What started out as an entry about me being MIA, my missing movie and my hair has become the hardest entry I’ve ever written.

This is the third draft.

Why I blog.

I learned HTML because I’ve always been a closet nerd.  I fooled around until I moved to Virginia and suddenly had web space and a reason to use it, to keep my family up to date on what we were doing.  That first website was just pictures and stories of our lives in a strange state.  I don’t really remember the decision to buy jenallday.com, but I bought it before I moved back to AZ.  For over a year it sat there.  I only used it to throw up pictures for people to download from our nights out.

I started this incarnation as a place just for me.  Never thinking anyone would read it, I just wanted a place to keep track of the pictures, the thoughts, the funny and the annoying.  I love doing it.  I love the nerdy stuff, the learning new things, designing stuff.  I’m in no way good at it, but I enjoy every minute I spend tinkering with it.  I love writing, most of the time.  It’s the strangest type of release I could ever imagine.  There are things I wrote about only weeks ago that I’ve completely forgotten.  It’s as if as soon as it’s published it no longer takes up space in my head. 

It’s sounds narcissistic, but I also like reading this site.  It started as a place to capture the nostalgia as it happened, and I love reliving it.  I forget the amusing things so often, they amuse me again when I relive it the second, even third time.  I even find the anger funny.  I have the quickest temper I know.  I’m quick to anger, but it’s a flash in the pan.  The anger rarely lives longer then it takes to pound it out and hit publish.

Some where over the last five months many people I know in the real world stumbled upon and started reading this site.  I didn’t keep it a secret, but I didn’t direct anyone here.  I felt conflicted at first about not being able to say some things that would be considered questionable.  There can be no “baring of the soul” unless I want everyone at the bar on Friday night to know about it.  It was absolutely humbling to hear a friend say she checks in every day because it cracks her up.  I told my first person over the weekend about this site, and explained it just as I have here, this is for me.  I don’t do it for them as I did my first site, but it doesn’t bother me that they are here either.  I like sharing all this stuff I love, the lyrics, the other sites, the pictures.  But maybe it makes me close down some of the things I wish I could write about. 

Then why hit publish?  If it’s just for me, why can’t I just keep a journal?  I guess part of it is a dare, to myself.  I feel like I need to do something to teach myself to be open.  I’ve developed this black ass heart, I trust no one, I don’t tell anyone things that I wouldn’t tell everyone.  So, why should I care that the internet knows?  Maybe my friends and family reading this site is a good thing.  I can’t always explain myself verbally, maybe I can write it in a way that makes sense?  Maybe it’s because this way they are a captive audience.  Beginning, middle and end, they are going to hear what I have to say.

I’ve hit the wall having three audiences.  Myself, my loved ones and the internet.  I know what I want to write.  I censor that with what my friends are willing to hear.  I clarify things so the internet will understand.  The fact that it’s not face to face makes it hard.  I have a snotty way of describing things.  The people in my life might take it the wrong way, disagree, or have a comment, and most of the time I’ll never know their reaction.  The lack of instant feedback is why I haven’t become a hermit with my cats, computer and Netflix account.  It’s why I still talk about things that I’ve blogged about.  I still like having conversations, this is just one more way for me to try to open up.

I do this because it helps remind me to pay attention to the little things.  The funny crap people say, the stuff that is ridiculous.  I do SPF for the same reason.  It reminds me to take pictures.  To see the beauty in every day things.  I think it may have been my black heart picture for last week’s SPF that started this internal blog drama.  To write it down, to acknowledge that it’s a secret, to put a face on the black heart thing was very emotional for me.  I say it all the time as a joke.  I know it disturbs some people that love me and don’t understand it, but I bring it up because I find it funny.  This backwards black heart of mine can love people SO MUCH, and yet, it is black in it’s own way.  That’s completely amusing to me.  It’s ridiculous and makes no sense, and yet it’s true.

