"What's up?"

I don't know. The past month - perhaps even the past two months, I haven't been feeling well, both physically and mentally. It's been hard. I've fallen behind in a class or two in school, and the guilt is driving me up the wall, because I caused it, and I can't seem to make myself correct it, which is crazy. Should I fail a class here, I would be denied continued loan from the swedish loan agency, and thus would be thrown back to Sweden. The strange things is, I feel like my life has been split up in two weird parts, and one can't quite outdo the other.

Here I have 3 people I "know" - Aziza, Gene and Jesse. Well, Aziza and I get along fine, as we have all semester, which is a yummie feeling, because last semester.. things weren't that great. It's dealt with. Gene is a _lot_ of fun, but he is also one of the people I've gotten to know through Aziza, and so regardless how good of friends we get to be, I always feel that, even though Aziza is so yummie about it (yummie is my new favourite word. You'll see it more as the post goes along.) Jesse is also originaly Aziza's friend, and I just feel lucky that Aziza happens to be a person who _wants_ her friends to know each other, etc. Well, as it turns out, he and I aren't hanging out a lot anymore - not sure why, but somehow, it feels alright.

And then there's Jessica. Jessica, Jessica, my Jessicabunny. Things.. I don't know how to describe it? Things went a bit weird some while ago, and even though I know we're still very close, we rarely manage to see each other online anymore, and when we do, it's weird... The sad thing is, I can see that she's not feeling too great at the moment, and I feel so stinky for not quite knowing how to be there for her like I want to be. I guess a small part of it is that I let the PJ harvey thing really dig it's claws into me - it is so weird to all of a sudden have people e-mail you from all over with praise for you and your site, and yet you still feel empty, because they just got it because they are happy you're handeling a website with information they can use. Confusing, and draining.

I feel rather lonely, even when I spend time with Aziza and Gene, and I don't know how it'll ever go away. I know, that sounds whiny and over dramatic, but.. I don't know.

On the other hand, I feel more free here in America - I shop what I want, I dye my hair whatever colour I feel like, and nobody's looking at me funny or mocking me openly because I'm fat.

On the other hand, there's Sweden.

I could go home, stand in line to get some lame internship working with something I could care less about 6 months at a time, making ridiculously little money, while running to the library every free second to get online. I would tone down my hair as to not have my brother be on my back about it all the time, and try and ignore the looks I get, regardless of what I wear or how much I try to blend in with the background, hoping that no stranger would decide to loudly mock me with his friends.

On the other hand, I would have my mother take care of me as she always does, while I stayed in my shed vegitating by the tv. I would get to spend time with my grandmother, who is gradually getting more and more senile by the day, which is saddening me enormously. I can't even image how she will be by the time I get home in may, and that scares me.

I would get to see my cats. I don't think you guys realize how much I miss being surrounded by cats. Last monday I called home randomly, and my brother petted Missan so that I could hear her purr into the telephone for me, and my throat choked up. I miss having something there I can cuddle and make purr. *sigh* Allergies or no allergies - I need cats around me :(

And then there's Maria. She's the one person I really miss back home, and pretty much the only person outside my family I had regular contact with, watched movies etc etc, and I really miss that. She's one of the few people I've ever felt comfortable enough around to know that if I asked her if we could do something, she'd say "yeah!", and be satisfied if all we did was flip through channels an entire evening, bitching how nothing good was on.

I guess I'm not very good at "hanging out". It stresses me out that it seems when somebody comes over, we have to "do something". I'm quiet so much of my days, that when I actually get to talk, it turns into a ridiculous speak diahrrea, and I'm afraid that that eventually grows old on people. I'm afraid that my habit of speaking too loud and squeaking stupid high pitch also annoys people.

If I just get therapy, dye my hair brown, buy jeans, get vocal therapy, lose half my weight and join a sorority, things'll be swell.

