binge drinking: still cool in your late twenties?

the following are just a few poignant examples of why you will no longer find me a)drinking before 10 (that's pm), b) allowing myself more than four drinks when i go out (there seems to be a line that i cross after four where i forget what the word moderation means and why it applies to the consumption of alcoholic beverages) and c) shots are a definite no no (especially tequila. especially well tequila).

1. i get really talkative and annoying when i am drunk. it's very unseemly for a woman my age. i try to make up for it by alternating being really talkative and annoying with being belligerent and mean. that way people never know what to expect and i seem more interesting.

2. i'm pretty sure i got thrown out of the forty watt last night. not for being too drunk exactly, but my drunkenness was a direct cause of the incident. here's what happened: my friend and i were just scoping out the show so we left our id's at the front door planning to go in and come right back out to tell our friends if we should all go. somehow a beer got handed to me on the way in, i saw a few friends and forgot that i hadn't paid and wasn't supposed to be there. seriously. i got caught with a beer in my hand by the angry door guy and he dragged me out by the collar and threw me on the ground. then he spit on me and told me never to come back. ok, not really, but he did think i was trying to scam my way in for a free show which is just as bad. i mean that is so, you know, uncool. of course i was then too embarrassed to go back in even though, by that point, we wanted to see the show.

3. i am having trouble thinking and writing anything that makes sense. right this very moment. a good 16 hours after my last drink was drunk. that is sad. if this entry happens to be especially not funny and/or terrible just know it is merely a reflection of how i feel. i feel like a very bad hangover. is that possible?.

4. i woke up this morning and hit myself on the forehead (which did nothing to ease my headache and was a very dumb thing to do) because i could remember how annoying i was last night. there are two possible remedies for this embarrassed morning after scenario. i could either make sure that i drink so much next time that i don't remember anything or i can do the responsible thing and drink less. the odds that i will embarrass myself while sober are still good, but i will at least have a fighting chance to maintain my composure.

5. i like to whisper (yell) stories about people to my friends and stare right at the person i am talking about while doing so. they, of course, know instantly that i am talking about them and hate me. i, on the other hand, am secure in the knowledge that i am not being completely obvious and keep right on blabbing while they shoot me eat-shit-and-die-you-gossipy-bitch looks that i fail to notice.

6. did i mention that i get very annoying when i'm drunk? right.

7. and finally...drinking too much is sinful and god condemns sinners. ha, ha. just kidding.

now i'm sure you're wondering, is jenna really going to stick to her rules as listed in a, b, and c? what, are you asking me? how the hell should i know?
ok, i think i can safely answer that question now. the answer is a resounding NO!

back in my day

what is up with athens, ga? supposed home of more pretentious townie music junkies than any other college town in the nation, but i no longer have faith in that statistic. music fans my ass. i am feeling old and out of touch which, in turn, makes me feel bitter. and old.

just the other week john cale played here. you know, the john cale. guess what? the show didn't sell out. not even close as far as i could tell. now this week, the killers are playing and it sold out well before show time. like a week before. not that i don't like the killers. "somebody told me that you have a boyfriend..." and all that. fun stuff (although it gets stuck in my head and refuses to leave until i force it out with the other song that gets repeatedly stuck in my head. that would be "static on the radio" by jim white. the two are on rotation in my brain). my point is just that, while the killers are fun, they are certainly not on par with john cale as far as innovation and staying power go. i bet no one will even know who they are in a few years. the strokes who?

of course, what it really comes down to is this- most of the music fans in athens may just be "fans" because it's cool. they might not even, heaven forbid, really give a shit about the music at all. it's more about the scene. if you've ever been to a show here then you know what i'm talking about. there is so much socializing that you're lucky if you can even hear the music, much less appreciate it. a symptom or a cause? well, none of this is new to anyone living here and i'm certainly not trying to imply that there aren't any true music fans in athens. far from it. so i'll stop being pretentious(!) and get to my point.

my point is that i feel old. soon i'm going to start conversations with "back in my day".

in fact, i think i'll give it a go. here. right now. ok, back in my day i think things were unfortunately pretty much the same as they are now. back in my day we were obnoxious and loud and disrespectful to the musicians that we paid good money to see. back in my day we drank so much that we completely forgot every moment of the concert we had been waiting months, maybe even years, to go to. back in my day people were pretty much pretentious posers.

