Jaded Jennifer

I’m sitting in my bedroom writing today. I’ve been happy because I’m actually accomplishing something. Normally, when I’m writing, Wren stays downstairs and keeps the kids out of my hair, and will occasionally show up with a hot cup of coffee for me, made just the way I like it with hazelnut and caramel creamers and lots of sugar.

Today, though, he started watching the Amazing Race on his computer and I guess coffee didn’t cross his mind. I sent him text messages….that he never even saw because he was so into the show he didn’t hear his creepy phone talking to him. As far as I know, he STILL hadn’t seen them. But here they are, for all of YOU to see:

4:31pm - Coffee?

4:41pm - So is that a no on the coffee?

5:03pm - I want sex. Come and do me now.

5:11pm - So is that a no on the sex too?

5:26pm - You suck

5:30pm - I offer you sex in exchange for coffee and you ignore it. How rude.

5:39pm - What do I have to do for a cup of coffee around here? Offer you a strip tease?

5:40pm - A foot rub?

5:43pm - A blow job?

5:47pm - A threesome?

5:55pm - Seriously. What does a girl have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?

5:59pm - I’d offer to floss your cat but I don’t think that would do it for you.

6:06pm - Fine. I give up. I didn’t want coffee anyway. Jerkface.

Isn’t it fun to have a text message conversation with yourself? Hey, at least I lasted an hour and a half before I resorted to name calling.

Oh, and in other news, a killer whale killed somebody yesterday. Shocking.

Ok, back to writing.

I swear if I keep watching the Food Network, I’m gonna weigh 900 pounds. The problem is, I have a 5 year old who is absolutely obsessed with watching it. She turns every tv in the house to Food Network, even the one in my bedroom. So I sit here and watch Semi-Homemade with her and then we both end up hungry and I have to go rustle up some grub for us to eat. Unfortunately, nothing I make tastes as good as the stuff on Food Network looks.

So I made us some rice. It’s broccoli and cheese rice and it’s not bad. Nothing special. But eating it with chopsticks always makes it FEEL special and it’s really fun to watch Boogie learning how to use them.

And now my favorite is on…Throwdown with Bobby Flay. (How come every time I type his name, I want to call him Booby?)

I am absolutely in love with Bobby Flay, which is funny because I really didn’t like him for the longest time. Then this show came out and it showed more of his playful personality, and how sweet he really is, while still having a great sense of humor. And, come on, that boy CAN COOK! I totally admit that they key to my heart is a man cooking me good food and serving it to me.

Bobby just challenged a couple of guys to a bread pudding throwdown. Or did he? Because what REALLY happened is, these two guys wrote a blog and said they thought Bobby Flay was going to end up challenging them to a throwdown. Some execs at Food Network saw that blog and sent Bobby to challenge them.

Really? I mean, really? Is that all it takes to get Bobby Flay to show up?

Fine, here’s my challenge then. Bobby, come to MY house. I challenge you to a….sitting on your ass while someone else serves you food throwdown!

No? Hmmmm….

Ok then, I challenge you to a typing throwdown! Because I just bet I can type faster than you.

That doesn’t sound like much fun, huh? Well, come on, I’ve been sitting here for a whole two minutes trying to think of something I could challenge him with. It certainly wouldn’t involve cooking. I’m not a BAD cook. But I’m no Bobby Flay and I really don’t have a special recipe that I cook better than anybody….

I’ve got it!!!

Bobby Flay, I am challenging you to come to my house and teach me a recipe that my WHOLE family will love!

Sure, that sounds easy. You haven’t met my kids. Trust me. In 17 years I’ve only managed to find one or two meals that all 6 of them like and will eat. I think this challenge would be the hardest one yet. Especially if you add in the fact that while you’re cooking this meal, you have to break up fights, get kids to do their homework and try not to trip over the cat and dog that think they have to check on you every five minutes. AND the meal has to be relatively easy, cheap and quick to prepare, keeping in mind that nobody in this house will TOUCH seafood. lol

I think that sounds like an awesome challenge. So what’s the deal, Bobby? You on your way yet?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a pervert. My favorite subject has always been sex. I enjoy talking about it with other people, and I’ve often been known to give WAY more details than some people want to hear. Part of that is because I don’t mind hearing details from other people so sometimes it doesn’t cross my mind that they might have an issue with it. Sometimes I really LOVE hearing the details of other people’s sex lives, to the point that I once considered being a sexologist. Yes, it’s a real profession. Go look it up.

