I am glad to be back at work, but I am disappointed.
This new jenniferheller.com is not conveying the hilarity it is supposed to be. Also, Daily Pictures is asking just too much of me. Though I do like using a photo for each post. That’s good. Continue Reading
In lifecoaching yesterday we talked about my need for everything to be completed. This is a need I have been battling since I left my job last May. My head is overun with get rich quick (slow) schemes and creative projects. Yet, it took me six and a half months to get Van Gogh My Pet to a point where I was confident sending it out to friends and family, and promoting it on Facebook. I have yet to get in to Twitter–to my detriment, I’m sure.
When I look at my blog, I see the undone entries. The ones I thought of, and wrote myself a note, but was too busy or indisposed to write right then. I assume that some day I will go back and the inspiration is in the note. Sometimes I look at the note and I haven’t the foggiest idea what it meant. Then I chuckle…Lost inspiration either makes me chuckle or spiral into a listless depression.
I had spent 6 and a half–nay, eight or nine months–planning for and working on Van Gogh My Pet. I spent the last two weeks frantically putting the pieces I had so long thought about together. My friends would say–what is left to do? It looks beautiful! And to me, it looked a wreck. This frantic work has left me with a hole in my life, just as Mad Men had a few weeks earlier when I had finished season three. And I realized that if I hadn’t had to work so frantically, not only would I would have been happier and more relaxed, but I would have been building enthusiasm with fans as it happened. The day two weeks ago I finally got my movie on the internet, I wanted to e-scream, I DID IT!! I FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO THIS! DON’T YOU LOVE IT? and I stopped myself. Van Gogh My Pet wasn’t worthy of anyone’s attention. I hadn’t worked hard enough to make it so.
I am beginning to come to terms with letting these works in progress–or wrecks, as I see them–be works in progress in the public eye and letting someone or no one or the world watch as it comes together. I say to myself, I want to be an internet celebrity. I want to share my life with the world. But when it comes to the day to day, I tend to shirk from engagement with the world.
I hope that today, November 16th, 2009, is the day when I can begin to share with the world my internet persona, this blog and jenniferheller.com, Van Gogh My Pet, Tupperware Sisters, and so many dormant others–wrecks though they might be.
I constructed jenniferheller.com with this grand scheme–to share my life, adventures, get-rich-quick schemes, challenges and triumphs to the world–while leaving room to complain about crappy marketing and challenging myself to come up with a better idea.
Now that jenniferheller.com is live, and I’m on the verge of releasing it to my friends, family and colleagues–I am noticing that I don’t actually know how to blog. I know how to write, and rewrite, and rewrite again–I know how to think of great blog ideas. (I am, indeed, quite a great idea machine.) But I don’t know how to hit PUBLISH, because to me, the entry is never done.
So my commitment is this: to post something whenever I feel inclined, whether or not I think it’s even any good–not save a draft everyday.
My commitment is to give it a JenRating of some amount. And to give you the opportunity to give it a JenFanRating of something or other. That way we can work together to keep this interesting–and my challenge will be not taking it personally.
It’s an adventure!
Jenrating: blah
JenFanRating: coming soon!
I’m not perfect and that’s okay.
I’ve been obsessing for months about Jenniferheller.com and how it should look, be organized, …
Here it is. A work in progress. Forever.
Here at jenniferheller.com, I have incorporated my past blog entries once located at daunted.blogspot.com. I named that blog as such because it is so easy to be daunted in the world… I find more than anything the need for perfection is what daunts me.
This site is an experiment in putting perfection aside and following my dreams.
What scares me the most (besides earthquakes) is the possibility of never realizing my dreams because I have let perfection keep me in a state of perpetual inaction.
I gave notice yesterday!
Who is going to be Jennifer’s Next Top Roommate(s)?
After a long year and a half I am bidding farewell to my roommate, and good friend, Julia. We have a beautiful two-bedroom apartment a seven minute’s walk from MacArthur Bart towards Piedmont. We’ve lived in this neighborhood forever—it’s a good neighborhood. When we saw the posting for our apartment on Craigslist we wondered what could possibly cost $1850 in our neighborhood. A two-bedroom for $1850?? Ridiculous. And that’s what it is. Ridiculous and beautiful.
The opening: The room is huge and you could put your bed in your walk-in closet if you wanted to. It gets beautiful morning light. It is bigger, and better than my room. We share a kitchen, a living room (both of which are adjacent to my room), a hallway, and a utility room where we keep the recycling, mop sink and one of two litterboxes. The bathroom has a closet that has another closet in it. We have a total of five walk-in closets!
About us: I am Jennifer of Jenfest. My male tabby cat is The Guster. He’s awesome. He eats twice a day, and won’t let you forget it. We share our home with a number of plants. We try to eat mainly organic, including meat. We have a Cusinart, but you have to watch the DVD before I will let you use it. I am great at making a blue cheese pecan dip. We compost and recycle everything possible. Trash is picked up on Fridays. I enjoy my recreational time (and intoxicants), but I work a lot. I have friends over rather a lot. Hopefully you would be a friend. I have a boyfriend who stays over about three nights a week. We keep the house clean and friendly. We have cable and wireless, which is $65/month shared.
