wearing them that seems like a lot of money but then i put one on and i remember why $36 doesn’t seem like such an exorbant amount of money for one undergarment. agh. but really. i’ve never had such a comfortable experience in something that includes an underwire. rock on victoria’s secret.

on monday i lost my cellular telephone. file this under devastating in the jess’ life category. god damn. it sucks. and then i get pissed that i rely so heavily on the cellphone. i think mostly though i’m just sad that i lost the entire contact list. yesterday i was really upset because i’d lost all of the contacts and it looked like it was going to cost about 200+ dollars to get a replacement phone. now, however, it appears that the cost will be about 140 for a camera phone. rock on, my friends. this is good news. and i remembered that cingular keeps track of every number i call ever which is even better news because now i can find people like andy and daniel and pat on past bills. so hooray. and i’m not nearly as upset as i was and its kinda turned into a good thing. i don’t think i’d be upset about not having it if i were in college its just that i have to check in so much with mom or she gets upset and i hate having to think about when i’m going to be home because i know that she can’t get ahold of me if she needs something or if she wakes up and freaks out because its 2 am and i am not here.

as an aside. i am more than ready to move back into the dorms.

there is a book by douglas coupland entitled all families are psychotic i hold that statement to be true. but i think the same could be said of relationships. maybe just anywhere that love is involved. i was thinking about this today. and then i flaked out on steve. but not really in the kind of way that might make him really angry that i flaked out on him. let me explain.

alright. so we’re pretty much surrounded by relationships that are insane. from the people who cannot be together despite super-strong feelings. to the people that duel each other and themselves for who is more attached to whom and who is more committed. to the people that ship each other around the country. to the people that live in this mushy world where everything is the other person. and everyone and their respective relationships. (you know who you are) there are just all of these elements of them that make them completely outrageous and unbelievable. but i think there is something incredibly beautiful about all of it. and that maybe that’s just what love is. its this incredible nonsense that’s absolutely beautiful.

i was talking to my mom the other day and i think that she’s a little bummed that she doesn’t get to date and have that all out romance that she feels some of her newly-divorced friends get to be a part of. but i think that what he has with dad is really beautiful. even though maybe they’re not in that same mushy-gushy-romantic love (as i put it earlier). they love each other so much. and i just don’t know if there is a man on the planet that is better for my mom than my dad. and vice versa. there’s just so much to deal with and do and i think that my mom and dad really care about and understand each other so well and maybe that’s why they stay together even though they don’t necessarily have the same intensity of emotion that they used to feel. christ. it’s been 35 years since they first started dating basically. i think its perfectly okay that they just love each other the way that they did when they were 14. or 21.

these are my opinions on love at age eighteen. despite expected interpretation that they are otherwise, i truly believe them to be positive, perhaps even optimistic.

i’ve been going through my old life. that is, my old opendiary. this journal is now four years old to the date. and i’ve gotten farther into it than i’ve ever been able to before. i mean there are reasons for this.. first i’m doing it differently than i have in the past. the goal is to get it all formatted in such a way that i can upload it easily into movable type and then develop one comprehensive printable file that perhaps i could publish using cafepress or some other relatively easy-to-use program.

the process entails using the stickies program i have for my computer (I love it!) and having three stickies each with a section of the code necessary. they’re divided into the code before the title… the code between the title and the date.. and the code between the date and the body. it doesn’t really take as long this way as it used to when i tried to do it by copy and pasting different sections of the code at a time. mostly cos i can just ctrl+a and then ctrl+c and it doesn’t take the same ammount of selective highlighting as having all of the template code in one file would.