I was never all talk either. I loved having sex, more than I loved almost anything. At some point in my relationship with Mark, though, I stopped wanting to have sex. It wasn’t that I lost interest in sex really, because I still loved talking about it and thinking about it. But it started to feel like such a hassle, like an obligation. I think this was when I really learned how easy it was to get myself off by masturbating and after that, my sex life was done for. After all, why go through the long hassle of foreplay and sex when I could get myself off in 2 minutes and then drift off to sleep in non-cuddling bliss?

Maybe that sounds weird. I mean, women are supposed to like romance and foreplay and long, slow sex and pillow talk and cuddling. But that just wasn’t me. Oh, sometimes it was, sure. But most of the time all of that felt like WORK when all I really wanted was the orgasm.

When me and Mark split up, I became insatiable. To the point that I realized recently any guy who has been with me laughs at the idea of me going for a week or more without sex. I admit, it kind of offended me. I started feeling like guys look at me like I’m a nympho or something, which I’m really not.

So maybe it’s my determination to not be what other people think I am. I know I have that stubborn, strong-willed streak that often refuses to conform to the ideas people have about me. All I know is that lately, I’ve become absolutely sexless. Not just that I don’t HAVE sex lately, although that much is true too. But I don’t even masturbate. And I don’t think about sex. Or talk about sex. Or drop sexual innuendos like they just sprout off of my tongue.

Maybe worse than not being sexual is the fact that I’m no longer even sensual. I hide my body in baggy pants and t-shirts. When I change my clothes, I do it as quickly as possible, and I don’t dare stand anywhere near a mirror where I might actually see myself. I no longer walk with the swagger of a woman who believes she’s beautiful and sexy (not that I ever TRULY believed it but a part of me could have been convinced). No, I walk with my hands in the pockets of my baggy hoodie, head down, shoulders hunched, not looking people in the eye.

I remember being this girl once upon a time. I didn’t like her. And you know what? I still don’t like her. I just wish I knew how to get rid of her for good, but she’s like good old Aunt Flo; she just keeps coming back. All it takes for me is a lack of guys (or guy, I suppose) showing me attention and flirting with me and letting me know that they find me sexy, and then BOOM! There’s shy, self-conscious Jennifer peeking her head around the corner.

Someday, maybe, I’ll find a way to get rid of her on my own and not have to rely on men. Because, really, we all know how unreliable they can be.

Time for a bathtub book review. Been awhile since I’ve done one of those. Last week I spent $160 on books at Borders so I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Yesterday I started reading Wake by Lisa McMann. It’s a YA book about a girl named Janie who is a dream catcher.

I spent all day yesterday in bed, and in the bathtub (yes, I took 2 baths yesterday since I was feeling like crap), and I finished Wake. Then I read the second book, Fade. Finished that one last night and started reading the third, Gone. I woke up this morning and continued reading it and just finished.

I have quite a few thoughts about this trilogy. It’s hard for me to separate the “editor” side of my brain when I’m reading sometimes. The disjointed, incomplete sentences in this series really drove me insane a lot of the time. Let me give a couple of examples:

She stops writing and stares at the last two words.

Throws the pen at the wall. Slams her fists on the desk. Shoves the chair back so hard it flips over. Stands in the middle of the room and screams at the ceiling.

That’s one example of the incomplete sentences. Here’s another:

Lies back down on the couch, full of cake.

Thinks about what happens next.

Knows that soon she’ll say good-bye to Cabe forever.

And that?

Despite the benefits,

Will be the hardest thing she’s ever done.

Ok, so I understand people having their own voice and writing style. I totally get it. But there were times when it drove me absolutely nuts and I wondered why somebody would write a series of books like this. In a way, it makes the author look like she doesn’t really know how to write.

But really, that’s the editor in me who cringes at the use of words like “skillz” in a novel. (Yes, that word was actually in this book.) But when I separate that side of me, and just look at it from a writer/reader perspective, I really did love these books. The concept itself was wonderful; so fresh and different. The characters were certainly likable, even if there were times when I wondered why Janie freaked out about something Cabel said. I found myself wishing for more, wanting to read another book (or four) and to find out what happens with the rest of her life.

