The Chronicles Of Jessica

forget oiling your robot...all i can say is START FLOSSING NOW, AND DO IT WITH FEELING...trust me on this one, that and close to $3,000.00 in out of pocket dental bills.

love you...

You know my motto...you're only young once, but you can be immature the rest of your life! I am all for eating pixie sticks and wearing candy jewelry; and I still love the candy dots on paper, although they are hard to find now that the Way-Way Store has closed. Consider this: By the time I turned 30, I had been married for 12 years, had a 10 year old daughter, had been teaching for 8 years, owned a home, and had probably flossed a gazillion times!! So listen to your Auntie. Start flossing NOW. It's never too late. Every night before bed, without fail. And don't use the easy glide stuff. The more drag, the better job it does. Go do it. NOW!

Hey, happy upcoming birthday, ma'am. The thirties are a dynamite time! They're filled with new insight and a much stronger sense of one's place in the world.

No, I'm kidding. Actually, it's just the same shit, but with gray hair.

listen to your auntie...she knows of what she speaks

Yeah, I respect Auntie Janice, you know that and I never appreciated the need to floss was so vehemently supported over the water; however I should have guessed as you Septic's think orthodontists are practically gods don't you?

All the same, I'm gonna floss right now!

I'd like to bolster your spirits, tell you turning thirty is no big deal but my lying bone got seriously broken yesterday when I tried to convince my boss that I'd actually been working very hard and he had no grounds to fire me, so I can't.

Truth is the thirties sucks big time. They suck because life is cruel. They suck because nobody tells you that when you are young your are in fact a GOD (and I don't mean in a 'dentist' way), you have YOUTH which makes you INVINCIBLE! And when you're thirty, you don't.

Takes about a year to sink in, then you come to realize that you're mortal. You don't have superpowers anymore. When you wake up, it hurts. When you drink, you die and when you have one nice meal in a fancy restaurant you turn into John Candy ... and I'm taking John Candy when he was still alive. I hear he's just skin and bone, now.

And what does this mean? Well, you'll find yourself in a kind of limbo. A decade of embarrassment, overreaching disappointment - probably some disease that makes you smell will creep in there too - whilst you first try to be young and fail then come to grips with being old and fail as you have no idea what being old is all about.

Yep .. Thirty sucks. Stroll on forty, that's what I say.

Wow. Charles has such a comforting perspective, huh? It's that English stoicism.

i've often gotten myself into arguments because i like to be contrary. it's not so much that i LIKE it, it's that i believe i am BRAVE enough to express feelings, passions, opinions that aren't popular without fear of embarassment. like that i don't believe in mangrooming, that men should be hairy wherever they are hairy because this makes them different from girls and, thusly, attractive. i like to think my contrariness makes me a good artist. it would make me a very bad politician but a GREAT dictator if any small countries are in need.

anyway, the point. remember when you were a kid and you were so imaptient to turn another year older that you'd work it out in fractions (before you ever learned them in school!)? like "i'm six and five eighths but on sunday i'll be six and seventeen nineteenths". age and wisdom and being a grown up were all to which we aspired, not because someone told us that we supposed to be grown but because it meant we'd be people and not little kids and that was beautiful.

now, time seems to hurtle forward at a terrifying speed. i'm working with a seventeen year old who i chat with and deal with as though he were an adult and just yesterday, i realized he was born in 1987. i kissed my first gay boyfriend in 1987 for chrissake! and i feel stressed about money and carreer and, now thanks to my advancing age and a busybody jewish family, marraige and children. but you know what? i am so much better now than i was when i was six and five eigths or twelve or seventeen or even twenty four. i know better who i am, what i want and how to get it. AND i know it's a discovery now, a process, which i didn't know when i was younger.

at almost twenty nine, i can drink as much coffee as i want, as much beer as i want, i can do whatever kind of work i want to do (guess what everybody? you all can!), i can still eat cereal out of a mug for dinner if i want but i also know how to throw down in the kitchen and make real food, people take me seriously and, best of all, i don't have to go to school anymore. THANK GOD!

and as for leaving my twenties, i'm a better artist, a better friend, a better lover, a better everything than i was at say, twenty two. in fact. i can't think of anything that was better in my early twenties than it is now. okay, my metabolism was a little faster and i didn't have any moles. but guess what? when i was in junior high, i had to do book reports and i got hives when i sat on grass. and i had to take fucking P.E. in a uniform. P.E.!!!!!!

welcome to the best years of your life, jessica. the best year is every year you are alive and learning and growing and more jessica everyday.

