Sunday, April 12, 2009

Dear Jennica!!

you are so outrageous. blow-up mattresses, ex-boyfriends, car accidents!!! in Colorado!

amazing.

i am so sorry to hear Adam is drinking so much though, drowning. i have never had a friend who fell like that. or, one that i kept in touch with anyways. maybe Heidi, my old best friend from high school turned out like that, but i have no idea. she would know i would be dissapointed in her, so she'd never let me find out if thats what was going on for her. you are a far more supportive friend to your friends jennica.
unconditional acceptance. i am more like, conditional adoration/hatred.

hahah- or at least, i was. most days i dont even know who i am here. and now i have this crazy hip haircut and glasses, the people staying at the hostel where i work treat me totally differently. its all just an illusion jennica!

what a bummer about your UU con. how did they get so dissatisfying? its been a long time since i had a good one. what happened? cons and life used to feel alot more real, in general. now its like cons. still going to same places, mttg new ppl. its just less exciting now, more humdrum, less satisfying. more bitching.

altho your weekend sounded pretty damn SOMETHING. real. even a totalled car! maybe my life is just boring because i am 8000km from you!! Ms. Center of the Universe! All fun/insanity is in your gravitational field, leaving my gravitational field with the feather dusters, balled up socks and linty hats.

part of me wants to get on a flight and come clean for your new business. fuck all this!

but here i continue to sit.
xxx
marie

Dear Marie, Denver, long lost love and accordian cars

I went to Golden Colorado this weekend for a Unitarian Young Adult conference. The Mountain Desert District which includes Utah, Colorado, Montana (?), Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Texas used to have an amazing young adult group. 30 or 40 people would show up to well organized gatherings and really grow and change and develop the district. This one, however, was totally disorganized and not "spiritual renewal"ly at all. We mostly played games and bitched that only 10 people showed up. Remember that guy you met at Opus in Toronto? He says hi. I've known him for almost 10 years. The sexual tension between us finally exploded on a blow up mattress in a church classroom with 5 other people sleeping around us.

That Monday after the con was perhaps the weirdest day ever. I went to Denver because Adam lives there. Remember him? That old boyfriend of mine who I still adore and is the only truly good man I've ever met? I wanted to see his life and see if there was any chance that we may one day get back together. I don't think we will, which was a sad realization. A lot like when you realize there is no Santa or Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny. But it's good too. We love each other very much and if rings, babies and picket fences aren't in our future that doesn't change how much we mean to each other. He's got a wicked clear perspective on him, me, us, life. He noted that if there was really a chance for us, I probably wouldn't have made out with that guy and invited him to hang out with us in Denver.

When Adam and I were together he partied a lot and that was a large, contentious issue for us. I hoped it had gotten better but it had actually gotten worse. The day I left I cried to him. I said, "I'm not saying this maternally but as a concerned friend..." He said "You don't even have to say it, I already know." He's either got to quit drinking or he's going to drink himself out of house and home. He's not taking care of himself, he's suffering. I'm trying to get him to move back to SLC.

So Johnny, who I made out with the night before, and Adam, whose bed I was sleeping in that night, and I all hung out. It was sort of awkward but Johnny and Adam seemed to really get along well. It made me really happy to see those two together since both had told me they'd felt a severe disconnect and didn't have many, if any friends in their lives.

Monday started with me loosing Adam's little doggy while he was in the shower. The cutest little brown mut you've ever seen. I went outside with her to let her pee and she took off. I chased her around the block for 20 minutes before she finally ducked out of sight. Adam was very calm about it (his trademark signature). We looked for her for a bit, then had breakfast, then looked for her some more, then went to the neighborhood pub (his second home) and started drinking at 2pm. Then his sister in law called saying that someone had called her. A woman had found a dog in the park and after googling the outdated information on her tags finally came up with someone with the same last name and hoped maybe she was related to the Adam on the tags. So we got in touch with her and went out to pick the dog up. She said it took 5 people to get her out of the street. Thank god for humanity.

Later that night, Johnny came over and we went out to a bar. As we got progressively drunker things got weirder until Johnny was asking "where Adam's heart was" with me or with this last girl he dated. He couldn't answer (in retrospect, I'm glad he didn't because that was a totally inappropriate conversation to have at that time in that company). But in the moment his lack of response made everything fall apart. Johnny took off "on a walk" and I was hissing "don't touch me" as Adam was trying to figure out why I was so pissed off. By the time we were all rounded back up from getting pissed at each other, I didn't even THINK to ask if Johnny was alright to drive. I just assume if you are the driver you are going to be responsible. I just wanted to get the fuck back to Adam's house. I don't think Johnny was even all that drunk, but he was so taxed from the con and staying up with us till 4 the night before and the energy between the 3 of us was so rotten at that point Johnny accidentally ran into a parked car. He hit the car so hard that his is now totaled. The other car had a mere dent on the bumper.