It’s a series of books that were well worth the money I spent on them, and that will probably be read many times over the next few years, by me and my daughter, who has been waiting for me to finish them so she could read them. Yes, I’m 34 years old and I just finished (and loved) and YA trilogy. I suggest you go out and get your own copies and give them a read. If you put aside the editorial issues and get into the books, they’re definitely worth it.

For the last two days, I’ve been working on my next book. I had to write out my character sketches, and do a quick synopsis, then work on outlining my plot points, all before I could start the actual writing.

I didn’t used to do things this way. I was always the “fly by the seat of your pants” type of writer who just sat down and started writing. But I never finished a book that way. My focus with the story was never clear enough so I’d get half the book written, then give up on it. Now I’ve figured out a system that works well for me, with my 3×5 index cards and my notebooks full of outlines.

But see, this is how I work:

I sit on my bed surrounded by stuff. You know, my laptop, two or three notebooks, five or six ripped out pages of stuff that I need to copy over into a notebook, my pink and white box that holds all of my index cards, and of course, the cards themselves, spread out on the comforter around me.

It took me the last two days to get it all written down. Sadly, it’s not like I wrote a lot. A couple of pages in my notebook and one or two sentence plot points on about 30 index cards. But it took me awhile because I’m pretty easily distracted lately.

And now I’m writing. I moved to my chair to write, where I can put my laptop on my lap (where it’s apparently supposed to be as opposed to on the bed in front of me where I have to lean over it and kill my back), I can put my feet up on the bed, and I have all of my paraphernalia on the little wicker shelf next to me. You know, my writing essentials. My notebook, my index cards, my cell phone, my ashtray, my Mountain Dew and my cigarettes.

So I write about 50 words.

Then I get distracted by Must Love Dogs, which is playing on my DVD player and I spend the next 20 minutes or so watching it. I shake myself and get back to my laptop.

And I write about 25 more words.

Then I click on my Mozilla, which is open (with 9 separate tabs, mind you) and minimized. Up pops Facebook, which I refresh just to see what’s going on with people or if anyone has left me any comments. I spot a status that my niece posted saying she got a new chair for when her baby arrives. So I leave a comment asking her what kind of chair, and then I scroll through and read all of the other status updates since I last checked. Then I minimize my Mozilla again and go back to Word.

And I write another 50 or so words.

Then I’m distracted by Diane Lane having slept with Dermot Mulroney’s character even though he’s clearly a player and she should be with John Cusack’s character, who is a bit kooky but that’s no big deal. Kooky is fun sometimes. The excitement on the screen fades so I turn back to my computer.

And this time I had a writing burst….of 100 words.

Then I check to see if my niece responded to my comment because I’m really curious what kind of chair she got. Is it a rocking chair? Or is it a bouncy chair for the baby? Or maybe it’s some neat, new thing that makes parenting easier. You know, something that they didn’t bother coming out with when my kids were babies because I didn’t deserve to have my job made easier for me. I had to do things like bounce one kid in his bouncy seat with my foot while feeding another in the high chair and balancing the third on my head because he was learning to be an acrobat so he could run off and join the circus. But no, still no comment from my niece. So I quickly check my email (which is empty, by the way), then refresh my MySpace (which is completely dead because, duh, nobody uses MySpace anymore) and finally I go back to Word.

Where I write another 50 words.

But then I start to feel like I need something to munch on, even though I’ve already eaten half a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, two eggs and two pieces of toast, and a slice of banana cream pie with a fresh banana chopped up and sprinkled across it. So I look around and find the box of Fig Newtons that Wren bought for me earlier and I eat a couple of those. Then it’s back to work.

And the food has refreshed me. I manage a whole 200 words.