Jessica darling, I'm sorry but I have to agree with Charles. You are still looking at life from the point of view as a twenty-something, make the most of the rose-tint that still covers your eyes, at thirty it's a bit like wearing those glasses in the film "They Live" except you can't ever take them off.

It must be an even greater shock for Americans to realise what total and utter tossers 95% of the population are than to us Brits as we are encouraged to pick out weaknesses and differences in others from an early age. We are taught to hide our feelings away as if somebody knows anything personal about you it will be used against you at some point.

Also, across in the USA you don't get to drink alcohol until you're in your twenties (stealing the odd beer from your parents does not count) whereas in England if you can't get served in a pub at the age of fourteen you are seriously under-developed. (In Scotland the age is twelve). You still see drink as a social lubricant for the good times not an anaesthetic to dull your senses to the reality of life. Why do you think the French, Germans, Italians, Spanish,Portuguese, Greeks, Lowlanders, Scandinavians and Russians drink even more than the British?

Just look at me and Charles, two intelligent, motivated, financially solvent individuals and what do we do to amuse ourselves? We try and outdo each other in trying out increasingly elaborate ways to kill ourselves - sky diving, easy, falling off motorbikes - check out the scars and limp, shark diving - done it (we are trying to organise diving with Giant Octopuses as they are the sharks only natural predator). You've seen us in action, what a pair of idiots.

The older/wiser argument doesn't work either. being older just means you've had more opportunities to bugger things up, and if you don't bugger things up you are obviously not doing anything at all.

Please don't waste the few precious summers you have left trying to find a meaning to anything, there isn't one, there is no god, Anthony Robbins is a big mouthed con-man who earns obscene amounts of money by getting frightened, gullible people to pay him to state the bloody obvious and the Dali Llama lives up a mountain with five hundred other blokes wearing bed sheets. They sit around on those cold floors all day to try and cool their arses down after they've spent all night bumming each other senseless.

So have a great birthday Jessica, we will be thinking of you, we're only jealous that your twenties aren't the dim an distant memory they are to us.

lots of love,

Alan x

This is bad. I realize that posting twice for the same blog is something of a web faux pas, but hey, I feel strongly about this!

It's one of the not-so-subtle differences between the English and Americans. Sure, we speak the same language but we're saying completely different things! In England it rains every fucking day! The glass is half empty; if someone has a spot of luck we talk about them behind their backs and if someone actually succeeds we're just looking for the next opportunity to kick their legs out from under them. It's depressing but is home. That's why I love coming to the US and meeting you all. You're all so supportive, life affirming, positive focused, compassionate, look-on-the-bright-side ... smug bastards! Just `cos it's the Home of the Brave you feel obliged to confront your insecurities head on!

I should probably stop now before I offend someone, but the point I was getting to is that maybe there is a reason we get insecure. Maybe it's because we face a new challenge and we question if we are up to it, maybe the unknown scares some of us and maybe waking up one morning and realizing that some day you are going to die is something of a facer.

Self discovery is part of what turning thirty is about. Yes, it's true that Mrs. Smith will never again smack me in front of the whole class for tearing up my name badge at infant school. Sure, if I fancy seeing this foxy redhead I know in New York I just jump on a plane and I don't even have to get written permission from my mum. I can even almost tell... on a good day... if I'm lucky that the girl drinking vodka at the party might fancy me now ...

But I've also broke both my legs, one knee and a shoulder, lost ten grand on the stock market, been repeated buggered by insurance companies and have lost my way in life all because my youth is a distant memory but I've yet to gain the wisdom of age.

So, happy birthday Jessica. Enjoy your thirties cos they are going to be a wild ride but Life's out to get you now. It's up to you whether you let it scythe you down or whether you stand up, kick it hard in the balls and say ...

"I'm Jessica Dunton you bitch!
So, fuck you ... and the horse you rode in on!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Enjoy the day!!!

Dear Jessica,

Thanks for keeping us all up to date on what's happening in your life. I wish I was 30-anything once again, with fans all over the world, like you.

Stay well and get happy,
Reno