Selections From the Past Year

Thursday, June 30, 2005

The red-skinned nuts
in my Dairy Queen parfait
taste funny and stale.
Purchase some quality nuts
for the good of the business.

-a tanka by Jena


Monday, June 27, 2005

It's my first day of work today. I tried to dress older so they wouldn't ask me about college. Not that it will help. But I have my hair up neat, gold hoops, cardigan, skirt, nylons, ballet slippers. My stomach hurts. I feel like I will screw up something vitally important. Like I'll try to fax something and end up stapling and collating it.


Sunday, May 29, 2005

My entries need a little more finality. So from now on, they will all sign off:

Dick Wolf


Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Most common forms of exercise for me now are: underwear dancing (as recommended by my life guru Smashley), walking from bedroom to computer, moving eyelids during REM, flipping phone open (excellent for chubby phalanges), watching dog while he pees, walking from maroon car to red car. Sometimes I look for the remote, which is more strenuous than you think, what with the lifting of heavy couches and screaming "OOOHHHHLOORD" after you jam your hand against a furniture staple.

If injury was exercise I would be Billy Blanks.


Friday, May 6, 2005

Working in the library office feels a lot like art time in elementary school. I sit at a big table unsupervised and my big scissors go clack clack through the thick construction paper around the new journals. Then I pull them out and smell them. They smell like new glue. I peel the plastic off the soft cover magazines and put it in one pile separate from the paper. I ball the plastic together in one gummy lump and stuff it as far into the trash can as it'll go.

Then when I get tired I look outside at the sunny brick building, the people passing by, the tiny leaves on the trees jiggling in the wind and think about what I'm going to do when I get home. I think I'll eat a snack and take a nap.


Tuesday, April 19, 2005

A German pope! Eine deutsche pope!

As a liberal I don't approve of a pope who won't let me kill my own babies. But he's so much better than John Paul! First of all, his name is Benedict, which has all sorts of fun nicknames like Ben, Benny, Dick. Second of all, it's nice to have a pope who can eat solid food. I bet liquifying the body of Christ was getting to be annoying. But Benny can definitely eat, and move, and blink, and possibly ... conquer the world?


Thursday, April 14, 2005

Now, instead of saying "get your shit together," I will say "get your poop in a group." This is the most momentous language change for Jena since early times.


Tuesday, March 29, 2005

8:30 am: Class. Professors Jim and Andy open the class with 15 minutes of friendly banter. The rest of the 1.25 hours is spent talking about the Silk Road. Jim: "You know a buddha is a god in several ways. He doesn't blink. If you meet someone who doesn't blink, he's either Michael Caine or a god. Or maybe ... Michael Caine is a god."


Monday, March 14, 2005

I feel very blunt. And also more than half of my banana dropped on the floor at dinner. I think God is telling me I do not deserve potassium.

The history of Jena and fire alarms:

Fall 2003: Jena obediently leaves the building and waits outside until alarms are off. She wonders why no one else covers their ears.

Spring 2004: During the fire alarm Jena sits with a book in the bathroom, because there is no alarm in there.

Another one, Spring 2004: Caused by Jesse's hookah, which he promptly stores in Jena and Michelle's room without their permission. Along with beer, vodka, etc. Jena's room smells like a bong shop.

Spring 2005: Jena stuffs Kleenex in her ears, puts on two hats, and continues to get dressed.


Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Small things I noticed.

Saw two different black women walking around campus in beaded moccasins. Anne Zander has a widow's peak. There are no cosmetics at Rainbow Foods. Barf on the sidewalk (looked like minestrone). A blonde girl sitting in Breadsmith watching me cross the street. Library key #35 isn't marked. I think there are fewer carmels in the dish at St. Paul Corner Drug than last time I came. Passed the girl with the green jacket on the stairs--again.

Owen likes the feel of broccoli on his nose.

Remember the day that three amputees came through my line at Sam's Club? Of course you do. I was thinking, I shall form a group for these men, based on their common interests in one-armedness, bulk food, and Korean wives. I will call them the Amputeers. We will have a secret handshake but no one will know it.


Monday, February 28, 2005

One of my favorite things to do is write stories about characters exactly like me, with my problems, and then bring them into scriptwriting class. I get interesting critiques on my life. It's like therapy.


Saturday, February 26, 2005

I found my calling in life. Blind turtles.

Looking for turtle information online, I came upon TURTLESALE.COM and their selection of different species of turtle which they deliver direct to your door. Now I'm not interested in buying my turtle online but I browsed their selection of turtles anyway. (Their intro says, HELLO, DO YOU FEEL THE SAME WAY WE FEEL ABOUT TURTLES? In caps like that. Well yes, yes I do.)