But then I just have to go back to Facebook and see if my niece has responded yet and oh! Look! There’s one notification. My niece got a glider rocker with an ottoman for a really good price. So I have to leave her a comment warning about fingers or toes near it, which is probably pretty insensitive since she just shut her son’s finger in the door last night and I didn’t think about that when I wrote it so I added that I’m not a fan of rocking chairs or recliners ever since our kitten was killed in one, hoping that by mentioning the tragedy of our cat’s death about four years ago, she’ll disregard the fact that I had in essence pointed out her own guilt in smashing her son’s little finger. Once the comment is posted, I quickly go back to Word before I end up deciding that I should probably go delete it because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

And I write another 25 words.

But really….I should go delete it, right? I love my niece and lord knows, I’ve done enough emotional and physical damage to my kids that I’ve actually felt guilty about. I’d hate somebody callously bringing up those moments and making me feel more guilty. So I go back to Facebook and delete the comment real quick, hoping that neither her or her sister (who had also commented on that post and would be notified of my comment) had read it yet. Breathing a sigh of relief that my stupid comment wasn’t there for the world to read anymore, I go back to Word.

And I write another 50 words.

But then I get distracted by Diane Lane finally realizing that John Cusack was the right man for her as they awkwardly kiss in the grocery store. And I wonder what kind of face cream Diane Lane uses because she really looks so good for her age. I mean, seriously, she doesn’t look a day over 25 if you disregard the slight bags under her eyes but those could just be because she was up all night sweating with some 18 year old hard body and had to be on the set bright and early in the morning.  Hmmmm…..maybe that’s what keeps her looking so young, huh? But yes, back to my book.

Another 50 words pop up on the page.

But then I realize the movie is over and it’s awful quiet in my bedroom and I just can’t write in a silent room, it’s too distracting so I have to get up and find another movie to put in, which could take me quite awhile except I had the foresight to bring TWO movies up to my bedroom when I got ready to start writing. So I throw Because I Said So in the DVD player and settle back in my chair for some Mandy Moore and Diane Keaton goodness and I smile at the slight coincidence of me choosing two movies that star ladies named Diane, before turning back to Word.

And I write another 75 words.

But the previews on the DVD are showing the movie Knocked Up and I remember that we had that movie at some point because I remember watching it, but I don’t remember seeing it since then and I don’t know what could have happened to it so I send Wren a quick text asking him and, of course, he has no idea but I’m thinking maybe it went to the pawn shop at some point and we never bothered to get it out and I should buy it sometime because it was really a pretty good movie. But, back to writing.

Another 25 words done.

But then the previews are over and I have to find the DVD remote to hit play on the movie and, you know, while I’m already distracted, I should quickly check my Facebook again and just make sure neither of my nieces read my comment before I deleted it, and I’m relieved to see that they didn’t unless their lack of responses is just because they both read it and they’re so appalled that I would say something so mean and they’re currently on the phone with each other wondering why they even bother calling me family since technically I haven’t been with their uncle in over 7 years now.

I shrug off the worry and check my empty email box again and then, while I’m already distracted from writing, I figure I should write a new blog all about my writing process so maybe other people who want to be authors can learn from my super-organized skills and I realize that in the last 2 hours I’ve managed to write about 700 words of my book but in the last 20 minutes I must have written about 1500 words on my blog and why is it so much easier to write a blog than work on  my book?

Hmmm…..you know, maybe none of you should try to learn from my writing techniques actually. Go buy a book about writing or something. Because that way at least you know the person you’re learning from managed to finish and publish at least one book, right?

Some days….like today, for example……I just wish I could sit around in my bedroom naked. Ever have those days? Where every place clothing touches your body hurts? Like, I’m pretty sure my ribs are currently being crushed by my bra and my pants are absolutely strangling my stomach right now. I kind of wonder why clothes were even invented and I really don’t get why they had to be made so restricting that they literally break bones. Ok, maybe not literally but it feels that way sometimes.

So why can’t I just sit around in my bedroom naked? Well, I could….I guess. I could always lock my door and lounge on my bed unclothed. Nobody would see me. Hey, if I owned a bathrobe, I could even just throw it on when somebody knocks on the door. Of course, I don’t actually own a bathrobe because every single time I’ve bought one I somehow lose the tie for it or it just disappears completely. But at least with the door locked, I wouldn’t risk somebody barging in and seeing me.