hell yeah, i guess i'm not that old after all! my day is still running strong. at least here in athens. aka "never-never land". here's to being an adolescent forever...

back in my day- drunk in 1995

very, very recently. some things stay the same. 


p.s. speaking of jim white, my new test of friendship worthiness is this: what do you think of the song "if jesus drove a motorhome"? yes, i will judge you based on your answer. that is the point of a test after all.

ring of fire

tonight i was walking through campus. everything was quiet and peaceful and a little bit sinister. just me and the trees and the empty brick buildings. i liked it. then through the trees i heard a man downtown singing "ring of fire" by johnny cash. i could hear his voice but not his guitar. an accidental acappella version created by the acoustics of the trees and the quiet night. the singing was oddly amplified and it overpowered everything else in the almost-silence of nighttime north campus. it was the only thing i heard as i walked. i kept walking and the song kept fading behind me until i could no longer hear the man singing it and i was left alone in my silence.

later on i went to fox's to relieve some stress with a few friends and a few beers. at some point a man sang his own rather grating rendition of "ring of fire". i was reminded of my experience from earlier in the evening and wondered if the song had some significance for me this night. i decided that it did not and i went home.

defeatist optimism

i can't. i can't even think about it right now. so it looks as though i'll write about it instead. about how bitterly disappointed i am to live in a country that is so egotistical, so globally isolated, so closed-minded, so stupid as to have reelected bush as president. this election, on top of everything else, has made me feel so utterly hopeless. like i want to give in and either move away to a saner, more logical country that doesn't believe in and incorporate every thought and skewed ideal spoon fed to them by the media like a bunch of mindless fools or maybe i'll just forget it all and stay in bed for a long, long time.

its strange to live your entire life feeling proud to be american. proud of your country and what it stands for. then to one day finally grow up. to think for yourself and see that what you'd always believed in is nothing more than a bunch of horseshit. horseshit that the majority of americans seem to prefer to wallow in rather than thinking beyond what they can hear and touch and see in their limited experience. so here we are, caught in our own self-made, self-righteous bubble of ignorance and i'm stuck outside. happy to be out but feeling lost just the same. feeling like i'm out of touch with the pulse of my country and not knowing how or when it happened. realizing that i've lived in my own self-created bubble of another sort. and now i want to just give up and leave this nation to progress (or maybe its regress) towards the bleak future it seems to want.

then again, even though i'm feeling alone and hopeless, it turns out that almost one half of this country is feeling exactly the same way. i've gotten e-mails form moveon.org, greenpeace, and even john kerry himself in the past couple of days. form letters sent out to thousands, maybe millions of people. nothing meant especially for me. even so, a specific part of the greenpeace letter really got to the heart of how i feel right now and knowing that it was just a mass e-mail didn't take away from its power to bring me back from that hopelessness. in fact, it was that characteristic alone that made me feel better. to feel like maybe i'm not as out of touch with reality as i thought. if that form letter seemed to speak out to the core of my disillusionment so precisely it meant that that disillusionment is something i share with the millions of others who received the same e-mail. glory be and hallelujah! check it out, i'm not alone in my misery after all. i've got half the country right there with me. what a beautiful thing. not that i want you all to feel as miserable as i do, but its just the place we're all starting from, not necessarily where we'll end up.

"When you listen to President Bush and feel disenfranchised, when you feel like your government doesn't represent you, when you feel like it is no longer your country, savor that feeling. Before Gandhi, King, Lewis, Parks, Muir and Thoreau went on to do great things, they all felt that way. They felt it, it made them angry, and then it motivated them. Now it's our turn. Feel pissed off. Then together we will turn it into something...We all need to spend some time being pissed off. Feeling shock. Mourning. Then we have to act. Our cause is just. We can not afford to be defeated, or to be defeatist."
John Passacantando,Executive Director, Greenpeace

for some added perspective on the division of this country:
http://www.boingboing.net/images/Purple-USA.jpg

yes sir

so here i am, transferring my myspace blog to the world of real blogs. i'm new at this so wish me luck. all of my archives were originally on myspace but i will try to spruce them up a little for you my dear readers. myspace, if you are one of the uninitiated, is very silly, very addictive, and a fabulous way to waste time and gawk at wierd people from a safe cyber-distance. if you feel intrigued and inclined to join, just don't blame me- as you can see, i am moving on. or maybe just adding to my internet addictions.