Jen goes fishin'... a vaguely true story

Sundays at Casa del Jen are Fishin' Days. I'm a very feminine girly-girl, but damn I like me some fishin'. So, last weekend, I ask myself... Sunday? Check. Nice weather? Check. Nothing to do? Check again. It looks like a perfect day for fishing. In a brief fit of stupidity, I call my sister and invite her and her son to go with me. Great, she says. Come on down, I know of a Great Pond to fish. Lots of big catfish, not many people. Sounds good. I arrive, and she decides to stop by one of the pizza shops she owns in town to snag some dinner. I'm going there to fish, not to eat, but hey - whatever works, you know? She grabs some candy, sodas, chips, and some chicken wings at her shop, and we're off. We are all set for some good old redneck fishin'. All we need is some Milwaukee's Best and Copenhagen. Her Great Pond, as it turns out, is a stocked pond that you have to PAY to fish. My inner Orlando Wilson is crying out that this sucks, but I placate him with the promise that a pay to fish pond must surely be stocked with some big ol' fish. I dutifully pay my $7 and trudge toward the fishin' hole. To provide a little backstory, my sister fishes like a girl. As another human of the female persuasion, I feel that I can say this with no fear of recrimination. She won't bait her own hook (worms are "slimy"), and God forbid she actually catch a fish. At the first sign of a nibble (which is when her bobber twitches even slightly), she will shriek and yank her pole while insisting, "That's how you set the hook." If "setting the hook" is defined as yanking your line so damn hard that your soggy worm-laden hook comes flying out of the water and snags in your sister's hair, then she's one hell of a hook-setter. Once in a while, I've seen her actually "set the hook" and catch a fish this way, yanking so hard that some hapless bluegill comes whipping out of the water toward us at Mach 3. On the occasions that this happens, she will invariably squeal, drop her pole and begin her Fish Dance - prancing in place while howling, "Get it Jenni, get it." (I hate that she calls me Jenni, but that's nearly its own rant, so I'll leave it for another time.) That is my cue to pick up her pole, remove the fish from her line and release it back to the water.

Anyway, my sister was in fine form that day. I forgot to mention that her pole whipping "set the hook" rountine usually causes the worm to come off her hook, so I spend a large portion of my time re-worming her hook. Fishing with my sister and her son involves very little real fishing on my part. What usually happens is that I bait their hooks about four times before I can even get down to deciding what lure to use. Last Sunday was no exception.

I realize that I'm not going to get any real fishing done, so I decide to experiment. What types of non-bait foods can be used to catch a fish? Experiment #1 - gummy worms. I mean, it looks like a worm, right? What's not to like? No dice. Not even an experimental nibble. I reel in my line and move on to Experiment #2 - Riesen. I hope chocolate isn't harmful to fish. They don't fall for that either. Bubble gum? Experiment #3 also fails. My gaze falls upon the box of chicken wings. Hmmm. They're meat. Fish eat worms. Worms are sort of like meat. Let's give it a go. I peel off a small bit of wing meat and bait my hook. Bingo! I don't know if it's the chicken or my sister's secret wing sauce, but the fish are going crazy. I reel in two in rapid succession.

Realizing I'm on to something, I grab a Mustad double live bait hook (looks like a safety pin with hooks on the end) and slide on a whole chicken wing. Load on some split shot for weight, and I'm set. I'm gunning for the big fish now. I cast my line far out into the pond, musing that chickens aren't flightless birds after all. As it plops into the water, I settle in to continue my experiment. Five minutes go by. Nothing. I become distracted by baiting my sister's hook for the millionth time. As I'm finishing up, my sister begins her Fish Dance again. Perplexed, I look up to see my pole inching its way toward the water. I lunge at the pole, catching it just in time. Something has taken the chicken wing.