The problem is that I would still have to see me. And I’m not sure I’m ok with that. It’s one thing to see myself in the mirror when I’m standing up and able to suck in my stomach so that it gives the illusion of being flat. Unfortunately, I can’t really do that same thing when I’m sitting on my bed, criss-cross applesauce (that’s the PC version of Indian-style, in case you weren’t aware), leaning over my laptop typing. No, that’s when all of the flab scrunches up and the boobs flop down and all it takes is once glance away from the screen to see it. And I just ate dinner. And it was pretty good so I’d rather not lose it all over my keyboard. Especially since my warranty just expired on my laptop and I couldn’t clean the vomit out of the keys enough to get it to work again.

So I guess I’ll stay clothed. *sigh*  But maybe, just maybe, I could take my bra off and toss it in the closet. Maybe.

I have too much I want to blog about this morning. Sometimes, when I have so many things I want to talk about, they all get jumbled in my head and I can’t figure out how to yank those pieces out and put them back together. So here are a couple of things I managed to salvage out of the wreckage.

Life magazine did a wonderful piece on famous literary drunks and addicts that you should check out. That’s a link, by the way. Click on it. I promise it won’t bite.

It got me thinking….is it just normal for creative people to become addicted to things? I’ve always said that I have an addictive personality. Which, to me, means that I become addicted to things WAY too easily. It’s not just my cigarettes and Mountain Dew, really. I become addicted to foods all the time. Wren makes biscuits and gravy and suddenly I’m addicted, so that all I want to eat for the next two weeks is biscuits and gravy and so what if he’s sick of it after two days, I’M ADDICTED ASSHOLE SO GO MAKE ME MORE!!!! Phew, sorry. Lost it there for a moment. It’s not just foods either. I become addicted to everything. Like drawing, for example. I start drawing and I just can’t stop. I’ll draw constantly for weeks, and then suddenly I’m sick of it and I move onto another addiction.

Really, I sometimes feel like my life is just one addiction after another. What I eat, what I drink, what I do each day is all determined by what I happen to be addicted to at that moment. It’s really not fun. But maybe, just maybe, it’s normal, huh? Go check out that Life article and see how many of those photographs have somebody smoking in them.

Oh, and another thing I salvaged from my messy brain is this:

I completed one of my bucket list items last weekend, just like I said I was going to. I wanted to add some photos but for some reason WordPress hates me today and won’t let me add photos or properly edit any of my pages. So I guess that will have to wait. Seriously, the internet really is trying to ruin my life.

Aliens woke me up this morning. I’m not kidding. Or it could have been a ghost. I really wasn’t sure. I passed out down in the living room on the love seat last night around 10pm, which is WAY early for me. At 5:50 this morning, I was jarred from my peaceful slumber by a jingle and a woman’s voice. I was disoriented (from being downstairs and it being so dark, not to mention the music coming from Wren’s laptop when I always sleep to the television) but I KNEW the voice came from behind my head. I sat up quickly and kept looking around, trying to find this person who talked. There was nobody there. I contemplated the idea that we may have a ghost in our apartment, then I finally decided to get up and pee…ummmm….I mean, use the restroom, and as I was walking in there, I heard a very distinctive beep from the living room. I didn’t turn around and look because I was sure it was an alien spaceship about to beam me up and I figured it would be better if I emptied my bladder first.

I guess emptying the bladder also allowed my brain to start working because when I went and sat back down on the love seat, I realized that Wren’s phone was plugged in and sitting on the window right above my head. I reached for it and, sure enough, he had a new text message. So that explained the beeping. It was some stupid thing from MySpace, which I replied “STOP” to so that they’d quit sending it. I set the phone back on the windowsill and then JUMPED when that stupid voice said “new message” or some crap like that.

So now apparently cell phones are trying to ruin my life too. I should have gone back to bed when I had the chance.

I finally got my bucket list posted. I wanted to include photographs of each of the things as I complete them, but there are quite a few things on there that I realized I don’t have photographs of. At least not right now. I’ll have to find them eventually and get them on there. Oh, but I did get my photograph of #122 posted, me holding a tiger cub.

That was such a long time ago. I need to be that skinny again.

This weekend I will be working on #115 - learning to flip a pancake without a spatula. Katie is convinced I’m going to make a mess in the kitchen. It should be fun.