Okay Um.. we've had problems with the school server, so I'm still working on a full account of SUNDAY'S Tori events. As several days have passed already, though, I just wanna say more updated things here:

- I love the Jessica bunny, and dammit I'm ready to kick off Arizona plans now so it happens!! :)

- I'm in a deep Tori slump, and I got an $8 portable cassette player, so I now have headphones glued to my head every moment I'm outside of the apartement. Tori, of course.

- I'm watching "Fairytale", the movie about the two girls back in England who took photo's of.. faeries. I love it :P

- We are planning a Carolina Minicon for us Tori fans. Yey.. it's horrible not having people around who actually appreciates it when you try and tell them your overwhelming feelings about Tori.

- HALLOWEEN! I'm decorating this place next week - get ready! Also, I know my costume - what else but a GOTH BUNNY! I'll sport goth makeup, black clothes and bunny ears. I was going to be a vampire, but the cheap teeth are just too dorky, and the black wig I bought makes me look like a translucent Alanis Morrisette, so no thanks.. hehe (though we did toy with the idea of me parading through Chapel Hill naked, with plexiglass blurring my genitalia out a la "Thank You" video, but.. no.. too cold ;)

- Will I ever get to write about the actual _concert_? Thank Ghod my brain can remember details for longer than 10 minutes as long as it's not important or school related.

Yesterday... [note: Sunday October 19] yesterday was a magical day. It was the Tori concert day. It was also the day I decided it was time to go out of lurker mode at rec.music.tori-amos. I decided that I was going to attend the rmt-a pre show meeting, and argh, I was so nervous.

I woke up nicely rested around 11 am, and wobbled into the shower. Naturally, I was playing Tori loudly, while swiggeling so wildly I was afraid I'd slip and kill myself. After drying my hair, I got ready to put some remaining Manic Panic Infra Red in my hair, only to discover I'd forgotten to buy gloves.. yikes. Ah well, clever Jennie thought "Hey, I'll use these empty Harris Teeter plastic bags!".. not to mention put ducttape all over my forehead an cheeks, to prevent the red dye to stain my skin.. so thoughtful.

Well. Halfway through, the left "glove" slips open, and the jar of dye comes tumbling through the air and sploosh all over me and the white sink and white floor. Well hooray... Luckily, I know the secret weapon to staining hairdye - *drumroll* - toothpaste. It took me a while, but I managed to get most of the dye out before it settled too deeply.

When I was done dying my hair (turned out lovely, at least), I started getting ready for when a guy(Jonathan) from rmt-a was going to pick me up, and in the process, behaved like a maniac going on a blind date, asking Aziza questions like "Should I part my hair to the left or in the middle? Are these hair clips even? Can I wear this?"... argh, nervous.

I waited outside, and when I saw a car slowly driving back and pulling up behind my building, I had a feeling it was Jonathan (and Ruth, as it would turn out, a very nice woman indeed. hell, they both were :) It was funny, because I walked towards them but didn't know for sure it was them, so we just walked and starred at the other, until I went "Um... Jonathan?".. "Jennie?".. quite fun :) We all then went to Angela's house - amusing moment:

Ruth: Is that what I think it is? (pointing to my necklace)
Me: Yeah! (Thinking she meant the raspberry swirl necklace)
Ruth: Wow, a penis necklace..
*I look down* Me: NO! It's a FROG!

(Later at IHOP, named as "The Phallic Frog" ;)

It was exciting to meet Angela (and see her son Garrett :) - this is a woman whose posts I've been reading for two and a half years, and I happen to think she's brilliant, so it was almost like meeting Tori herself. She was wonderfully kind, and looked lovely in a denim shirt with tiny winnie the poo characters swirling about. :)

It was strange seeing Angela's son Garrett. He was a very cute toddler indeed, but the strangeness lied in the fact that I'd read posts from Angela before, during and after pregnancy, despite "knowing" her - they were both quite fictional to me. As we were to leave Angela's house, we realized that no matter what the ad's said, Jonathans car was -not- going to fit 6 people in it, so Angela borrowed her aunts boat of a car for us.