The fight begins. I'm trying my best to reel, but I'm losing ground. My pole is bent nearly in half, and I'm getting pulled toward the water. I'm also drawing a crowd. Nothing like toothless, redneck old men offering their opinions in between spitting tobacco on the ground. "Cut the line," one offers. "Nah, give 'er to me, I'll reel 'er in," chimes his beer toting pal. My inner Oralndo Wilson is dancing a jig with my inner Walt Reynolds. Why I've got two pro fisherman cavorting about inside my mind, I have never questioned. They're just there, and I pacify them with fishin' every now and again. But I digress. At this point, everyone within earshot has stopped fishing, and is heading my way. My sister is performing the most frenzied Fish Dance I've ever seen, and shrieking like a harpy.

The fish breaks the surface of the water. My legs turn to jelly. I'm not sure, but I think I pee myself a little bit too. Oh dear sweet Jesus, this son of a bitch has a head as big as mine. I've hooked the Loch Ness Monster. Okay, it's just a catfish, but I'm scared now. I continue reeling, the old men on the bank whooping with excitement. Ed (that's what I named the catfish - I name things, so sue me) puts up an admirable fight, but in the end resigns himself to the inevitable. My muscles straining, I haul Ed toward the bank, and one of the onlookers leans in with a net and we drag Ed ashore. The pond's proprieter arrives with a scale and a Polaroid camera. I've caught the pond record. Ed weighs 30 pounds, and is 32 inches long. They take my photo, Ed is released back to the water, and the rednecks grumble about a girl catching the record. When they ask me what I used as bait, I just smile and tell them it's a family secret.

So if you ever go to Long's Pay to Fish pond in Carlwick, Ohio, look at the wall of photos. Somewhere on there is a picture of a tall, blond girly-girl, her nicely manicured hands covered in mud, her expensively highlighted hair in disarray, holding the biggest damn catfish you ever did see. That'd be me. True story. Well, parts of it, anyway.

Luck.

I was taking a bubble bath last night (as I do every night), and I had a thought. I often have thoughts in the bath. This is not uncommon. Apparently, bubble baths are a right-brain activity. People often experience intense episodes of creative thought while engaging in right-brain activities. Steven Spielberg apparently gets some of his best ideas while driving in Los Angeles traffic. I read that somewhere once. Driving, too then, is a right-brain activity. If I could drive my bathtub around, I'd be a fucking genius. Anyway, last night, while slowly turning into a prune in the bath, I was thinking about shampoo, and how I'm allergic to dimethicone and apricot kernels and 9 billion other ingredients, and how whenever my fiance accidentally uses a shampoo or a soap that has one of the 9 billion and 2 ingredients that I'm allergic to in it, my face breaks out in these giant bumps and turns red and gets itchy and so on.

And then I started to think about allergies in general, and I started to think about the human condition and general malaise, and then I started imagining a person who was allergic to everything. I started dreaming up this story wher the main character is a person who is completely allergic to every possible allergen on planet Earth. Wheat, milk, soy, strawberries, grass, hell - air. The character's name would be Frank (because that's a funny name) and the story would be called "Allergic to Life". That wasn't really relevant to the topic of this blog, but I thought it, so I'm telling you about it. Deal with it.

Sometime after that, I noticed that my toes were pretty wrinkly. Sometime after that, I started thinking about luck. I've been thinking a lot about luck lately. It seems to me that luck plays a huge role in human life. A big role. A merciless, arbitrary role. Simple good luck. Simple bad luck. Simple middle-of-the-road luck. Luck.

All throughout my childhood and right up into my adulthood, I was constantly told that luck was located at the corner of Hard Work and Preparation. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Or however that cliche goes. I think Thomas Jefferson was the guy who originally said something along those lines.

(Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence when he was about twenty-four years old, by the way. Amazing. His work ethic was off the fucking charts. Okay, okay... he was also born into a wealthy, aristocratic, land-owning family in Virginia, and he received an excellent education. Oh yeah - and at the age of fourteen, he inherited 5,000 acres of valuable property and a bunch of valuable slaves. So maybe his slaves had an incredible work ethic. Lucky them!)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - the harder I work, the luckier I get. To some degree, I feel that this statement is true. If you don't work hard, the odds of good things happening in your professional or personal life are pretty slim, admittedly. Making a lot of money is pretty difficult if you don't give a tremendous effort. Accomplishing something of lasting significance almost always involves incredibly hard work, conducted with great consistency over a long period of time.