It is very easy for me to write about the annoying, the funny, the mundane.  I can generally express when I’m happy.  It’s harder to write about love and, yes, even anger.  Hurt, yeah, I just don’t go there.  People have hurt me, and I want to think I don’t care if they know it.  But to explain it, to actually own it and write it down… that is giving me a panic attack right now.  I’ve got the idea for a post all right, but it’s not flowing out.  I’m too busy wondering how I’m going to censor it for some people, and yet explain my feelings enough to make it worthwhile.

If everyone I know reads this site, is it appropriate to talk about things that involve people we know?  Is it appropriate to vent feelings about someone who no longer speaks to me, but still reads this site?  I’m still deciding those answers.  It’s hard for me, I do not censor myself in the real world.  There is very little filter between my brain and what comes out of my mouth.  And I would never say anything here that I wouldn’t say to the person’s face.  I don’t care what people think about me.  I certainly don’t care what people who have hurt me think about me or my feelings.  So why am I antagonizing myself with this?

It comes down to giving myself permission to say what I want to say.  Damn the consequences.  Before that I need to give myself permission to feel this.  I only want to be myself.  I wasn’t an idiot when I named this site.  Everything here is me.  Now I need to work on having everything about me here.  More of a jenuncensoredallday.com.

This took two days and several drafts and I still hate it.  Don’t get all huffy if it mysteriously turns into a post about my hair.

But eventually I have to talk about this missing movie, and that gets tricky.

Lindsey pulled scary things out of my loft.

We went out in a semi-pimp rental car.

We spent some time slapping each other to see who Jenika’s dog would growl at.  Turns out, only gets pissed when boys slap girls.

Kevin got ordained to be a minister via Blackberry AT the bar.

Lindsey attempted to flip off the camera every single time, even in pictures she wasn’t in, so I took no pictures of her.

Shannon and I were just buzzed enough to scarf down a hamburger, thanks to Tim’s cooking.

Mike made faces every time I took his picture.

I explained part of the black heart thing.

Jessica, Emily and Andrea came!

Someone called me funny.  Someone else called me funny looking.

Chris and Randy played awesome all night.  Love them.

Okay, they all happened.  Unless the A.T.F. calls, then I know nothing.

Kristine’s assignment this week for SPF proved a little more difficult then last week.

Your Toys
Your Secret
Your Eyes

Toys was easy.  Anyone who’s ever seen the inside of my purse knows what my toys are.  I can’t fully function with out the MP3 player, cell phone, camera and PDA.  This is also why I can’t carry my favorite purse, too small.  I could take your block off with one swing of my purse.

Your secret.  About here is where it started getting rough.  My first thought was I have no secrets.  I don’t keep secrets of my own, and I’m not about to blog about other people’s, even covertly.  I just can’t hold on to a secret of my own for very long as I have no filter.

A few days of thought lead to the black heart thing.

From why it started, why I joke about it, how your reaction to it makes me feel, and exactly how it works, that’s all under wraps still.  I know, and am sorry, that it bothers the people in my life.  It’s complicated, and unfortunately having it makes it impossible for me to explain it.

By the time I wrote down (and then sketched over) all the reasons I have this black heart, I was not about to post a picture of my eyes.  They are the window to the soul, no doubt.  Heaven knows what you would learn about the black heart thing had I posted a picture of them now.

Luckily I had taken these last Friday before going out.  They’re for an idea I have bouncing around for a masthead.

It’s my opinion that I look vacant.  Certainly not what I’m feeling now.

Happy Friday!

I did my taxes today, and needed the 2004 forms.  Hopeful being that I am I wander over to the filing cabinet, but the last taxes I have filed are from 2002.  Great, they must be in the box.

The box is where I throw all my important papers as they wait to be filed.  (Ha.)  It was like an archeological dig.  When I reached the invitation for my friend’s wedding shower last February I knew I was getting close to the right prehistoric era.  So it’s not like there’s no system at work here.

Learn how to lie. 

When your boss asks you point blank “Do you have a website?” the answer is NOT “Yes… *panic ensues, heart stops beating*… but I’m not telling you the address!”