so i’ve finished february of 2001 through october of 2001. and the only thing i’ve determined is that i really didn’t like me before i dated brian. or i really don’t like me before i dated brian. cos i think the girl at the time was pretty self-loathing until sometime during or well after brian. it’s hard to tell. i know i didn’t really love me until like october of this year. but we’ll see how the journal develops. its kinda crazy. because there are a lot of parts where i just want to be like “yo, jess.. settle down it will get so much better you have no idea.” or “jess, dollface, don’t date him… he’s a douche and you’ll wonder what you were thinking for years…” and the number of times i’ve laughed out loud are pretty astronomical as well. it’s funny, really. mostly its been about the time molly was stalking me cos i’d kind of forgotten about the time she was posting anonymous notes. i talked to madeline about this realization of how crazy the two of us were and she said that she likes to think we’ve both grown up a lot. and i do too. my god. i was a psychotic young highschooler. intense.

i apparently have a sinus infection with a touch of bronchitis. however, this girl feels that there is no infection in her sinuses. instead it is perhaps just a cold or something. i don’t know. they’re putting me on zithromax which is insanely hardcore and not really what i think i need. the only time i’ve been on that was soon after i was in the hospital as a twelve-year-old. egh-ghad-gah.

i donated 6.8×1011 platelets today. it took the entire running length of Finding Nemo to finish. i like it that they have a personal dvd-tv there so i can watch dvds when i donate platelets. it makes it go at least kind of faster. until i realize “i’m already at the EAC part of this movie and i’m still hooked up to this machine that’s sucking out my blood! augh!!” but it feels good to donate. although i will not be allowed to after i’ve been in africa. blah. fuck the aids virus. except don’t. because as my mom will point out: aids is a terrible terrible thing.

[song]Aids!   Aids! Aids! Aids!  Aids! Aids! Aids [/song]

enough horseplay. post-donation, steve and i went out for thai food and then i took a nap with him at his house which was really fun. he’s great to sleep near. and i don’t even wake up bitchy. like whoa. the thai food was really good too. although we were saddened by the lack of emily/james or caitlin/matt. woosh.

last night stephanie and steve and i were really bored at stephanies house after we watched the adventures of sebastian cole so we sat around and talked some then went to sarah’s house which was a lot of fun. they drank some and i just had my lemonade and coke. we fully mapped out the web as well. although the more i think about it the more that i think i can add to it a lot. we also made these pompom pets (sarah and i did, at least) and my robin was so retarded. it looked like a robin-post-car-wreck. eegh. so sarah took pictures of the bird and me and then one of steve. hopefully this means i will have photos of them soon. yay.

last night was so crazy. i realized so much about people, relationships, and myself. i like how you never expect that to happen. its just like all of a sudden: boom! here you are at yr most hungry and yr most full and yr just trying to figure out everything.

james and i were in the hot tub after everyone got out and talking about our opinions of relationships and “those special someones.” we basically share the opinion that we’re young and that means that we have all of this time to figure out what we want in another person and figure out how to spot those qualities in people we’re just getting to know. which is exactly correct. i want to know as much as i can about me so that when i do decided to commit permanently to another individual i know that he or she is exactly complementing to me. and so that i’m not so codependent. because, let’s face it, i’m extremely codependent. unfortunately, this conversation-situation was cut short and probably misunderstood. i don’t know. sometimes my observations of other relationships make me realize about other people and relationships in general. its like when i try to talk about madeline and i and what went wrong all i do is realize how incredibly fucking crazy i am and how worthless most of what we fought about was. a lot of it was just me being jealous or me being scared. and so much of it is me being insecure. all the time. i realized that a lot last night too. because after the conversation was interrupted i was sitting in the hot tub until i worked up the nerve to face the cold and get out. so i got out and changed and went into the livingroom. but mostly i just wanted to talk to someone about how i was feeling. because it really sucked that the conversation got cut short. i was growing so much. dammit. and listening to the warbled echoes of someone elses conversation made me wish i could talk to madeline. but 3:30 am isn’t exactly an appropriate time to call. so then what happens? the phone rings. so i look at it and it says “Janelle” and i’m like “what the fuuuuuuck? how crazy is this night?” so i answer it and it’s not janelle but madeline and she was at ryan’s and wanted to meet me. but i couldn’t meet her so we just talked on the phone and then i drove home and we talked about us and everything and why its bad right now and my increased emotional openness due to the events of earlier that night made me really really open about everything and i just told her everything. i hope she understands a little more now. but mostly i think the only thing to understand is that i’m insecure and i can’t lose her so much that the only thing she is to me is gone. so that’s why i guess we do this limbo. and we say such mean things to each other. and i never give a valid reason.