Hard work is a given - it's part of life... but luck is more important. Luck trumps hard work, and it trumps it every time. Plenty of people all over the world work their asses off, day in and day out, for years and years and years. They toil away in good faith, working their fingers to the bone in the name of a better future for themselves and their families. What they get in return is this - Not much. Jack. Fucking. Shit. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Rich, successful, fortunate people of the Donald Trump ilk often don't like to hear about luck. I suppose they might feel that it undermines the quality of their hard work and the magnitude of their significant accomplishments. "In my experience," they'll haughtily say, "there's no such thing as luck." I tend to disagree. I think these people are incredibly hardworking, and incredibly talented. In many instances, they lead exemplary lives and should be admired for their achievements. But mostly I think they're incredibly lucky. Dumb fucking lucky, for no real reason. All of them. That's how luck works.

Other times, those blessed with good fortune will say that God has blessed them. They'll attribute their good fortune to God or Allah or Yahweh - some benevolent force who is secretly playing puppeteer with humanity. "God is looking out for me," they'll say. "I'm incredibly, incredibly blessed."

Maybe that's the case. Maybe not. I don't really know. On one hand, these people do seem to be graced with some sort of other-worldly good fortune. Then again, if God is determining the fate of all human beings on planet Earth, playing puppeteer with our lives, then logic would seem to indicate that God is a vile, sadistic fuckwad.

If God really is playing puppeteer in this way, where does this leave all of the good-hearted, hardworking people who don't get shit? Those who starve? Those who can't afford adequate healthcare for their children? Those who contract terminal illnesses at ridiculously young ages and bleed out of their asses while dying excruciating deaths in a tiny thatch-roofed hut in some shithole Third World country? What about the meek who are supposedly going to inherit the Earth one day? What kind of caring God would unleash this kind of twisted bullshit upon innocents? Upon children? If we're going to humanize God and credit Him with our incredible good fortune, shouldn't we be attributing our bad fortune to Him as well?

Go over to sub-Saharan Africa or the Jersey shore, and try telling some long-suffering, hard-working, down on his luck bastard that his shitty wages, aching back, metastasizing tumor, and poorly educated children are simply a matter of God's will. Chances are, he'll probably punch your right in your proselytizing, condescending mouth. Personally, I think the universe is totally fucking indifferent. Based on the evidence around me, this seems to be the case. I don't think God is neccessarily a He, and I don't think there's any kind of puppetry at work here. I think it's luck, in the end. Blind and deaf and fucking dumb. With a little bit of human error and achievement thrown in on the side. There's no sound explanation for any of it. Some people get lucky. Some people don't. No real rhyme or reason. The end. Amen.

Luck is, of course, relative. Some people will have it all and still feel unlucky. Some people by comparison don't have squat, and yet they claim to feel incredibly blessed. In some ways, it's all a matter of perspective. I consider myself to be one hell of a lucky individual. I consider myself blessed. I don't deny that I've worked my ass off to be where I am today... but I've got an amazing kid, I'm getting married to someone I love in 6 weeks, I have great friends, am in relatively good health... and I did nothing to deserve it. I was just born. Other people are just born, and their father beats the hell out of them with his belt, or their mother sits on her lazy ass collecting welfare and tells them that they're worthless. And then they get brain cancer at the age of twenty-six and fucking die. Snake eyes. Then again, some people may look at my life and see me as an incredibly unlucky person. I got knocked up at 19, dated a string of losers before I met my fiance, have had some really shitty fair-weather friends, was diagnosed with a serious genetic disorder at 28, and had a stroke that same year. Like I said, it's all perspective.

Which brings me somehow to Paul Newman. (Come on, don't act like any of this other shit followed any real rational train of thought.) Paul Newman is a minor hero of mine. He's not really one of my favorite actors, but he's definitely one of my favorite philanthropists. In his lifetime, he's donated more than $200 million to charity. And he still drives race cars, even though he's old enough to be my grandfather. He appears to be unafraid. I was reading an interview with Paul Newman once, and the journalist asked him if he had any explanation for how he'd managed to make so much money in his lifetime and have such a wonderfully successful career. His answer? "Luck." That was all he said. Just one word. Luck. That was it.