Oh god, she’s probably googling me right now.

In the last few weeks the Petsmart and the Whataburger around here have closed down.

The cats and I are going to starve to death.

In case you couldn’t hear me from where ever you were (you must sleep pretty heavy) I was smashed for about nine hours Friday night.

The original intent was not to become quite so inebriated so quickly, having been home less then an hour and still needing to jump in the shower, get dressed and go out.  But, my Christmas gift from Jeff sent me well on my way.

When I burst into tears in my backyard I began to doubt my grand idea of having pre-bar drinks to calm myself down from an awful day at work.  No one likes a raging drunk, but no one likes a drunk crier either.  So the only course of action was some happy music and dancing while I got dressed.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have listened to this song (Link is to the lyrics of a very dirty, childish and subsequently funny Blink 182 song.  You have been warned.) multiple times while getting dressed.  To say the lyrics are inappropriate is safe.  Singing “I f****d your mom” across a bar to each other?  Definitely not a good idea.

We took a ton of pictures, especially considering we didn’t even pull out the camera until half the group had gone home already.  This was the first one.  You can probably guess at the quality of the rest of them.  You can see I pretty much goaded everyone into catching up to me.

Why they let us into two different bars is beyond me.  I would have to say that is probably the longest period of intoxication I have ever subjected myself to.  I don’t remember the drive home at all.  I woke up in my own bed, still in my clothes.  Happy music worked though, as I was neither raging nor crying.  I did spill some of my beans, run into one of the last people on earth I want to run into while intoxicated, and needed help standing still by the time we stumbled out of the last bar.

Excessive?  Yes.  But the perfect remedy for the day I had.  And it’s not as though I get drunk every weekend.

Saturday was decidedly more calm.  Show downtown, few beers, and after hours until I could barely stay awake.  But still home before the sun came up. 

Today was incredibly calm.  I forced myself out of bed and spent the day reading, cleaning and hanging out in the backyard with the neighbors.

See?  I’m not some kind of party animal.

This month, I have spent over $45 on new music.  But, after all these new songs move in, what am I listening to?  Nirvana.

“Don’t tell me what I wanna hear
Afraid of never knowing fear
Experience anything you need
I’ll keep fighting jealousy
’til it’s fucking gone”

if you didn’t listen to me for the next two and a half minutes.”  So I’m rocking the Blink 182, and it’s happy and perky and should remedy my mood.

Today was hard.  I stood on the edge, I didn’t jump.  I looked the beast in the face, and I didn’t punch it in the ear, because I have bills.  I listened to screaming men the whole way home, but I didn’t scream.

And this makes no sense because it’s 5:45 and I am a little drunk.  And that, my friends, is reason number one why I should quit my stupid fucking job.  And there are more, but I have to go put clothes on to get more drunk in the presence of others.  People I haven’t seen in a while, who probably don’t want to see Raging Jen.  So I’m going to drink more, to prepare, instead of listing every reason my job has robbed me of everything that used to be nice about my personality. 

Yeah, and the next person that tells me to quit my job gets a cock punch, on the house.  Um, if it was that easy… well I wouldn’t still be there.  And also, not helpful.

Do you see what a spiteful awful person I have become?  And that guitar is not in tune.

It’s an easy assignment this week over at Random and Odd.  All things found in the bathroom.

First up your lotion.

Yeah, I have a TON of lotion.  Arizona is so dry I’m lucky my skin isn’t falling off in chunks.  Yellow one is from Victoria’s Secret and smells yummy.  Purple is lavender to relax (ha!), Aveeno for the skin catastrophes, two for my face, and two that get me through summer.  This does not include the bottles in my car, overnight bag, desk and purse.  Lotion should be a line item in my budget.  I would never consider leaving the house without slathering two to three of these on my body.

And towels.  I don’t even know where these towels came from.  I think I had to leave mine behind in VA.

And my toothbrush.  God bless ya for reminding me to change the head, it was time.

That was fun, now for some weekend!