and then there’s steve. who i like a whole lot and with whom i really am happy. i don’t know. i think i need to grow up and find out what else love can be. and that’s why madeline and i arent’ together. (disclaimer added after paragraph was written: i don’t think i aptly describe my feelings in this paragraph as to why madeline and i aren’t together but i’m leaving it.. because sometimes the best i can do is all i ahve). because i’m too young to be in something that would keep me from exploring myself the next few years. and i’m just so afraid i’ll hurt her.

gah. i guess this is growing up? ps. hooray for the thrills.

i realized sometime yesterday that perhaps my sobriety kick is probably part of a minor manic episode. because i know last weekend i was really sad about michelle’s death (one year anniversary) so most of the time i was just in this complete state of social anxiety and everytime i was around people i felt really weepy and inadequate. then sometime around tuesday i was driving and everything was all golden because the sun was setting (by now you should know this puts me in the best mood) and everything felt so great like just so amazingly great that i just wanted to go on this adventure and drive wherever i could drive too. kinda like that time i wrecked my car while trying to drive to california (its a longer story than that, i promise). so anyway. i’ve just been in this really great mood. further: everything seems really unimportant. like everything seems to be just how it needs to be and i’m a lot less likely right now to freak out about anything. and usually my “everything is gonna be alright” attitude comes with these states of mind. i also really feel like i don’t need any sort of mood enhancers which is nice. and i’m never sure how long it will last nor do i find it necessary to make any promises but you know, while it’s here i’m going to enjoy it.

i decided not to use my livejournal. because i don’t like livejournal nearly as much as i like opendiary. so i am now crossposting poetry/prose on opendiary and blogs on xanga and myspace. i’m not sure if i’ll actually go to all of the work to make my opendiary crosspost comment on the blog. probably not. because i hate to display comments with my poems on my poetry page.

also, my dog has a myspace now. because sammie rocks.

i went to see jimmy eat world yesterday. it turned out to be an awesome concert. the bands before were alright. the new amsterdams were great, as was expected, and the donnas were damn hot. the two bands between them: elefant and g-love and the special sauce were good too. elefant’s frontman was on drugs like whoa. although i can’t quite figure out what. it had to be a stimulant of some sort. they seemed very david bowie inspired. almost in a way that is less than good. the music was alright though and the stage presence was amazing. g-love was just a lot of fun. even though joe didn’t really like him he made the stoner in me all kinds of excited. if the concert would’ve been outdoors in the spring/early summer i think it would’ve rocked my face off. for JEW i decided to stay in the crowd and try to push forward when the music started. so i worked pit mechanics and used their momentum to get me about 4 feet or less from the barriers. i was so close i could see jimmy’s legs when the crowd split a little. it was amazing. probably the best concert experience i’ve ever had. less perhaps moneen this summer. but that good show was their fault. not mine/the rest of the audiences. i think i need to start moshing more. it helps my mood. and now that i’m not quite as afraid of getting kicked around. mosh pits are feminism.

i’m not really doing anything else with my life. i got home a 2am the other day to a nice AIDS lecture from mom. about how her parents only had to worry about pregnancy but now there are things like AIDS and she just worries so much and… they’re interesting lectures. this one also covered the importance of watching for deer while driving, how easy it is to get shot at a concert (more later), and AIDS.