Some people may disagree, but I've always considered that to be a very wise and humble response.

The most annoying people on Earth, Part I

You know, people have really been pissing me off lately. So much, in fact, that I'm starting a new blog series - The Most Annoying People on Earth.

For some reason, my anger as of late has been directed toward celebrities who can't just be fucking celebrities.  Noooo... they can't just be happy acting or singing.  They have to have their own fragrance line or fashion label, or they decide to start running their mouths and get involved in politics.  So let's just see if we can't start with Paul Hewson.  That's Bono for the un-initiated.

Disclaimer:
What I am about to say is not in reference to Bono the musician.  I understand he is quite popular and I am told he is very talented as well.  If you are one of the mouth-breathing masses who thinks that U2's The Joshua Tree (which I do own) is the greatest rock and roll album ever and have vivid memories about how your life was inexplicably changed the first time you heard "With or Without You" performed live, please don't send me emails/leave me comments calling me an ass and/or trying to get me to change my mind.  I don't care what you think and I am not easily persuaded.

Okay, Bono... hmmm... what can we say about Bono?  Since this isn't going to be about music, I guess there really is only one thing I would like to say to he-who-wears-the-bug-eyed-glasses:

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND MIND YOUR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS.

Yeah, I guess that about sums it up.  I know you are famous.  I know that with fame comes the ability to reach a wide audience.  And I understand that with that kind of reach comes the ability to enact change.  I do.  But I really think you've overstepped your bounds.  At the end of the day you're just a musician.  A musician with a trite moniker.

I will even go so far as to say that I believe you actually do care about the causes you support.  I'm sure all the money and time you've donated have done some good.  And I am sure that by using your fame to bring attention to a cause, you've helped in ways money never could.  But you have no earthly business meeting with world leaders to discuss policy.  You're out of your element.  You aren't a politician.  You're an entertainer.  That's all.  You sing songs to people who pay for the privilege of forgetting their troubles for an hour or two. 

You've recently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  Your 2nd nomination in two years.  And I've gotta say, this irritates and confuses the hell out of me. This has to be some sort of large-scale practical joke.  I mean really - what the everloving hell does a musician have to do with world peace?  Does anyone really think that you deserve to be among the ranks of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and the fucking Dalai Lama?  Jesus Christ, I hope to hell not.  Granted, Jimmy Carter somehow managed to sneak in under the radar, but I'm willing to let that slide, since he was at least President (albeit a largely ineffective one).

To a large portion of the audience at your shows, you're just a way to spend their disposable income.  You could be replaced by marijuana.  Or functional alcoholism.  Or golf.  Or bowling.  Yes, bowling.  How important can you be if you can be replaced by bowling?  Not too fucking important, in my estimation.

Ok, so I've been pretty hard on Bono.  But to be fair, there is another group to blame for his self-important strutting about.  That's right, I'm talking about the political leaders who listen to him.  Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking?  In most cases you've been elected by the people of your country to represent them.  I, for one, would rather you not take your cues from the mouthpiece of a has-been, no longer relevant Irish rock band who's last album licked balls.  And not in a good way.

Alright I think that's enough.  Bring on the comments.

Oh, and Bono - lose the smirk.  Dick.

Bridges

I have always thought of life as being much like a bridge. We are essentially trying to get from Point A to Point B in our lives, although these bridges that I sometimes imagine are anything but straight. Life is always full of little surprises and we never know which way our life will turn in the future. Every bridge however, as most of you probably know, needs a steady way to support itself from the elements. It also needs to be built in a manner that is strong yet flexible, and will withstand the test of time. This is why a lot of bridges today are built with different cables of sorts and triangles (they are the strongest shape). As I think about this, I have to pose the question... what are the support structures in our own lives? The majority of my support in life comes from a simple word - faith. By putting my faith in God, in my family and friends, in my significant other, I am simply believing that there will be a line of trust in my life - a cable that will hold my bridge up and make it even sturdier. It is this faith that I can hold onto through any storm that my bridge may encounter... and instead of being a torn down bridge, I find myself having a stronger bridge because of that storm. Perhaps instead of deciding where to build our bridges, we should first look for a support system that will allow us to get there. A support system in which we can put our trust and faith in, even if it is a bit risky at times. Because without the proper support, we would simply be a sunken road.