My point is I went to the Rare Turtles tab and found Stevie, the no-eyed turtle. She's a red slider and is just as good as a seeing turtle. Do not feel sorry for Stevie, she gets around just fine. It had such compelling pictures, I was sad that Stevie was already adopted. But then I scrolled past Stevie, and I saw that the page listed other no-eyed baby turtles for sale! I want a special needs turtle! Can you imagine the karmic benefit?

If you love me and want me to not be a stinking bag of flesh in the next life, please go to turtlesale.com and buy me a disabled turtle, which is just as good as a seeing turtle. Thank you.


Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I think there's a few signals that you've reached adulthood. And none of them are getting free honey balls at an Indian restaurant. I can think of a few. You stop looking at the people driving the cars. You spare a hurtful comment that someone really deserves. You throw yourself headlong into oncoming disaster for experience's sake. You find something you can't let go of. You embrace your suffering. You learn what relationships look safe but aren't. And you can find a moment--stepping out of the shower, walking out the door, sitting up in bed--where you are at peace with yourself and you feel a ripple going out from that thought into the universe.

I'm not responsible for anything I write after 1 am.


Saturday, December 18, 2004

I've decided after intensive research that 80% of mail-order brides are hotter than I am. Damn. My only advantage over Krassimira from Riga is that I do not cost $10 to write to.


Sunday, December 12, 2004

The wind blew down a bunch of sticks. And being a nine year-old child, my first impulse was to pick one up, break off the little branches, and use it as a walking stick. But I'm grown-up now. I made myself wait until after work. Then I picked one up, broke off the branches, and used it as a walking stick.

At the big bell I met Sonia. "Hi Jena. Like your stick."

Then I went to 30 Mac to poke some people awake.

Brendan: Jena, are you poking him with a stick?
Jena (holding stick): No.


Sunday, December 5, 2004

What I REALLY want for Christmas:

1. Guaranteed date on Valentine's.
2. For wine, coffee, and beer to taste more delicious.
3. To look fresh, like a Neutrogena ad, when I wake up every morning.
4. To have a bubble of warmth surrounding me at all times.
5. Super powers.
6. Eraseable pens. Very practical.
7. For eggnog to taste more delicious.
8. A personal coach that plans out my day, gives me pep talks, takes care of paperwork, etc.
9. The knowledge of how to operate useful machines, like the microfilm machine, water softener machine, sewing machine. Also I think it would be useful to know how to "broil" things.
10. An internship with Nabisco.


Friday, December 3, 2004

My favorite cookie in the cafeteria is Contains Nuts. Oh how I love the Contains Nuts cookie.


Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Snippets of Michelle's phone conversation: "Are you dating people based on hats?" ... "She shouldn't date online, for a lesbian that's just silly." ... "You know me and funny people." ... "One of them was on some sort of vehicle with water." ... "I will sell your dogs to Oscar Meyer! I will burn your dogs!"

And excerpts from conversation with Curran: "What are ten things you can do with an amorphous blob?" ... "You need more big yarn sweaters." ... "I like fruit beer." ... "I've just always liked Mongolia."

Everything is funny out of context. Please join Jena's Campaign to Eliminate All Context.


Saturday, October 09, 2004

Michelle and I went grocery shopping today and bought a pound of turkey bologna, because that's how we do. I tried to persuade her to buy a quince or a persimmon but apparently that's not close enough to how we do.


Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Chase is getting his MBA and I don't even know if I like science or liberal arts more. And I don't know how to do homework after fourteen years of schooling. And on top of everything the next storm is Jeanne, not Jena. It's not even a hurricane! It's a tropical storm, which is a bastard hurricane. It sounds like a cloud of maracas and cocoa beans descending on Puerto Rico.


Sunday, August 8, 2004

Spoke to all my customers today in a faint Texan accent.

I did score one credit card app though.


Friday, August 06, 2004

To all Sam's Club members:

Tonight, after you fall asleep, I am coming to your house. I am opening your box of granola bars, taking out one, eating half of it, and leaving the other half in your bathroom. I am going to open your dresser drawers, unfold your clothes, and then put them back. I am going to sprinkle flour on the kitchen floor. I am going to your laundry room, where I'll grab your fabric softener and take it to the opposite corner of the house for no reason. Finally, I will wake you up to ask you what particular medicines you use and what they cost, and where I might find them.

Then as I leave I am going to park a cart in the middle of the driveway.


Wednesday, July 14, 2004

There's nothing to do in the breakroom but think of stuff like this:

With a name like Smuckers, it doesn't *have* to be good.

In the breakroom today a table of old-timey Sam's Club employees were talking about Johnny Weissmuller. And one of them asked who played his wife. And I jumped in and said Maureen O'Sullivan and they looked at me and then ignored me. They're just bitter because they think they own reminiscing. I don't care. I'm impinging on your generational privileges.