After a short while of awkward silences, we all started to chit chat, which was a relief, and it was really funny to notice that Jonathan is indeed a very sarcy, funny guy, and Angela.. Angela is just as nice as her posts have let on. More examples that there are a lot of us online who don't show one persona online, and a completely different one in real life. Even though online give you more of a freedom to present yourself the way you want to, leaving people only that to relate to, I have very rarely met people that have turned out to be somebody I realize I've never known (well. I can think of two exceptions to this, but that's stories that I'll never tell publically because that isn't _my_ personality. :)

_Anyways_. So we picked up Angela's husband Steve, and continued further towards Raleigh to pickup a John. It's strange how easy it was to make conversation in a car where no one knew who I was. When we arrived there, we realized how lucky we were that Angela'd been sensible enough to realize we'd never get 6 people into Jonathan's car.. Heh, I was occupying the front seat as always because I hate feeling like the whale in the backseat making everyone squished. And off we were to TGI Friday's.

As soon as we got there, we discovered that there was a "Hooters" across the street, and the first of several comments during the evening were made about our choice of location.. ;) I was very, very nervous as we got out of the car and walked towards the restaurant.. A guy was outside already, and we figured that was somebody in 'our' group, which was confirmed as we got there, as well as the presence of a few others. We walked in, but were told our tables weren't ready yet (despite reservations 8(), so we all waited in the small entrance room, while more people arrived. I felt _very_ out of place, and we all whined when we realized we should have gotten tacky name tags or something, because when more than 10 people assemble where most have never met the others before.. it gets.. a bit confusing.

Looking back, I'm very glad that I got to get together with Jonathan, Angela and the others in that car, because it at least made me feel like there were some people there who I wasn't terrified of approaching/speaking/asking. It was fun to see when Tim arrived, because we had e-mail a little bit some weeks ago, so at least somebody else there had a clue who I was. (He later said he figured I was me because of the hair colour. hahh..8)

Finaly our table was ready, so we all trotted in and got seated. I was a bit hesitant at first to claim a seat, because I didn't want to accidentily sit inbetween a couple or something. I ended up in the middle of the three tables who'd been pushed together (hey, YOU try and fit 21 people in a restaurant ;). I had the girl who had organized the whole thing next to me, Jeni (believe me, it's casuing some funny problems because people are used to her spelling, but now when I've been mentioned in news posts, no one knows how to spell my kind of Jennie. It's funny :), and to my right was Ruth and Jonathan. Across from me was a Matt, who's a RIOT, he's very, very funny and chatty, Tim, and ARGH shame on me, there was a gothy sort of girl who was with Matt, I think.

The dinner went very nicely, though it was a shame that not everybody could talk with the others due to the length of the table, and the size of the party - which is why we'll have to have a minicon(vention) soon, so people get to meet for _real_. Memorable things for me from the dinner were a wet, icky cracker wrapper found in Jeni's cheese and broccoli soup, the waitress who looked like Debbie Gibson with dark hair, and outside the restaurant afterwards, disintegrating into smaller groups, when a really young girl walked by me and excitedly pulled her mom's shirt and pointed at me "MOmma, look at that lady's hair!".

I bloody hell give up. No more damn backtracing to sunday 18. I probably will write about the concert eventually as a momentum, but heh - it was fantastic. I met a lot of people who didn't get nauxeous hearing me bladder about Tori. Enough already.

Also - the annual halloween version is in progress - check the intro pages and comment. :)

I'm kind of broke. Is it sick and twisted of me to actually seriously consider selling my bloodplasma? It's $50/time! *sigh*

Lucky me, Jesica decided to finaly pay me back money she owed me since last semester when she was my room mate, so I now at least have $50. Then again, $2.50/day for bus, plus I owe Gene $10-15, plus the fact that I have _no_ groceries, plus the fact that Halloween is on Saturday... blah. Blah, blah.