So on this day meant usually just for lovers, I say Happy Valentine's Day to my support system - to God, to Jake, to my sister Lori, to TD, to Courtney, to Diesel... and the rest of my friends here on teh Interweb and in the "real world" - thank you for your love, support, and friendship. Without you, I wouldn't be nearly as strong as I am today. I love you all.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

"...You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need..."

The Rolling Stones may not have been spiritual gurus, but they sure got it right on this one. At times, I think that it's the soundtrack of my life. At the risk of not saying anything new or unique, sometimes getting what we want from life can be to our own detriment. What do you want? It seems like a simple enough question. If you are hungry you desire some food. If your throat is dry, some water would be nice. Sick? How about medicine? Easy enough. But apply that same question - What do you want? - to the interpersonal relationship between a woman and a man and the great majority of us go blindingly stupid.

Perhaps I am misstating the problem. Maybe the answer is just too obvious. What do you want? Why, I want it all, of course! Freedom, security, sex, friendship, money, status, fun, excitement, yada, yada, yada. It is somewhere in this surreal world of expectation and hope that the real answer to the male/female quandary lies. I think.

You see the problem lies in the fact most of us don't know how to balance what we want with what we need. It seems to me our basic problem with the opposite sex is how often we misconstrue need with want. (Folks, this can't be that hard to understand if a guy like Mick Jagger gets it.) A real life example you ask? Sure.

A female relative (okay, okay - ME) for years dated the same kind of guy over and over. Big, handsome, usually athletic, and more often than not - dumb as a box of rocks or an outright asshole. Despite the glory of the outside package, all of them seemed to possess some kind of emotionally restrictive malaise - bitchy psychotic ex, IRS troubles, deep and abiding love of illicit substances - which inevitably kept them from being "the guy." These prime examples of manliness never failed to fail, and eventually even she (I) grew tired of the whole thing. Vowing to change, she (I) eventually met a very intelligent man who not only could spell c-o-m-m-i-t-m-e-n-t but who also knew what it meant. And no, he was not a geek. On the contrary he was exceedingly good looking, athletic, and had no state or federal agencies looking for him. Nirvana, right? Wrong! Mr. Right had a problem no amount of rationalization could conquer - he was too perfect. Yes, you read this correctly. Because he did not have an air of mystery, intrigue, and danger I very soon found him boring. Predictably, the relationship eventually fell apart of its own accord.

I'm not trying to pick on just the women out there. I know plenty of men who have also made a career out of dating boat anchor women (and I use that term loosely) whom nobody would ever think of as the sharpest knife in the drawer. These women usually look great in a bikini, or perhaps are all-stars between the sheets, or maybe are just a warm body. Just as often as women, guys stay in relationships because they simply don't like to be alone. Other men I have known seem to make a habit of getting into relationships with "stress junkies," those women who love to live life in crisis.

The bottom line in the human relationship dilemma is that for us to get anything even close to what we need we first have to understand what it is we really want. Not what we think we want, but what we really, really want. And not just from our significant other but from ourselves as well. That being accomplished, we should turn our attention to what it is we are willing to give up in the process. Yes, that's right - you actually have to give something to get something back in life.

I'm not suggesting we should settle for less all the time, but then again, what have we been doing anyway? Too often we let looks or some other superficial bullshit have too much bearing on who we spend our lives with. I understand that looks are important - nobody wants to date Quasimoto - but if that is the primary focal point you choose for a relationship, then you had better know going in that you may already be in trouble. Losers come in all shapes and sizes, but so do winners. Think about that the next time you get the itch to try something new.

Just maybe there's greater learning in not having our desires completely met. Okay, obviously. But, often getting to the core of that learning takes patience and an openness to considering other possibilities. Take time to slow down, get curious, and reflect on what's there. Because you may not ever get exactly what you want, but sometimes... you might end up getting just what you need.

The worst blind date in the history of mankind...