Mom and Jess on how easy it is to get shot at a concert
Mom: Be careful. I don’t want you to get shot.
Jess: What are you talking about?
Mom: well the other day at that concert…
Jess: mom, that was pantera.
Mom: so? it just shows it can happen.
Jess: Mom. Pantera.
Mom: ::silence::
Jess: His name was dime bag for chrissakes.
Mom: Well what is this guys name?
Jess: Jimmy.
Mom: I’m just saying be careful.
Jess: ::eyerolling::

living at home is going pretty well. so far i’ve read some chomsky and i’ve slept a lot and i started reading lost in translation by nichole mones which is the book the movie is “based on.” which is really untrue because the book and movie are not even close to related. and it really makes me mad. sophia coppola does this often. at least the virgin suicides she only kind of destroyed one theme. this movie all she did was keep the name of the book and the name of the main girl. the movie was about a girl who went to japan with her photographer boyfriend and fell in love with a washed-up american actor and the book is about an american girl who lives in china to escape the legacy of her racist father and works as a translator and is hired by this american archaeologist searching for homo erectus, aka peking man, aka the missing link and falls in love with a chinese archaeologist along for surveillance. oh whoa. not even close. most of hollywood is pretty bad about butchering books when converting them to movies but my god could they be any different? why doesn’t she just write her own screen play. all she’d have to do is pick a different title maybe “this movie made jess want to kill herself but she still thinks it’s great” and a different name for scarlett johannsen’s character. i swear. she cut out the best themes and symbols. egh.

i saw oceans twelve with kyle today. i enjoyed it. especially for a sequel it was spectacular.

i’m exhausted. i have a headache. i’m at work. i have to deal with party politics tomorrow.

currently seeking: one date (counter-romantic.. unless the volunteeree is steve) to see how the buzz stole christmas feat. jimmy eat world, the donnas, g-love and special sauce, elephant, and the new amsterdams now that tickets are only 19.95. please comment for details or seek me out on aim, yo. smash static.

[addendum] today my mom told me that i should’ve been born 30 years earlier because i’m tottally a hippie. 🙂 this made me the happiest camper on this side of the appalachians. it was marvelous. i just got all happy. and then i was like “i don’t know.. i guess i do have some libertarian leanings..”

also, today i went to lola’s for lack of better alternatives and because i was hoping to see morgan there. which turned out to be a fulfilled session of hoping because she was working. and then she gave me shit about my boyfriend. but that’s okay. cos i’m happy with him. and i haven’t been precisely happy with a boy since i dated brian… and that was a long time ago. usually the word to describe how i feel is more “in control” especially like with the ones since madeline its been more about me not getting hurt than actually allowing myself to grow and feel in a relationship. this is all good. although i admit i’m at the stage now where i’m ready to push him away so i don’t get hurt. but i can’t do that. because i really like him. and i just.. gah. i’ve had a crush on him for too many years to just forfeit it all because i don’t want my heartbroken.

oh gosh! i also got some poetry selected to be in the Washburn Poetry Review (Inscape) for the spring 05 edition. hooray for me. it was the poem “Death Rattle (&Bang!)” which is about my uncle’s suicide. you can find it on my livejournal and hopefully in the poetry section of my blog later this evening. i’m really excited about it. i was all dancy when i got the letter. if dancy is something one can be.

i took a nap this afternoon and dreamt that i needed to go to the statehouse to see this photographer and when i was there i couln’t find his office so i went on this tour because whenever i tried to ask staff where the office was they just said “take the tour..” so i took the tour and we were in some room looking at something and then we heard gunshots so this guy and i left to see what it was and there was this gunman who i had seen earlier and made eye contact with and he left me unsettled and the guy that went out with me picked up this beagle puppy and the guy with the gun shot through the beagle and it was lodged in the guys shoulder and he was knocked onto the ground. so i freaked out and went and looked for other people and then i went back to help him and he was just bleeding so much. so i looked at the gunman who wasn’t paying attention to us right then and i just put my hand over the wound instinctually to stop the bleeding. and when he starts to fade i keep saying “i love you, i love you, i love you” and then he just gets better and everything is okay. it was extremely strange. i think its about how i don’t look at making sure people can eat as a handout. i think its just the thing to do. and we had a talk about that. and i cried the other night because this lady was mean to her dog. and i needed to go to city hall today to pay a speeding ticket.[/addendum]