Next week, Wren is going to teach me how to play chess, which will take care of #32. It’s not that I really want to play chess, but I have always wanted to learn. My dad used to sit at the dining room table every morning and play on his electronic chess board, and I remember watching him and wondering how it worked. It seemed confusing to me so I never bothered learning.

Do you have a bucket list? I’d really love to see it.

It’s been a long day. We walked about 5 miles all total, but I got my check cashed, cell phone back on, got my Mountain Dew and tomorrow is cigarettes day.

So on our walk we went down this alley and passed a car with a bunch of bumper stickers on it. Ok, maybe not a bunch but there were 5 or 6 of them. They were all about tolerance and being understanding of people’s religion, stuff like that.

Except for these two:

Now, I am in no way a feminist. But I AM a woman and I AM a person. So I admit I was quite offended by that first one. But then I read the second one and I decided that they were right, we should hunt each other, starting with whoever actually spent the money to buy that bumper sticker that says women aren’t people. Because, you know, I really think I could get away with killing the person in that car and my whole defense would consist of bringing these two bumper stickers in to court and showing them to the jury. I think the idiot is pretty much asking to get shot, don’t you?

So who wants to defend me?

I’m going to give the best advice that you will EVER get in your life. Ever. You got that? So I want you to listen to this advice closely and remember it:

Don’t EVER, EVER, EVER get addicted to anything.

See what great advice that was? If it weren’t for my caffeine and nicotine addictions, life wouldn’t be so terribly bad right now. It wouldn’t be great, of course, but it wouldn’t be bad. Today was one of those days where everything kind of closed in on me at once.

Sitting in my room all day by myself, with nobody to talk to, was getting to me. Then the whole not having a vehicle to even go anywhere, having my phone shut off last week and my cable and internet shut off this week, not having enough money to buy cigarettes, which I’m out of so I’m smoking Wren’s and those make me feel like absolute crap, and not even having the money to go buy a Mountain Dew…it was a bit overwhelming. Seriously, I can deal with not having a vehicle. That’s what buses are for, right? I can live without cable. I have DVD players and every season of Friends, plus Charmed, Medium, Roseanne and Law and Order: SVU. I can’t really live without internet but luckily I’m in an apartment complex and I have neighbors who haven’t figured out how to secure their network. And the phone? Well, yeah, that sucks but honestly, I don’t use it too much. It’s really just a text messenger to me. But I do kind of need it. Wren couldn’t even go look for a job this week like he had planned since he didn’t have a phone number to put down on applications. Check didn’t come today, even though it was sent last Friday. With any luck it will be here tomorrow and since I don’t have a vehicle or money for the bus, I will be walking the 2.34 miles to the bank, then to Cricket to get my cell phone back on because I simply can’t be without a phone. But, see, I could have dealt with all of this today if it weren’t for those damn addictions. To many people, cigarettes and Mountain Dew are just a luxury, one they think I could and should live without. Honestly, those are the people who AREN’T addicted to them, don’t have problems with addiction, and don’t understand how stressful addictions can actually be. And even though I had half a bottle of Mountain Dew left, the fact that my mini-fridge in my bedroom was devoid of little green bottles was starting to make me antsy.

J.R. is the only one in this house with a phone, but he was at his girlfriend’s house, where he went after school without even checking with us, and we needed his phone to call and see how much money Wren had left on his Visa so we could go get me some Mountain Dew. So, I jumped onto my computer, with the internet that I’m pirating from a neighbor that is getting a CRAPPY signal, and I went to mycricket.com to send J.R. a text message and tell him he needed to come home.

And here it is. Proof that everybody is out to get me, even the internet:

What the hell? Seriously? Do you see any triangles up there? It took me 3 times refreshing the damn page before the picture even showed up and then I get this crap. Come on, Cricket. How am I supposed to click on all of the triangles when there aren’t any there???

P.S. You’ll be happy to know that I got my Mountain Dew. Still smoking Wren’s cigarettes for now and I think they’re killing me much quicker than my normal menthol light 100s. His full flavor kings make me feel like I’ve got black lung or something.

P.P.S. I will be quitting smoking soon. Hopefully before summer. I’ve been smoking for over 20 years now, though, so it won’t be fun or pleasant, as I’m sure will be chronicled in this blog.