Okay, after the good dates/bad dates blog I posted previously, I had some emails asking if that was my WORST date. Unfortunately, no. But it's taken some time to put the story of the worst date EVER into words. Here goes...

This here's the ballad of Jared Barnett and the worst blind date in the history of mankind. It starts with me complaining to a friend that all the guys I date are too boring and dull. I like a little excitement, some adventure, and so she tells me that she had a cousin who was "just like that"... Cousin Jared turns out to be a little man with a big personality, too big. Stunningly gorgeous... male modelesque and knows it. He walks with a slight limp and has a cool scar on his brow - kind of a James Dean type, all mysterious and dangerous. He talks a mile a minute, covering much more ground than he knows how to handle. For those of you familiar with Neil Cassady, Jared makes Cassady seem like a sedated grandmother - bopping and jiving, constantly drumming his hands on anything in reach. Always in motion and that mouth of his never stops for a second. So onto the date...

Jared shows up at six o'clock, which is rather unexpected, since he isn't supposed to pick me up until seven. He then informs me that he lost his job and doesn't have any cash. Being the low maintenance girl that I am, I say, "No problem, let's go hang out at the park", and throw myself together in ten minutes, praying that I can trust him alone in my living room for that long.

Leaving the house, we get to his 1987 Camaro, which is rusted and looks to be on its last legs. We get in, and he immediately squeals out of the drive, gunning it to 50mph on my residential street. I sink low in my seat, hoping the neighbors won't recognize me. I helpfully suggest several parks near my house, but he says he has one in mind. The Camaro tops nearly 70 on the main street, as he cuts people off and screams obscenities. Crossing the highway, he goes straight through the left turn only lane, narrowly missing a minivan and screeching "Asshole!" at the driver. It occurs to me that I should fasten my seatbelt at this point, and pray for my survival. I do both.

Exiting the highway, he shoots down a winding one-lane country road, lighting up a smoke. All of this at 70mph, eyes barely on the road, as he rambles on about how "five cheerleaders from my old high school were killed on this road a month back, got hit on a blind turn. Dumbass women, don't know how to drive at all... should be illegal for - HERE IT IS!" We fly around the turn, my heart beating like a drum, ready to leap from my chest.

In the middle of nowhere, no sign of human habitation for miles, we arrive at his "park". It's a cemetery. A seedy little cemetery, with the majority of the headstones destroyed by vandals. This is actually sort of interesting, something that at another place and time I would like to explore, but at this point in time, I become aware of the fact I'm with a total stranger. Realizing that there is literally nobody for miles, I give a shaky laugh, "What are we doing here?"

"Going for a walk baby, going take a trek and see what's to be seen...somebody I want you to meet, he'll like you... I ever tell you how much you look like my last girlfriend? You're prettier though, she was a fattie, almost impossible to - hey your hair smells good! Let's go see my friend..." he rambles in his Jack Kerouac-esque patter, nearly a beat poet rhythm.

Every episode of the X-Files that I've ever seen begins rushing through my head. Who on earth does he want me to meet? Is he going to rape me and kill me and leave me for dead? His girlfriend - what? Is that what he calls his victims? Panic is rising in me like a red tide, but I do my best to retain my composure and keep my cool. I do though, manage to snake his keys off the seat of the car before we exit. I slip them into my pocket, and fervently wish I carried mace.

He takes me over to one of the tombstones, and begins speaking to it, "Hi, Mr. Joe, this is my friend here, isn't she pretty... yeah, and her hair smells really good too... totally, how's it hangin'? Good good... hey baby, aren't you going to say hello to Joe?" He looks at me expectantly. "Uh, hello, Mr. Joe, pleasure to meet you sir," I stammer. Who is this guy? Reading the tombstone, Joe Calloway 18xx-18xx, I recognize him as the founder of a local business. "Uh, Jared, how did you get to meet Joe? A relation of yours?"

"No no no babe, just a friend, we found each other one night when ... " I begin to tune out this mindless banter as I try to think of a good excuse for escape. Hmmm... "Achoo!" Sniffle, sniffle. "Oh my hay fever is acting up, can we go?" I've never had an allergy in my life, but what does he know? As we near the car, I hand the keys back to him and am so relieved I could cry. All of a sudden, he grabs me and dips me in a grand ballroom dance type gesture, and gives me a long, deep kiss. My heart is beating like crazy, I am shocked and struggling at first, then giving in. His lips are fast, and I tell you it is one of the best kisses of my life. By the time he lets go I'm almost floating... maybe I'm wrong about him, I start to think, maybe I have him pegged all wrong...

Jared opens his mouth, spoiling the illusion, "Damn girl, you're a great kisser, that was awesome, most pretty girls don't know how to kiss... your lips are soft, softer than a black girl's... only soft lips I've kissed are n***** lips, I ever tell you I was a skinhead neo-nazi? It started when this dumb coon..." I am stunned beyond words, my mouth agape, and beyond ready to call it a day. I have learned more about Mr. Barnett than I or anyone else should ever be submitted to. He's not ready though, and wants to take me to the mall. On the way, he tries to make up for all the racist talk by making an ass out of himself with every minority he sees. Passing a middle eastern couple, he screams "Assa lama laka!" I slip lower in my seat. At a light next to a truck with two Hispanic men, he yells, "Buenos dios, brothers, have any tequila for me and my girl? Bonita, yes?" Lower still, my head is no longer even visible to those outside the car. Talking to a Vietnamese girl, "Chong chow ching baby!" Can he even be serious? I am on the floorboards now, trying to become one with the carpet.

We arrive at the mall, and he shows me off to his 'friends' This buffoon is also a mall rat apparently, and the envy of every freak under the age of fifteen. They regard him as a god, but in a Colonel Kurtz sort of way, nothing positive. I am ready for death. At this point, it is far preferrable to what I'm enduring. We then go into a store where he tries on a pair of $80 pants. A guy with no money, remember? He likes them and decides to buy them, but is seven dollars shy. Of course. "Would you mind baby, just this once?" He'd better believe it is JUST THIS ONCE. I shell out the cash, in the hopes of a quicker escape.

I order him to take me home, but no - he wants a bite to eat now. I point out that he doesn't have any money, then I lie and say I don't either. He says it doesn't matter, and goes up to the man behind the counter at China Panda. Jared manages to convince him to give up a plate of food meant for the trash. Do I want some? Uh, no thank you. He then covers the entire plate with hot sauce. The man tries to warn him that is hot, but Jared is deaf to him. That's no real shocker though. As we sit down, he's remarking on that "dumb slope, he really thought I was gonna pay, even tried to stop me at the end, knows better though, I'd git 'em good." I have learned celestial grace and patience by this point. I am ready to be sainted at any moment. My lips are sealed.

He starts shoveling food in his mouth, talking the whole while, fork after fork dripping with fire. It's said that the smaller the brain, the higher the threshold for pain, and I begin believe this. His face grows red, and sweat beads up on his fore head. Suddenly his eyes grow wide. "HOT! GOTTA GO TO THE SHITTER... BE RIGHT BACK, JESUS GOD THIS IS HOT. . . " I listen until the expletives fade out of hearing and then collapse in hysterical laughter. I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes as he returns. I inform him that we are going NOW. He takes the chinese food with him because, as he puts it, "maybe I can rinse it off and nuke it later."

As he takes me home the tempo of his banter rises, and he's chattering at about warp nine. "Hey wanna meet my grandma, she lives over the hill, my parents are there tonight... hey don't you wanna meet the whole family? They'd love to meet you baby, pretty face, huh? Cat got your tongue? You better speak up once we get there they don't like quiet people, I ever tell you that you look like my girlfriend..."

"I WILL NOT, BECAUSE I'M NOT GOING THERE, I'M GOING HOME, AND I'M GOING HOME RIGHT NOW! SO WHY DON"T YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE ME THERE BEFORE I HAVE TO STRANGLE YOU?"

Finally, the first silence of the evening. Priceless. Fucking golden. Jared hurriedly changes the subject and rambles until we reach my house. He literally chases me to the door, me nearly sprinting at this point, my keys at the ready. "Hey baby, I had a really great time we should do this again, don't you want to do this again... what are you doin' tommorow cause I don't have any plans... my aren't your shoes nice, did I ever tell you that I worked as a shoe salesman, I once..."

