The Diary of Jenna Woods

Dear Diary,

            Today was another typical day, I found myself doing yet more useless things then the day before.  How is it so possible that everything I do feels like such a waste of time; work, waiting in lines for pointless reasons, sitting in my apartment listening to music and telling myself “yeah I’ll eventually get those four loads of laundry done”.  It’s inevitable that the minutes will turn quickly to hours, and I will end up wasting my night watching TV or writing in my diary.  But I actually found a reason to write today, not like most days when I fill these pages with nonsense.  Tonight I have a purpose.  I had an epiphany while working out tonight.

            For maybe the tenth time since I’ve joined the gym this year, I decided to go and workout.  Just a feeling I got, like my body was pushing maximum density and I needed to do something about it.  So, I was on the same elliptical machine as usual.  The gym was filled with the same old tired shit.  People who were too fat to really do anything but were just there to say that they were trying (my favorite kind).  The girls that were in disgustingly good shape and didn’t actually need to be there were taking up precious space as usual.  Then there were the people that I relate to the most.  These are the people who are there making an effort to better themselves but are so repulsed by their own reflection that they can’t stand to even look in the mirror.  I’m working out and listening to my tunes, and of course my mind is racing faster and faster as I watch all the people below.  I couldn’t get enough of what I saw, things that kept me so entertained I thought I’d have to stay there all night long.

            Of course you have all the jocks.  The guys who only got into college on a sports scholarship, these were the same stupid morons who couldn’t even comprehend the Pythagorean theorem.  Basically all they knew was to take steroids cause their coach told them too.  Also, these are the same hypocritical homophobes that justify smacking a guy’s ass because they are up 12 points in the first quarter.  It should go without saying they make me fucking sick.  Then I realized that this population has been growing to such an enormous rate that there are now girls like that too, unbelievable.  I will say nothing more about them however; because well, they would kick my ass.  And imagine my amazement when I discovered a door that only these Neanderthals went in, it only solidified my steroid theory but I never suspected that the gym would give them there own room for it.  I could almost see them behind the closed doors with their tourniquets, wincing with pain as the needle was jabbed into their arm.

            Next to my utter amusement, I saw three women journalists I knew from a conference meeting I had attended in Cleveland a month ago.  They are the stereotypical, in shape, “I have a perfect life” type.  They were all dressed oh so fashionably in their $150 dollars Adidas workout outfits and $80 dollars Nike sneakers.  Even though there were people around me I couldn’t suppress my laughter.  It was far too much for me to bear.  As one of the women took up two dumbbells, too perfect a word I’m sure, and began doing a simple bicep set the others stood beside her with their hands on their non-child bearing hips chatting like mother hens in a hen house, that had just been thrown a new rooster.  I couldn’t help but question their lives.  I knew they were hiding things, it was all too apparent in their eyes, the empty sadness that it was all just a waste.  In truth, it was easy to figure out that their husbands were screwing their babysitters or something similar.  They were completely powerless in their world, so to the outside world they put on their perfect faces and belittled other people.  Feel better now?  In some ways I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.  That feeling quickly disappeared after they gave me a demeaning look and started giggling.  It was at that time that I started planning their deaths.  They love to justify my hatred for them.

            And ah, the fat people who so desperately want to be thin.  The ones that wish they had the strength to be bulimic or anorexic.  It’s so sad to watch them, they have such potential.  They could be happy if the world would just leave them the hell alone.  It seems to amaze me how being fat is such a burden to the rest of the world.  It’s like someone whose standing next to a heavy person and they give them that look, like “oh no it’s contagious”.  Well I have news for you asshole, being fat isn’t a disease, but being a jackass is terminal.  I have much respect for the fat people, sometimes I wish I could tell them to stop exercising and go eat some cake.  Unfortunately this magnificent potential in fat people is hidden because of the ones that are hell bent on getting thin.  They are doing it to be like those dumb asses that are walking Puma models, it’s sad.  For this reason I find them even more pathetic than all the rest.  I finally got so sick of my contempt for the entire human race that I left.

            Although not so obvious my epiphany was this; I hate everybody, my life is shit so I feel the need to knock everybody down to my level and find a reason why they are more pathetic than I am, but I still think that knowing your life is imperfect is far more healthy than acting like it is.  It’s all an act for others to see so they will envy those pathetic losers.  These people go home and cry themselves to sleep because they can’t deal with how fake they are.  Some have even lost the ability to see through the web of bullshit that they have spun around themselves and their lives.  For the first time when I was driving home to my shitty little apartment and my shitty little life I felt pure happiness, because I finally realized that I wasn’t like anybody, I’m completely unique, just like everybody else.    

Afterword by the Author 

I wrote this semi-autobiographical work as part of my freshman year Punk Rock CAS class.  Our professor, a Physics graduate student named Drew who I mistook for a fellow classmate on the first day of class, had split the class into four groups and instructed each to construct a 'Zine featuring articles written, submitted, reviewed and accepted by classmates.  I was a proud member of the Media group and quickly found that the project cultivated creative visions my scientific mind had largely suppressed with the exception of making elaborate collages in High School, a skill I later put to work on our 'Zine's covers.  We titled our 'Zine 'Fuck MTV,' my idea, and 'The Diary of Jenna Woods' was a revered article to my extreme surprise.  One of our classmates liked it so much she also put it in her Literary 'Zine; I was later scolded for having the article in two 'Zines, which my professor considered taboo.  Out of four 'Zines, Fuck MTV won the class-wide contest, due both to our groups excellent selection of articles, and the fake advertisements and a word search I designed.  My contributions to Fuck MTV inspired the first emotions of profound pride I've ever felt for my previously untapped creative talents.  I haven’t written much since, unless you count my Master’s Thesis and Facebook status updates, but obviously it’s always been an unrealized passion. 

Upon further reflection my story clearly indicates two things: one, my 18 year-old self was obviously not an enthusiast of syntax, and two, I was a deeply contemptuous adolescent.  Indeed, I often delighted in passing judgment on others and also created fictional realities to justify those judgments, as illustrated above.  When I wasn't going around being disgusted with the world and everyone in it, I was busying myself saying inappropriate remarks to make others feel uncomfortable or to get a rise out of them.  I loved upsetting people, it made me feel powerful.  Is it easy to admit these harsh truths regarding my cynicism? No, but I'm human and therefore flawed.  Also, I acted in accordance with the vast majority of other humans I've known throughout my life.  This is not an excuse, rather a critical lesson through observation, without which we cannot hope to develop as human beings.  Every judgment outlined in my work was nothing short of a reproach meant for myself and my life.  Though it's easy to see now, that fact completely eluded me at the time.  In writing my tale I thought I was revealing the despicable world around me: the jocks, the dim-wits, the rich and frivolous, the unjustly successful, the judgmental gossips, the skinnies, the fatties and the lazies.  It never occurred to me that the world I hated was actually inside of me.  

Consider this nasty little fact: The way we perceive others is simply a mechanism for seeing ourselves.  In other words, we project views of ourselves onto those around us.   When we pass judgment on people, we are actually looking into a dirty mirror, perceiving and judging our own hazy insecurities.