BREN! happy Birthday!!!!!!

Hmm what did I do this weekend.. oh, okay, watched an arnodl schwarzenegger tribute on tv friday, then left with jesse to go to an animation showing thingy at a movie theater. i had a coconut soda - it tqasted like if you've chewed a macaroon for a long time and it's all watery and weird, yet not bad. the animation thing was fun - it wasd titled "sick and twisted", and heh, parts of it was. it included a lovely parody of speed racer "drive, drive fast rider!" an annoying friend of jesse's were there, as well as joseph and his brother. jared (the friend) sat next to me and.. ugh. his laiugh.. was.. HORRID!!!! he kept snorting and at some points he laughed so hard he almost choked and died. okay, i'm notorious for my _loud_ loud laughter, and jesse said he couldn't evener hear it - I WAS OUT LAUGHED!! very strange

we then went to the silk road which is a uh.. weird place you know with turkish things in there and everybody are hippies and you sit on matts and pillows and eat things like rose pudding and you actually buy soup and things and.. uh.. sit and have intelligent conversations. unfortunately whenever i go there (which is every time jesse's around, his friends work there and all that) i get an urge to smash things and wear black lipstick and eat raw meat and scream things in a microphone, because everything is so earthy and calm and nice in there.

then we went home and had gumby's pizza and then he left and i slept.

me and gene spent a lot of time together this weekend coz things were so boring

saturday we went and dropped aziza off at her work at 2pm, went and saw "Apt Pupil" (it is really good and so scary and there's a scene where the nazi tries to kill a cat - i cried floods), went to THE GAP (just as scary as I always thought it would be, and there are NO COLOURS inside there, opnly gray and khaki and navy blue oh and ugly orange), I bought my bunny ears ($6! AND I got a bunny tail!), went and ate at "Spanky's" which made me feel like white trash coz it's sort of classy, at least on the second floor. my salad SUCKED ROCKS and the blue cheese dressing was _awful_, but the fries were.. decent.

hmm then we went to Cafe Trio and had hot chocolate and I had a big piece of carrot cake mmmm and we just talked and waited for 9 pm to come to pick aziza up

and we did and then i don't rmemeber what we did at the apartement, but around 11 aziza went to bed and we got bored, so we left to drive around we ended up driving to Durham, to see if there's _any_ nightlife. we spotted none. then we were gunna drive to raleigh, changed our minds halfway there coz it was 1pm, drove back to durham to look at my school and avoided the projects, drove away again, realized it was daylights savings so we had an extra hour so we drove to raleigh anyways, where were drove up and down the same street 6-10 times. we saw some people, but nothing impressive - the IHOP i went to with the tori ppl last sunday was _filled_ at 2 pm. weird. then we went home and stopped at a waffle house and had.. waffles, and then we drove home. all this time we spent listening to the radio, singing along to everything to a point where our throats were dead. we both sound terrible singing that hporrible new alanis song. i can't believe she sings "translucent dangeling carrotts"

then i slept till 1 pm sunday. i called jesica and had to haggle to getr my money :( for the first time in my LIFE i stood up for myself - she was trying to make it my problem that the check hadn't reached me, that i should come get it, heh.. a friend of hers is suppos3d to drop it off to aziza today - if not, i have $.75...

then gene came by, we watched saturday night live wwhere a new castmember did a dead on impression of adam sandler.l shocking. he and i went and ate (eggplant sub!) and came back, picked aziza up and went and had dessert. got back and watched four weddings and a funeral. and that was that.

and the thing is, this was a more active weekend i've had all semester, and yet all i did was eat and sit, eat and sit.

Well, my dad called to tell me that they deposited $50 so I have food and bus money. Yey! :) I already spent them on groceries last night.. I have things like.. MILK! Bread! CHEESE! I'm happy :)

Canned whole peeled tomatoes (sounds sadistic muahuHUAHa) have become something very common in my cooking as of late, as well as sour cream and oregano. Mmmm - fake italian foood.