About you: You are one or two people, independently wealthy, or otherwise gainfully employed. If you are two people, you are together willing to pay a negotiable larger share of rent due to size of the room, etc. You like to cook—or maybe you don’t. You’re interesting, and interested. You like to share stories. Maybe you have a cat or a dog (I would need to check with the landlord about the dog). It would be cool if you had a toaster oven. You like to cooperate and appreciate what comes out of working together. You pay rent on time. You may not know me already, but we will get along great. More than anything else, you want to live in a bomb-ass apartment with a fun and adventurous roommate.
The Post It taped to my alarm clock reads “How can I possibly adequately emphasize the import of getting up in the morning??? You will have a good day!!!”
I wonder how 8am me will feel about that.
Dear friends,
It has been such an exciting year! If you remember, one of my new years’ resolutions was to utilize technology more effectively. To that end, I started off the year purchasing my first smartphone, an HTC Kaiser, or AT&T Tilt. Let me tell you, that $400 was wasted, but, looking back on the year, I wasted more money on bank fees. I’m looking forward to buying an unlocked Google phone in the new year.
One technology purchase that I was happy with was the tiny 9″ ASUS laptop. It’s so cute! And wonderful for looking up recipes (from your mom in your gmail) in the kitchen without lugging in your 17″ inch Dell Vostro (5 stars).
Another one of my new years’ resolutions was to utilize the vodka martini. I performed remarkably well.
For the second year, Sue and Phoebe joined my family at Mother’s Day Brunch. The crab tasted fresher than usual. I was pleased. I am glad that Sue and Phoebe have chosen Mother’s Day Brunch with the Hellers for a holiday tradition!
Will and I got back together in March. We have been strong ever since. In May, he and I joined Sue and Phoebe for a weekend camping trip. We floated a cooler of Tecate to a secret location and Phoebe found Will’s sunglesses in the bottom of the creek
I started planning Jenfest in June this year. Planning Jenfest is always a challenge. This year was no exception. When I think of heaven, I know it will be Jenfest 07. I was sad to have to plan a party that could never compete with heaven. Jenfest wound up as a picnic in Dolores Park this year. How wonderful was it to see everyone! This year was the first year that I did not ask Alex to design the invite. She is married to Patrick now, you know, and we hardly see her. I did get to see her at Jenfest, and it was delightful! Despite it not being Jenfest 07, Jenfest 08 was truly wonderful.
The night before Jenfest, I managed to mess up my back again. The week following Jenfest I was bedridden. Finally, I had an MRI in August. The results showed that I had a disc bulging 7cm into my spinal cord! This explains my severe discomfort. I went to see a new chiropractor. He spent some time with a rubber skeleton and explained my condition. Everytime I bend or twist, the disc bulges into my spinal cord. Well, my previous chiropractor had been recommending that I do bends and twists twice a day over the course of the past two years. That was upsetting. I am happy to be getting some relief.
I am satisfied with my professional success this year. I took on the Co-op’s 75th Anniversary Gala and a new supervisory role in January. It was a challenge taking on such a large event with nine months to plan. My Virgo moon kicked right in, though, and the details were (for the most part) nailed. One detail was regretfully neglected; we did not collect the donation envelopes from the table and the servers threw them away! In general, I was unhappy with H’s Lordship’s food and service. Narsai David had graciously donated ample wine, but it was simply not served fast enough!
During my year in charge, I also revamped the Co-ops website (www.bsc.coop). The new website offers much greater information to the students. It is also easier to update. I debuted the website on August 15th. Then, in the early hours of Labor Day weekend, I received a phone call from Jordan. “Are you ready?” he asked. “TELL ME,” I ordered. “The website has been hacked.” It was true! Turkish death metal blared from my computer. However, our work was not lost, and with the help of Dave in Argentina, we had the website back up in a matter of days.
In the early part of the year, I was hired to create a website for a martial arts school in Portland. As part of the trade, I was able to attend a very cool self-defense course. If you are ever in Portland, and are female, you should definitely take this course. It is worth every penny. As part of the curriculum, you physically attack the “padded attacker” which gives you great confidence later. I was even attacking people in my dreams! The website, www.onewithheart.com, turned out well in spite of some design sacrifices. I am looking forward to including it in my portfolio at jenniferheller.com (currently under construction).
In November I decided to host a Holiday Gift Bizarre at the Cottage Table Company on Pearl Harbor Day. I called it a Gift Bizarre in hopes of suggesting that you never know what you might find there. I am pretty sure that people just thought that I didn’t know how to spell bazaar. I invited all the artists I know locally, and advertised for artists on various websites like etsy.com. I was very pleased with the selection of artists. The crowd was certainly lacking, however. I will plan further ahead next year. One problem that I ran into was an issue with the original design of the flier–I hadn’t meant to, but I had included imagery that was offensive! I am still using the offensive version of the flier as one-sided paper, and suspect that I will for the majority of 2009. Check out the inoffensive version of the flier at www.holidaygiftbizarre.com
The Guster has been well this year. As you know, I started feeding him twice a day instead of just once. We think that he has lost some weight as a result. I am thinking that his metabolism is such that he needs multiple small meals in the day, just like me. An unfortunate consequence of feeding him in the morning as well as the evening, is that he very persistently tries to wake me up in the morning. He even goes so far as to pull books out of the night stand to make noise! It is very irritating, but it is nice to wake up to the cold nose of someone you love every morning.
I do hope this letter finds you, my friends, happy and well. I am in the process of constructing a self-video-taping-camera-holding hat. My new years resolution for 2009 is to produce a video a week!
Much love,
Susie J.
I have a lot to say,
but I’m just so tired at the end of every day.
Better call the waaah-mublance.