Now that I think about it, I think I have whiplash. We are all ok and we were only about three blocks from Adam's so we all went back there and slept. Johnny and I wrote a note to the guy he hit and Adam took off staggering up the street. Some girls on bikes said to us as we followed a block behind, "You're friend is pretty drunk. You should be watching out for him better."

Adam was SO drunk that I had to literally put him to bed: take his clothes off, give him a glass of water and tuck him in. I had my choice that night of sleeping with someone unconscious from drunkenness or someone at least conscious enough to snuggle. So Johnny and I blew up the air mattress and made out again.

This is my life recently. 1st I got in a bike wreck while on my way to the tattoo shop to make an appointment for my dandelion tattoo. Then I got the worst cold ever and was out of commission for a week straight. Then a friend of mine broke my big bay window simply by leaning against it. Then this rough weekend. But in spite of all this havoc I feel very centered and calm. It feels like the universe is testing my serenity and I am passing.

Love you,

Jennica

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Dear Jennica,

hello dear. this has been a hard month, technology-wise. that last frustrated blog post was just a fraction of the pain. it all started when i accidentally dropped rasmus' external hard drive, destroying its inner mechanisms and all my pictures for the last 4 years. then rasmus' wireless card failed. then the fan in my laptop failed, and all it's USB ports. so, murderous rage at blog deletion? murderous rage at our techno dependant lives, really.

but i still think what i was typing back there was important. so, on my boss' time and without further ado: the story you have all been waiting for:
(all... 3 of our readers? haha)

me and hans took a walk across the street from our apartment building. we entered this huge government run complex thats mostly empty, but signs told us that there were artists studios, play centres, rehab centres, re-training programs and then... suddenly. we were walking past Juvie. a prison for underage people! complete with 3 storey high barbed wire fences and cameras.

we stared and then suddenly, there were prisoners staring back at us. we quickly looked away.
they shouted out 'Hej!' (hi in Danish). I looked back and made eye contact with them, acknowledging their greeting, but not saying anything. So they started to heckle us! 'Hey! We said HEJ! When someone says Hej you say it back! Dont you know?'

Me and Hans turned a corner and looked at each other incredulously. Were we really just heckled by prisoners 2 blocks from our house??? Then Hans stopped and said 'Did you get that? What they just said??' I stopped and said no, i hadnt. 'They just said what? you wont talk to us because we're foreigners?!'

WHat!
I was floored. They decided, because of my white skin, that i was danish and racist. and therefore unwilling to talk to them. When i, too, am a stranger here. So their prejudice based on my skin colour made then presume i would hate them based on their skin colour! it was just weird.

then poor Hans felt like maybe he hadn't talked to them because they were 'foreigners' and started worrying about his own prejudices, which is just nuts because we didnt talk to them because they were prisoners shouting to us from behind a big scary fence! not because of their skin colour, or our skin colour.

now, if i was a more gutsy lady, i would have marched right back there and said 'Lookee here, boys. I ain't no dane. Now don't go shouting at passersby, and dont go presuming things about me because of my skin colour, just as i will not presume things about you because of yours. Got it?'

but i didnt. because... they were prisonsers shouting to us from behind a big scary fence...

anyhow, it was shocking and revealing and all just right across the street.

in the meantime, i started my new job here. its at a hostel in 'the ghetto', just down the street from my old apartment. its a 30 min bike ride away from where i am living, which is, by danish standards, quite a hike to work. and today- it snowed on the way. but besides that, its ok. i am meeting a very strange group of people, really young naive travellers, doing the backpacking thing i never did. europe. 2 weeks. endless cash.

but there are some interesting people besides them, who have real things to say.

but now the boss is here, so ... bye!
xxx

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Dear Jennica,

That last post of just an m is a tribute to the blog post i JUST FUCKING TYPED and was deleted. i am going to rise above my murderous rage and re-write it.

yesterday we went for a walk.

you know what? i am too pissed off.
the entry was almost done!

bye
m

Dear Jennica,

m

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Dear Marie,

Ah, I'm back. I went into a hole there for a while! And today I found the bottom of it. I drunkenly ranted at a friend last night about everything accept what I really wanted to tell him, then woke up this morning feeling like ca ca and it just got worse from there. Until I didn't even have the gumption to spit my toothpaste out. It just sort of dribbled into the sink. I was SAD. Like how you get when you find out you accidentally pushed the "blow up the world" button instead of "save the planet" one.

I drug myself to my friend's house to do some sewing this morning, which somehow made it worse, to the point that I didn't even want to go to BUTTARS PALOOZA.
Chris Buttars, Utah Senator said these things:



I just got on my bike and rode home. On the way I saw a guy I met at the bar the other night when a friend was playing. He didn't remember me and was in a shitty mood too so we went to the Coffee Garden to mope together. Somehow, being around someone in a worse mood than me, who was having a REAL existential life crisis, made me feel better. So did biking up the hill back to my house. Get the endorphins running. And then I came home and found an envelope I'd hid that had $100 in it!!! Coup d'etat!!!

The reason I was in such a funk was because I have been working so hard at my 2 jobs and new business that I felt like I wasn't doing any of them well. And worst of all I am having a really hard time "keeping it together." But today, at the bottom of the well, I asked myself, "what do I even mean by 'keep it together'?"

Basically I felt enlightened when I just accepted that all I've wanted to eat this week is peanut butter and peach jam for breakfast lunch and dinner. Instead of getting so mad at myself when I'd "cave in to a craving" and just eat the damn food and know that I'm not going to eat PBnJs for the rest of my life, I'd feel ok again. Being 25 is just like being 4, only now your mom is inside your head telling you what to do.

Love you and will respond to the idea that real people are famous too and ideals shmildeals.
Jennica

Friday, February 20, 2009

Dear Jennica,

Holy camolee. There is so much media interaction with my life personally right now, its wild. and i dont mean in that 'wow, we live in a media saturated world.' i mean.. people i know. being famous and listened to and googleable. which is alot weirder than i thought it would be.

its my old life, in Canada.

Looking to get updated on Canadian politics, i went to our nationally funded broadcasting corporation, cbc.ca to get the downlow. But an ad caught my eye- its a TV show called 'The Week the Women Went' and the premise is this: take a tiny town and give all the women a week away at a spa. this will reveal the ineptitude of the local men and make excellent entertainment! it sounded like a neat idea, so i clicked to learn more.

Turns out this season's town to turn upside down is Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. MY Tatamagouche where i stayed three times in 2007! Out of all the little towns in Canada, they chose this one! My heart racing, i clicked on. This town is so small, people in Nova Scotia havent usually ever heard of it. Its so small you dont have to even remember a person's address when you write them there- just put their name and Tatamagouche and the mailman knows where they live.

While most of the time in this town i was working on an organic farm and staying in this crazy house with 9 people, i also made friends and came back to stay longer in this one main street kind of town- namely with Cyd. A potter who lives in an off the grid, one room log cabin she built by herself. We ran around together for a week, just being girls and having fun in the woods. It was an amazing time for me, and suddenly her name is all over this website!

this town, where 60 cent ice cream is still a reality, and life is quiet, these people who i lived with, are being smeared up one side of fame and down the other!

this is Cyd and Tam:
http://www.cbc.ca/thewomenwent/people.php?id=52&season=0

and their relationship and lives are now reality TV!
its completely shocking to me, in a very unprecedented way. i never really thought about what it would be like to see someone i know intimately blown to pieces for entertainment purposes. TV is so judgemental and rude in a way that real people would never treat each other, its disgraceful to me suddenly.

anyways, the national news is even doing stories on these people, and everyday Canadians in the grocery store now know who Cyd is... what a strange thing to witness from all the way over here.


NEXT...
ok, so this one didnt find me. i found it. but i googled my cousin's name and bam! She's on the radio!

http://www.rabble.ca/audio/by/artist/alicia_gladman

alicia is so sweet and idealistic in this interview it breaks my heart. she's talking about an organization i used to work under too, and i remember saying things like she does... and its strange, because i am not there in that head space anymore. I was really, really, into bikes. And then i came here, to Copenhagen. Where there are so many bikes they have traffic jams of them. And all the idealistic stuff kind of drains away under the bright glare of the sheer number and success of bike culture here. Its exactly the opposite of what Alicia talks about in her interview- instead of amazing community involvement because people here are on their bikes and exposed to each other- people turn being on a bike into being just like in a car. When you are at a stoplight here, surrounded by strangers on bikes, there is no small talk. Socially, its just like being on a bus. There are strangers in your space, sometimes they annoy you, but mostly you just ignore them.

there were all these revolutionary ideas i harboured, believing bikes would be the answer and true way-- and instead, here, you can see what happens when a city fully embraces and facilitates bike culture. its still a city. its not suddenly a hot bed of change and enviromentalism. you still cant even recycle your tin cans here! but you CAN bike anywhere you want.

everyone biking here has even made other forms of public transportation ultra-expensive, because so few people use them. hello 4 dollar bus ride... so much for accessibility.

and for the record- people dont want to be enlightened with how to fix their own bike. this is something i have come to terms with. they'd just rather pay someone else to get dirty, just like how we arent all growing our own vegetables.

so- my next question is: is this also part of the new 20 something condition jennica? realizing the ideas we held just a few years ago were misguided and naive in a lovely, but hopeless way? and then watching people we know become media exposed? and what are we supposed to do with all this new depressing information? become wise or something? GAH.

thats all the selected news of the week.
ok jennica, tag you are it!
xxx
marie