I'm bummed about Halloween - I don't have a CLUE what clothes to use to look fake gothy, and I keep hoping that someone'll all of a sudden go "HEY I have a spiked necklace you can borrow!". Hmm. Maybe I'll just wear thick black trashy stockings that are ripped, black skirt with slits up the thighs, tied fake dark velvet shirt and black bra + yummie goth makeup and bunny ears? I dunnnno!

Still. Halloween. MmMMmM!!

I almost bought my first pumpkin last night, but then couldn't decide on one (my expectations are way too high I'm afraid). Still. PUMPKINS.

I insist on wearing a neon red scarf that my mom gave my. I think it might clash with my orange hair, but it's too chilly for me to care about.

Present Celeb Crushes

Nice Joe Bob Page

Okay. Joe Bob Briggs, host of Monstervision. He's just like some freaky cowboy and rarrrr so funny it's ridiculous. I dunno - I love Monstervision. I love horror movies. I love sarcy people. I love weird cowboys. I want. :)

David Spade. The real one. Am I crazy for thinking he's damn sexy? Oh and the scoop on the bus-David-Spade is that I haven't seen him on the bus since that last time, which was weeks ago, so blah. No one on the bus to gawk at. I do think I saw him run across the street once though. But what do I know. I was on a runnin' bus.

David Spade, however, is just.. blergh. I get like this with a few people (You know, Adam Sandler, Tori..), and he's one of them. I see them on the telly and I get all squishy and squeaky and I just HAVE to tell everybody around me that s/he is SO DAMN CUTE over and over until people want to hit me with a sledgehammer.

I like having crushes on celebrities. It's so easy, and you can stare at them without risking a "whatchu looking at??", and it's not stalkerish to have a video tape filled with clips of them. Hehehe.

My beloved video clips. Another side of me that people find terribly annoying. You see, I keep these video cassettes around and.. well. I have clips on them. You know - Adam Sandler on Conan, Jeff Goldblum on David Letterman. It's like I live some sort of real life talk show. Once, we were trying to decide on a movie to go see, someone mentioned "Dark City", no one could remember what it was about, so I go "I think I have a clip, hangon", and showed them the clip they showed on the Jay Leno show when Kiefer Sutherland was there. _Pathetic_. We didn't go see it, either.

I own 3 video tapes in America.

Number 1: Contains "Empire Records", "The Breakfast Club", and most of "Strictly Ballroom". I think there's a clip of "Intergalactic" with Beastie Boys there too, and Janeane Garofalo on "The Daily Show".

Number 2: Regular "Shit I can't stay Awake I'll tape it and never watch it" cassette.

Number 3: The oldbie in the gang, from last semester. Includes Adam Sandler on two or three talkshows (singing on two of them), Ana Voog performing and being interviewed on Sinbad, Jeff Goldblum on the Late Show W. David Letterman, a ton of Madonna videos (don't ask 8(), Conan O'Brien and Ozzy Osbourne in Amsterdam, Tori performing "Spark" on Letterman, and "Jackie's Strength" on Jay Leno, hmm.. okay, that does not equal a 6 hour tape. I'll just have to go through it. I wonder what else is buried on it. 8)

Halloween

I wore long red dress, with a huge cleavage factor, purple sash with sequins tied tight tight around my waist, which meant I couldn't bend over so Gene had to tie my shoelaces. 30 times. Then I wore a black scarf with a zillion gold coin sequins around my neck, deep red lipstick, black black around my eyes, punky orange hair and.. fluffy bunny ears. I think I looked kind'a weird and slutty, but heh. I felt pretty. Which is more than I've been able to say any other day of the year, including today.

Gene was a drugdealer pimp a la 70's - and very good at it. It took us 3-6 thrift stores and 7 hrs to find the outfit, but it was worth it. Sugardaddy

Aziza was a yummie gypsy with lots of scarves :)

What I did in brief: