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Jenna the German Girl and David Lynch
Monday, April 5 1999
In the evening, I came home to find that Kim had hung out all day with Jenna the German Girl. They'd been on the beach making their faces brown. I've never been into that brown face look, but evidently they think it's the way to go. The evidence all over San Diego is clear; that brown face translates directly into accelerated wrinkleage. I've seen wrinkles in San Diego that I've never seen anywhere else in the country. Theoretically, someone could hang a shingle and offer wrinkle tours to visitors. A tour guide could cruise the beaches and bars on foot, leading a fascinated entourage, pointing out unusually wrinkled faces. Some days they'd get lucky and see a face half-devoured by melanoma and then the cameras would all flash like the Fourth of July.
Kim genuinely likes Jenna, which isn't as strange as one would initially think. Kim greatly appreciates Jenna's bluntness. If Jenna doesn't like something, she'll say it. If your breath is bad or there's bit of spinach on your tooth or a zit that needs attention, Jenna is the one to go to to find out about it. Most other people, of course, do what they can to go along. They strive to avoid introducing unpleasantness into social situations, even if it means telling lies and fabricating unfelt positions. For example, Jenna is the first person I've ever met who didn't like the Simpsons. I suspect I've met others who don't like the Simpsons, but they've never let on to it; they've been burned for admitting such a dislike before and know it's important to lie when discussing their opinion about the show. The cool thing about Jenna is that she's completely different from me and completely honest about it as well. I'd been wondering what made me happy every time she came over, and I think her earnest otherness is it.
Tonight Kim had a plan to fix Jenna up with our friend Eric the Engineer. "Oh no!" I protested, "You wouldn't really do that to Eric, would you?" I was thinking of the disaster that followed our attempt to fix up Jenna and Kevin the DBA. "But, if you think about it, they're perfect for each other!" said Kim, "They're both kind of conservative and neither of them smoke pot!"
Jenna came over and Eric arrived on his motorcycle. With his mode of transportation, he was coming across as just bad boy enough. To tell the truth, without the motorcycle, Eric would have to do something crazy like sprout a mullet if he really wanted to convey any masculine swagger. The redneck surfers across the courtyard saw him roar up onto the lawn and took him aside for a long conversation about crotch rockets.
Not expecting our guests so soon, Kim and I had ordered a single pizza, and it was not enough even with the polite reluctance of our guests to participate in its devouring.
We watched David Lynch's Wild at Heart, a movie I'd seen in Charlottesville under completely different circumstances. Back in college, Kim was a hard core David Lynch fan and wrote several long papers dissecting the symbology and themes folded up within his films. But Jenna, as you might imagine, didn't get it at all, and freely admitted it, asking several times what the "point" was. While I didn't get everything and even fell asleep about three fourths of the way through, I acted like I was enjoying myself greatly. To tell you the truth, I can't say whether or not David Lynch's films are any good. But they're pretty fucked up, and that has to count for something. Usually, though, they leave me intrigued in a confused sort of way. Eraserhead, though, which I watched while under the influence of excessive ritalin, will stand for all time as a work of sheer brilliance.
Unfortunately, there were no real sparks flying between Eric and Jenna. That was just as well, as far as I'm concerned.
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