SLAM! I breathe a long sigh of relief.

Thus ends the ballad of Jared Barnett. Take it as a warning girls. Be careful what you wish for - once you get it, it's usually far different from what you expect. No matter how hellacious your date is, remember this tale. It could always be worse. You could be spending it with Jared Barnett. I took the hit so you wouldn't have to. You're welcome.

Love Junkie

So, for reasons that are unimportant to the purpose of this rant, I found myself in a hotel Sunday night. Late at night and lacking anything better to do, I stumbled across the movie The Notebook on cable. Now normally, I avoid this type of movie like the plague. I have the same allergic reaction to this type of open faucet of tear-jerking swill as I do to any other book written by Nicholas Sparks - an author who never met a romantic cliché, dramatic contrivance, transparent plot point or insipid line of dialogue he didn't love like a dog in heat. The Notebook is, in fact, a laughable story all around.. a cheesy, dopey, by-the-numbers affair that fails in its every attempt to be anything other than painfully predictable. The characters are clichés straight out of the Stock Character Handbook, their actions a seemingly endless parade of poorly constructed hazy lens falling-in-love bits, mixed with the occasional limp confrontations, all supported by bad dialogue. There is not one single millisecond of originality or opaqueness of plot in the entirety of The Notebook. Yet somehow, even while rolling my eyes and sighing dramatically at the aggravatingly trite and predictable corniness of the character's circumstances, I still became honestly and emotionally invested in the story. By the end of the movie, I found myself in tears, hoping that the main characters would end up together, and sobbing like a child at the final conclusion.

Going into it, I didn't want to like this movie. In fact, I wanted to hate it with all the fury that I normally reserve for all so-called "chick flicks". And really, after watching it, I still cannot say that I liked the film. Actually, I disliked The Notebook, not because it's a rotten movie, because it IS that, have no doubt. Rather, I disliked The Notebook for what it forced me to discover about myself. At the end of the movie, as I wiped away my tears, I realized that for all my toughness, my impervious to the world facade, I'm nothing more than a hopeless romantic at my core. And the reason I avoid these films is because, often, my own life is nothing like that depicted in movies such as The Notebook.

What these types of films fail to recognize is that real life never plays out the way it does in the movies. The guy doesn't always get the girl, true love doesn't always win. But then again, if the movies were like real life, who would go see them? Nobody wants to sit through ninety minutes of actors struggling and failing with the same issues that they face in their own lives. Real life, real love, as opposed to what we see on the big screen, is messy. It hurts. It's ugly far more than it's beautiful. That's not to say it isn't still great, but it's never the way it is in the movies - all wrapped up in a neat little package, all the loose ends tied up, everybody living happily ever after. It's this vast separation between fact and fiction that is where I run into trouble.

I find myself embittered, not because I've been hurt so badly in the past and in such a spectacular manner that I no longer believe in love - that's far from the truth. I'm somehow bitter because despite how many times I've had my heart broken, I still believe in love. Deep down, I believe that love conquers all, even though I've been shown time and again that it doesn't. Despite my past, despite what common sense tells me is impossible, I believe in that all-consuming, passionate, torrid love story. That desperate, triumphing over all obstacles, clinging to the object of your heart's desire, as depicted in the still image above, from The Notebook. The kind of story where the knight rescues the damsel in distress, and they ride off into the sunset, to live happily ever after. And that proves to be my downfall time and again - ignoring what I know to be reality, while looking for that perfect movie ending.

So really, while on the surface, this appears to be a rant about a spectacularly schmaltzy movie, it's really more a rant about myself, and my mistaken ideals. They say that the first step toward recovery from any addiction is realizing that you have a problem. I consider The Notebook to be my intervention, my wakeup call. Like the heroin junkie who wakes up one morning in the gutter, I have hit bottom. It's time to pull myself up, dust myself off, and start being realistic about my expectations in the romance department. Because until I can do that, any and all relationships I'm in will be doomed to fail.

Now, if only there was a Love-aholics Anonymous...

Neurotically yours,
--jen.